Using a user control in a base page class

Question

I have a base page class that inherits from Page. We'll call it SpiffyPage.

I also have a user control called SpiffyControl.

I then have an aspx page, ViewSpiffyStuff.aspx, that inherits from SpiffyPage.

On page load, the SpiffyPage class is supposed to inject a SpiffyControl into the aspx page.

The problem is that SpiffyControl is a user control, and to instantiate that in the code behind one has to access the ASP namespace, sort of like:

ASP.controls_spiffycontrol_aspx MyControl;

But SpiffyPage isn't an aspx page, it's just a base page, and as such I can't access the ASP namespace, and I therefore can't instantiate a SpiffyControl in order to inject it.

How can I achieve my goal?

Edit:

One important point is that I must have a reference to the actual control type so I can assign values to certain custom Properties. That's why a function like LoadControl, which returns type Control, won't work in this case.

Answer 1

Add a baseclass to your SpiffyControl, like:

public class SpiffyBase : UserControl
{
    public void DoIt()
    {
        Response.Write("DoIt");
    }
}

and then you make your SpiffyControl inherit that baseclass, like:

public partial class SpiffyControl : SpiffyBase

then you should be able to do this from a Basepage class:

public class BasePage : Page
{
    protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
    {
        var c = Page.LoadControl("SpiffyControl.ascx") as SpiffyBase;

        Page.Controls.Add(c);

        c.DoIt();
    }
}