The AdRotator control is used to display a randomly selected advertisement banner on the Web page. The displayed baner changes whenever the page refreshes.
Advertisement information is stored in a separate XML file which maintains a list of advertisements and their associated attributes. Attributes include the path to an image to display, the URL to link to when the control is clicked, the alternate text to display when the image is not available, a keyword, and the frequency of the advertisement. Information in this file is not validated by the AdRotator control. To prevent ads from executing malicious scripts, Web application should include functionality to check data in advance or to accept only trusted ad information. The advertisement file can be secured from unauthorized Internet access in the following ways:
– Store it in the App_Data directory, which is configured to deny Internet access for files of any type.
– Change its extension from .xml to something else and map the extension to the HttpForbiddenHandler in Web.config.
As an alternative to an XML file as the source of data, it is possible to provide advertisement information through a callback event. This event can also be used in combination with the XML file to extend the behavior of the AdRotator control, such as redirecting to another page.
An Impressions attribute can be assigned to each advertisement. It controls how often an advertisement is selected relative to the other advertisements in the advertisement file.
Namespace: System.Web.UI.WebControls
Assembly: System.Web (in System.Web.dll)
| Property | Description | Supported in .NET version |
| AccessKey | This property returns or sets the access key that allows software developer to quickly navigate to the Web server control. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Adapter | This property gets the browser-specific adapter for the control. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| AdvertisementFile | This property is used to get or set path to an XML file that contains advertisement information. Its default value is empty string(“”). The XML file must reside within the same Web site. For deployment and security purposes, it is strongly recommended to place the file in the same Web application. It is only possible to access an XML file that is located in a different application on the same site if the application has sufficient trust. Web developers can set this property to either an absolute path or a path relative to the XML file. Relative path simplifies deployment and it is relative to the location of the page or user control that contains the AdRotator control. The AdvertisementFile property is optional. An advertisement can also be programmatically set in the AdCreated event. The XML file contains few predefined attributes, but only the ImageUrl attribute is required:
– ImageUrl – The URL of the image to display. – Height – The height of the image, in pixels (optional). – Width – The width of the image, in pixels (optional). – NavigateUrl – The URL of the page to navigate to when the AdRotator control is clicked. – AlternateText – The text to display if the image is unavailable. On some browsers, this text is displayed as a ToolTip. – Keyword – The category for the advertisement. This is used by the AdRotator control to filter the list of advertisements for a specific category. – Impressions – A value that indicates how often an advertisement is displayed in relation to other advertisements in the XML file. Note: The ImageUrl and NavigateUrl attributes can be a full URL, a root-relative path, or a relative path. If Web developer uses a root-relative path, the path is relative to the same Web site. If Web developer uses a relative path, the path is relative to the directory that contains the advertisement file. Web developers can also include custom attributes by using custom tags in the XML file. All attribute tags are parsed from the advertisement file, and the values are placed in the AdProperties dictionary. Web developers can use the AdProperties dictionary to programmatically access your custom attributes |
1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| AlternateTextField | This property gets or sets a custom data field to use in place of the AlternateText attribute for an advertisement. Its default value is “AlternateText.” | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| AppRelativeTemplateSourceDirectory
|
Software developer can use this property to set or get the application-relative path to the page or user control that contains the current control. If the web page is installed in https://www.somesite.com/apps/application1 the property will return “~/application1”. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Attributes | This property is a collection which contains a collection of all attributes declared in the opening tag of a Web server control. Software developer can control programmatically the attributes associated with a Web server control. He/she can add or remove attributes to/from the collection. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| BackColor | The property is used to specify the background color of the Web server control. Software developer can set it using a System.Drawing..::.Color object. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| BindingContainer | Software developer can’t use this property directly from his/her code, because it supports the .NET Framework infrastructure. The property contains a reference to the Control object which contains data-binding information for the current control. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| BorderColor | The property is used to specify the border color of the Web server control. Software developer can set it using a System.Drawing..::.Color object. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| BorderStyle | Specifies the type of the control’s border. Software developer can choose one of the values from the BorderStyle enumeration – Dashed, Dotted, Double, Grrove, Ridge, Inset, Outset, Solid and None. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| BorderWidth | Specifies the size of the control’s border. When software developer sets this property he/she should use combination of a numeric value followed by type of measurement: px (for pixels) or % (for percentage) and so on. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ChildControlsCreated | Gets a true value that indicates whether the server control’s child controls have been created. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ClientID | Returns the server control identifier generated by ASP.NET. The ClientID value is generated by concatenating the ID value of the control and the UniqueID value of its parent control. If the ID value of the control is not specified, an automatically generated value is used. Each part of the generated ID is separated by an underscore character (_). | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ClientIDSeparator | The ClientID value is generated by concatenating the ID value of the control and the UniqueID value of its parent control. Each part of the generated ID property is separated by the ClientIDSeparator property value. The value always returns an underscore (_). | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Context | Software developer can use this property to access the HttpContext object for the current Web request. Using properties of the object software developer can access objects Application, Session, Request, Response, etc. which contain information about the current HTTP request. The object provides methods that allow him to get configuration information and to set or clear errors related to the request. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Controls | This property allows software developer to access programmatically to the instance of the ControlCollection class for any server control. Using it he/she can add/remove controls to/from the collection or iterate through the server controls in the collection. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ControlStyle | This property is used to encapsulate all properties of the WebControl class that specify the appearance of the control, such as BorderColor and Font. This property is used primarily by control developers. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ControlStyleCreated | This property is used primarily by control developers. Returns a true value if a Style object has been created for the ControlStyle property; otherwise false. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| CssClass | Software developer can use this property to specify the CSS class to render on the client for the Web Server control. This property will render on browsers for all controls. On browsers that do not support CSS, setting the CssClass property will have no effect. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| DataMember | This property returns or sets the name of the list of data that the data-bound control binds to, in cases where the data source contains more than one distinct list of data items. Its default value is String.Empty. The value of the property is stored in view state and cannot be set by themes or style sheet themes. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| DataSource | This property gets or sets the object from which the data-bound control retrieves its list of data items. Its default value is a null reference (Nothing in VB.NET). When Web developers set the property, the ValidateDataSource method is called. In addition, if the data-bound control has already been initialized, the OnDataPropertyChanged method is called to set the RequiresDataBinding property to true. This property cannot be set by themes or style sheet themes. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| DataSourceID | This property overrides BaseDataBoundControl.DataSourceID and returns or sets the ID of the control from which the data-bound control retrieves its list of data items. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| DesignMode | This property returns true to indicate that the control is being used in the context of a designer. Software developer’s custom controls can use this property when design-time behavior is different than run-time behavior. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Enabled | Software developer should set this property to true when he/she wants to specify or determine whether a control is functional. When developer sets to false, the control appears dimmed, preventing any input from being entered in the control. Notes:
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1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| EnableTheming | This property overrides Control. EnableTheming.
The property indicates whether themes are enabled for a specified control. When the property’s value is true, the application’s theme directory is searched for control skins to apply. If for the particular control skin does not exist in the directory, skins are not applied. When the property’s value is false, the theme directory is not searched and the contents of the SkinID property are not used. |
2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| EnableViewState | Software developer must enable view state for the server control setting its value to true if he/she wants to maintain its state across HTTP requests. Sometimes is better to set value of this property to false if for example Web application is loading a database request into a server control. In this case application performance will be improved. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Events | This read-only property returns a list of event handler delegates for the control. The type of this property is EventHadlerList, which uses a linear search algorithm to find entries in the list of delegates. When the list of delegates is large, finding entries with this property will be slow, because a linear search algorithm is inefficient when working with a large number of entries. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Font | Software developer can use this property to specify the font properties of the Web Server control. This property includes subproperties that can be accessed declaratively in the form of Property-Subproperty (for example Font-Bold) or programmatically in the form of Property.Subproperty (for example Font.Bold).
All but one subproperty will render in browsers prior to Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4 for all controls. They are: Bold, Italic, Name, Names, Strikeout, Underline, and Size (but only named font sizes, such as Small, Smaller, and so on, will work).
|
1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ForeColor | Software developer can use this property to to specify the foreground color of the Web server control. The foreground color is usually the color of the text. This property will render on browsers earlier than Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4 for all controls, except the Image, AdRotator, HyperLink and LinkButton. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| HasAttributes | This property returns true when the WebControl instance has attribute name/value pairs. The attribute pairs can be set either in the property or in the view state. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| HasChildViewState | Software developer can use this property to verify that any child controls of the server control are storing view-state information. Using it in this way he/she can avoid unnecessary calls to the ClearChildViewState method. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Height | This property is used to specify the height of the Web server control. When software developer sets this property he/she should use combination of a numeric value followed by type of measurement: px (for pixels) or % (for percentage) and so on.This property does not render for all controls in browsers earlier than Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4. Controls that do not render this property in earlier browsers include Label, HyperLink, LinkButton, and any validation controls. The CheckBoxList, RadioButtonList and DataList also do not render this property in earlier browsers when their RepeatLayout property is set to RepeatLayout.Flow. Furthermore, only unit types of Pixel and Percentage are supported in earlier browsers. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ID | Web developers can set this property by declaring ID attribute in the opening tag of an ASP.NET server control. Another possible way to set it is programmatically. If this property is not specified for a server control, either declaratively or programmatically, Web developer can obtain a reference to the control through its parent control’s Controls property. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| IdSeparator | Software developer can’t use this property directly from his/her code, because it supports the .NET Framework infrastructure. The character contained in this property ( by default $ ) is used to separate the control identifiers for child controls. The ID separator character is appended to the ID property. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ImageUrlField | This property gets or sets a custom data field to use in place of the ImageUrl attribute for an advertisement. Its default value is “ImageUrl.” The property is used for selecting a custom data field used in place of the ImageUrl attribute for an advertisement. Like ImageUrl, this custom field is defined in the XML file that contains advertisement information. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Initialized | Returns a value indicating whether the data-bound control has been initialized. Its value is true if the data-bound control has been initialized; otherwise, false. The ConfirmInitState and OnPagePreLoad methods both explicitly set the Initialized property to true. The ConfirmInitState method is called by the DataBoundControl.OnLoad method, while OnPagePreLoad is called when the PreLoad event is raised. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| IsBoundUsingDataSourceID | Returns a value indicating whether the DataSourceID property is set. This property returns true if the DataSourceID property is set to value other than String.Empty; otherwise, the value is false.
Controls such as GridView, DetailsView, FormView, and Menu use the IsBoundUsingDataSourceID property to determine whether the data-bound control is bound to data source control, such as an ObjectDataSource or SqlDataSource. |
2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| IsChildControlStateCleared | This property has value true if children of this control do not use control state; otherwise, false. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| IsEnabled | This property returns true if the Enabled property is true for this control and any containing controls. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| IsTrackingViewState | This property returns value true if the control is marked to save changes to its view state; otherwise, false.
|
1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| IsViewStateEnabled | This property returns value true if view state is enabled for the control; otherwise false. View state can be enabled at the page, container, or control level. When view state is disabled at the page or container level, view state is disabled for all controls contained by the page or container. The property indicates whether view state is enabled by pages, containers, or controls. In some cases it is possible values for the EnableViewState property and the IsViewStateEnabled property to be different. For example, if the Page containing the control has view state disabled, the EnableViewState property can be true while the IsViewStateEnabled property is false. Notes: Developers will set the EnableViewState property to indicate whether they are using view state with your control. Web developers can use this property in their code to determine whether view state is enabled for their control and all containers. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| KeywordFilter | This property gets or sets a category keyword to filter for specific types of advertisements in the XML advertisement file. Its default value is empty string (“”). The property is a very simple filter that searches for the specified keyword. It is not possible to determine more than one keyword in the property, nor is it possible to declare multiple keywords in the advertisement file. Each advertisement in the XML advertisement file can be assigned a category keyword. The KeywordFilter property is used to filter the advertisements for the specified keyword. Only advertisements containing the keyword will be selected for the AdRotator control. The KeywordFilter property can be programmatically set to match the profile of the user. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| LoadViewStateByID | This property returns value true if the control loads its view state by ID; otherwise, false. Its default value is false. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| NamingContainer | Using this property software developer can get a reference to the server control’s naming container, which creates a unique namespace for differentiating between server controls with the same Control.ID property value. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Page | Provides a reference to the web page that contains this control as a System.Web.UI.Page object. This property’s value reflects the name of the .aspx file that contains the server control. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Parent | This property provides a reference to the control that contains this control. If the control is placed on the page directly (rather than inside another control), it will return a reference to the page object. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| RequiresDataBinding | This property gets or sets a value indicating whether the DataBind method should be called. Its value is true if the data-bound control’s DataBind method should be called before the control is rendered; otherwise, the value is false. If Web developer sets the property to true when the data-bound control has already begun to render its output to the page, the current HTTP request is not a callback, and Web developer is using the DataSourceID property to identify the data source control to bind to, the DataBind method is called immediately. In this case, the RequiresDataBinding property is not actually set to true. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| SelectAgruments | Returns a DataSourceSelectArguments object that the data-bound control uses when retrieving data from a data source control. The property calls the CreateDataSourceSelectArguments method to create a default DataSourceSelectArguments object. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Site | Using this property software developer can get information about the container that hosts the current control when rendered on a design surface. A site binds a Component object to a Container object and enables communication between the two. It also provides a way for the container to manage its components. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| SkinID | This property overrides Control.SkinID.
Web developer can get or set the skin to apply to the control. Skins available to a control are contained in one or more skin files in a theme directory. The SkinID property specifies which of these skins to apply to the control. A skin is specific to a particular control i.e. software developer cannot share skin setting between controls of different types. If developer does not set the SkinID property, a control uses the default skin if one is defined. |
2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Style | Web developer can use this property to get a collection of text attributes that will be rendered as a style attribute on the outer tag of the Web server control. This property will render on all browsers for all controls. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| TabIndex | With this number software developer can control the tab order. The control with a TabIndex of zero has the focus when the page first loads. If end user presses Tab his/her focus will be moved to the control with the next lowest TabIndex. This property is available only in Internet Explorer 4.0 and higher. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| TagKey | This property overrides WebControl.TagKey.
Web developers can use this property to get the HtmlTextWriterTag value that associated with Label control. This property is used primarily by control developers. |
1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| TagName | Web developers can use this property to get the name of the control tag. This property is used primarily by control developers. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Target | This property gets or sets the name of the browser window or frame that displays the contents of the Web page linked to when the AdRotator control is clicked. The default value is an empty string (“”), which refreshes the window or frame with focus. The Target value must begin with a letter in the range of A to Z (case-insensitive), except for the following special values, which begin with an underscore:
– _blank – Renders the content in a new window without frames – _parent – Renders the content in the immediate frameset parent. – _search – Renders the content in the search pane. Some browsers do not support this value. – _self – Renders the content in the frame with focus. – _top – Renders the content in the full window without frames. The Target property renders as a target attribute. The target attribute on anchor elements is not allowed in the XHTML 1.1 document type definition. Web developers should not set the Target property if the rendered output for the AdRotator must be XHTML 1.1 compliant. |
1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| TemplateControl | This property is used to get or set a reference to the template that contains this control. | 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| TemplateSourceDirectory | Software developer can use this property to get the path to the page or user control that contains the current control. If the web page is installed in https://www.somesite.com/apps/application1 the property will return “apps/application1”. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Text | Web developers can use this property to get or set the text content of the Label control. The property is commonly used to programmatically customize the text that is displayed in the control. This property can include HTML. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ToolTip | This property displays a text message when the end users hover the mouse above the control. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| UniqueID | This property can be used to get the unique, hierarchically qualified identifier for the server control. This property differs from the ID property, in that the UniqueID property includes the identifier for the server control’s naming container. This identifier is generated automatically when a page request is processed. This property is particularly important in differentiating server controls contained within a data-binding server control that repeats as Repeater, DataList, DetailsView, FormView, and GridView Web server controls. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ViewState | Web developers can use this property to get a dictionary of state information that allows them to save and restore the view state of a server control across multiple requests for the same page. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| ViewStateIgnoresCase | This property returns true if StateBag object is insensitive; otherwise, false. Its default value is false. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Visible | Web developers can use this property to get or set a value that indicates whether a server control is rendered as UI on the page. If the control is visible on the page this property will has value true; otherwise false. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |
| Width | This property is used to specify the width of the Web server control. When software developer sets this property he/she should use combination of a numeric value followed by type of measurement: px (for pixels) or % (for percentage) and so on.This property does not render for all controls in browsers earlier than Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4. Controls that do not render this property in earlier browsers include Label, HyperLink, LinkButton, and any validation controls. The CheckBoxList, RadioButtonList and DataList also do not render this property in earlier browsers when their RepeatLayout property is set to RepeatLayout.Flow. Furthermore, only unit types of Pixel and Percentage are supported in earlier browsers. | 1.0,1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 |