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Adding Content to RadDock

There are several ways you can set the content inside a RadDock control:

Creating a ContentTemplate at Design Time

You can add controls to the ContentTemplate property and RadDock will automatically display them runtime.

<telerik:raddock runat="server" id="RadDock3" title="ContentTemplate">
 <ContentTemplate>
   <div style="margin:10px;">
     <asp:Label runat="server" id="Label1">You can put text and controls in the ContentTemplate.</asp:Label>
   </div>
   <div style="margin:10px;">
     <asp:Calendar runat="server" id="Calendar1" />
   </div>
 </ContentTemplate>
</telerik:raddock>

You can access the controls in the ContentTemplate at runtime to get or set their properties:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!Page.IsPostBack)
    {
        Calendar1.SelectedDate = DateTime.Today;
    }
}
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
    If Not Page.IsPostBack Then
        Calendar1.SelectedDate = DateTime.Today
    End If
End Sub

Assigning the ContentTemplate at Runtime

You can create a class which implements the ITemplate interface and set its instance to the ContentTemplate property from the code-behind:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!Page.IsPostBack)
    {
        RadDock1.ContentTemplate = new CalendarTemplate();
    }
}
class CalendarTemplate : ITemplate
{
    public void InstantiateIn(Control container)
    {
        Calendar calendar1 = new Calendar();
        calendar1.ID = "Calendar1";
        calendar1.SelectedDate = DateTime.Today;
        container.Controls.Add(calendar1);
    }
}
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
    If Not Page.IsPostBack Then
        RadDock1.ContentTemplate = New CalendarTemplate
    End If
End Sub
Class CalendarTemplate
    Implements ITemplate
    Public Sub InstantiateIn(ByVal container As Control)
        Dim calendar1 As New Calendar()
        calendar1.ID = "Calendar1"
        calendar1.SelectedDate = DateTime.Today
        container.Controls.Add(calendar1)
    End Sub
End Class

Adding Controls Directly to the Content Container

Instead of creating a class which implements ITemplate, you can directly add controls to the ContentContainer.Controls collection. This is slightly easier to implement, but you cannot easily reuse the template in other controls.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Calendar calendar1 = new Calendar();
    calendar1.ID = "Calendar1";
    RadDock1.ContentContainer.Controls.Add(calendar1);
}
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
    Dim calendar1 As New Calendar()
    calendar1.ID = "Calendar1"
    RadDock1.ContentContainer.Controls.Add(calendar1)
End Sub

Note that when using the ContentContainer property, you should always execute the code, even on a postback. This is because controls you add this way are not persisted in the ViewState.

Setting the Text Property

If the RadDock control only needs to display plain text, you can use the Text property.

<telerik:raddock id="RadDock1" runat="server" text="This text appears in the content area of the RadDock control when there is no template.">
</telerik:raddock>

See Also

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