Dymamic Form in ASP.NET / C#

[jEnus]

I'm wanting to create a site that allows users to dynamically create a form by inserting controls, such as text boxes, drop downs, or check boxes.

Before I tackle how the users will add controls, I just want to be able to create a empty form with some static information stating that it is a empty form, such as a string. I then want to have the user save this form to a database, probably through serialization.

My original thought was to create a new class that extends the web.ui.page library. When the user creates a new template, a new instance of this class is instantiated. The user will then be able to save this "empty" template to the database. When they wish to view this template, the class will be pulled from the database and de-serialized, and converted to html and displayed using a built in method with the library.

Am I correct on my thinking/logic here? If not, can someone suggest another path that may be more correct or easier?

Thank you!

 

[jsedlak]

There are a couple of ways to handle it and you are on the right track.

So long as they/you write valid XML, you could treat it as such; using the System.Xml namespace to deal with management. You could then store the data directly in SQL.

You can also interpret the server side code on the fly and generate control objects. I believe the relevant methods are in the Server object.

I would remove, as much as possible, the basic template code from the user changeable data. That makes it easier to manage and maintain.