How to create ASP.NET user/server control that uses a list of asp:ListItem as child controls?

I am looking to create a user/server control that will be created with something like the following:

<my:MyListControl runat="server">
   <asp:ListItem Text="Test1" Value="Test1" />
   <asp:ListItem Text="Test2" Value="Test2" />
</my:MyListControl>

I am just looking for a start here:
Articles or code samples.

What base class should I inherit from? What to override?

Possibly how to customize what sub items my control accepts (my:ListItem instead of asp:ListItem).

What I am looking to do is create a very simple bread crumb control for a small section of my site. I have it all working with stock ASP.NET controls, but the items are added in code, which means fixing a spelling mistake or formatting bug involves a recompile, which is not ideal.

EDIT:

Here’s my code with the addition of Josh’s suggestion below:

Namespace MySite.Controls
Partial Class BreadCrumbs
Inherits UserControl

    Private m_BreadCrumbs As New List(Of BreadCrumbItem)

    <PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty)> _
    Public Property Items() As List(Of BreadCrumbItem)
        Get
            Return m_BreadCrumbs
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As List(Of BreadCrumbItem))
            m_BreadCrumbs = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Bind()
    End Sub

    Private Sub Bind()
        lvCrumbs.DataSource = Items
        Me.DataBind()
    End Sub
End Class

Public Class BreadCrumbItem
    Private m_Text As String
    Public Property Text() As String
        Get
            Return m_Text
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            m_Text = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private m_Url As String
    Public Property Url() As String
        Get
            Return m_Url
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            m_Url = value
        End Set
    End Property
End Class

End Namespace

Then my page code looks like this:

<%@ Page Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" Inherits="MySite.MyPage" Title="My Page" Codebehind="MyPage.aspx.vb" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="my" Namespace="MySite.Controls" Assembly="MySite" %>
<my:BreadCrumbs ID="breadcrumbs" runat="server">
    <Items>
        <my:BreadCrumbItem Text="Another page" Url="AnotherPage.aspx" />
    </Items>
</my:BreadCrumbs>

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

You can add a property on a user control’s code behind like:

[PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty)]
public List<ListItem> Items
{
    get;
    set;
}

Your markup would then be:

<my:MyListControl runat="server">
  <Items>
    <asp:ListItem/>
  </Items>
</my:myListControl>

To make it so ListItem can be your own list item (Which I recommend doing as opposed to using asp.net.) You’ll want to create your own class.

Here’s an example of a Server Control I use (I removed a lot of the noise as such this is just a skeleton):

   [ToolboxData("<{0}:Menubar runat=server></{0}:Menubar>")]
    [System.ComponentModel.DesignTimeVisible(false)]
    public class Menubar : WebControl, IPostBackEventHandler
    {

        private List<MenuItem> _menuItems = new List<MenuItem>();
        [PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerProperty)]
        public List<MenuItem> MenuItems
        {
            get
            {
                return _menuItems;
            }
        }

    }
    [ToolboxItem(false)]
    [ParseChildren(true, "MenuItems")]
    public class MenuItem
    {
        private string _clientClick;
        private List<MenuItem> _menuItems = new List<MenuItem>();

        [Localizable(true)]
        public string Title { get; set; }
        public string Href { get; set; }
        public string Id { get; set; }
        [PersistenceMode(PersistenceMode.InnerDefaultProperty)]
        public List<MenuItem> MenuItems
        {
            get { return _menuItems; }
            set { _menuItems = value; }
        }
    }

Now I can use this like:

<my:Menubar runat="server" ID="menuBar">
    <MenuItems>
        <my:MenuItem Title="Save" Href="javascript:saveItem(this);"  />
        <my:MenuItem Title="Print" Href="javascript:void(0);">
            <MenuItems>
                <my:MenuItem Title="Preview" Href=""/>
                <my:MenuItem Title="To Pdf" Href="javascript:"/>
            </MenuItems>
        </my:MenuItem>
    </MenuItems>
</my:Menubar>

Method 2

Use an asp:Repeater then bind it to a List of the objects you want in your breadcrumb. You can use the template to customize the items themselves and the separators.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0