It seems like it's dead simple to register a client resource file and specify the provider when using the control from within an ascx file, however when you want to register the file dynamically in code - it's a bit more complicated. I'm writing here in case I'm missing something obvious, but what's the best way to register a file dynamically in code and also force the provider? For example, I have one resource (plugin.js) and its file path (~/js/plugin.js) and I'd like to render on the page using the PageHeaderProvider.

What if i rephrase the question to "Is there a way to...?" - because I can't figure it out. :)

Thanks,

Ian

You sure can and it's dead simple to register dependencies in code too.

I'd suggest if you ever get stumped like that you just download the source code and have a look at the demo/test web project in there as it has samples for pretty much everything that you can do with CDF.

In WebForms you can use this syntax:

ClientDependencyLoader.GetInstance(http).RegisterDependency("Content.css", "Styles", ClientDependencyType.Css);

In MVC there's an extension method called 'GetLoader' on the ViewContext, ControllerContext and HttpContextBase, so you can use the following syntax (for example if you wanted to dynamically register a dependency from an HtmlHelper):

html.ViewContext.GetLoader().RegisterDependency(priority, resourceUrl, ClientDependencyType.Javascript);

Hope that helps!

Thanks very much for the reply! I guess what I'm really asking though is - why doesn't RegisterDependency have an overload that takes "ForceProvider" so that it jives with the way you can use JsInclude/CssInclude? I'm trying to load a CSS file, in code, using the PageHeaderProvider - and the only way I can figure out how to do it so far is to dynamically create a CssInclude and add it to a placeholder on the page. Which seems a little....strange :)

Thanks again!

Ian

There is an overload that allows you to do that, however its the base of all overloaded methods: RegisterClientDependencies

you could call it like this for example:

IClientDependencyFile file = new BasicFile(type) { Group = 1, Priority = 2, FilePath = "blah.css", PathNameAlias = "Styles", ForceProvider = "MyProvider" };
RegisterClientDependencies(new List<IClientDependencyFile> { file }, new List<IClientDependencyPath>()); //send an empty paths collection

Okay, wasn't as obvious as I thought, still should have seen that though! Thanks again for the help and I appreciate all the work on the project - pretty awesome stuff!

Take care,

Ian

no problemo, yeah, that overload def isn't obvious :) You could make an extension method though!