ASP control vs HTML control

Question

I'm new to web programming and I've started with ASP.NET 2.0. I would like to know what the differences are when using an HTML control rather than an ASP control, and I'd like to know too how the attribute runat="server" works.

Answer 1

These are the differences between asp.net controls and html controls

• HTML server controls :

HTML server controls :are HTML tags understood by the server.

HTML elements in ASP.NET files are, by default, treated as text. To make these elements programmable, add a runat="server" attribute to the HTML element. This attribute indicates that the element should be treated as a server control. The id attribute is added to identify the server control. The id reference can be used to manipulate the server control at run time.

Note: All HTML server controls must be within a < form > tag with the runat="server" attribute. The runat="server" attribute indicates that the form should be processed on the server. It also indicates that the enclosed controls can be accessed by server scripts.

Ex: < input type="text" id="id1" runat="server" /> It will work. HtmlTextControl class

< input type="button" id="id2" runat="sever" /> It will not work. For html button control there is no compatiable version of control class.

corrected one is

< input type="submit" id="id2" runat="server" />

htmlButton class

< input type="reset" id="id2" runat="sever" /> This one will not work.

• ASP.NET - Web Server Controls

Web server controls are special ASP.NET tags understood by the server.

Like HTML server controls, Web server controls are also created on the server and they require a runat="server" attribute to work. However, Web server controls do not necessarily map to any existing HTML elements and they may represent more complex elements.

The syntax for creating a Web server control is:

< asp:textbox id="Textbox1" runat="server" />

These are also case insensitive. Here the important thing is to compulsory write runat="server". For HTML controls this is optional.

all HTML < input type="text" /> control's attributes are also available for these asp tagged server controls. Some special attributes are also there which we will discuss on Ajax for special attributes.