c# - Can I stop .NET eating IDs?

Question

I'm an Information Architect and JavaScript developer by trade nowadays, but recently I've been getting back into back-end coding again. And, whilst trying to get an HTML prototype integrated and working with our C#-based CMS, I've come to blows with our programmers over the HTML ID attributes being arbitrarily rewritten by .NET for form elements.

I can understand the code-behind reasoning for .NET changing IDs, but the fact you can no longer use IDs when trying to develop e.g. jQuery enhanced interfaces is causing some friction. What can I do to work around this?

I've tried using the class attribute instead, but that's really crappy, not what it's meant for and doesn't get around that problem of .NET effectively changing rendered source on the fly. It also means that CSS is less useful now and less efficient to create and maintain.

Any tips or advice greatly appreciated--anything for a few less sleepless nights...

Answer 1

The short answer is no, with webforms the id can always be rewritten depending on the nesting of the element. You can get access to the id through the ClientID property, so you could set the ids into variables in a script at the end of the page/control then put them into jQuery.

something like this:

<asp:button id="ImAButton" runat="server">Click Me</asp:button>

<script type="text/javascript">
var buttonId = "<%=ImAButton.ClientId%>";
$("#"+buttonId).bind('click', function() { alert('hi); });
</script>

It's a hack I know, but it will work. (I should note for the un-initiated, I'm using the Prototype $ get by id method there)