Comparing Web Controls and Mobile Controls
ASP.NET Mobile Web Forms are based on ASP.NET Web Forms Pages. ASP.NET mobile controls provide a flexible toolset that enables you to create content sites and Web applications intended for a wide variety of mobile devices. You can take advantage of the adaptive rendering of the ASP.NET mobile controls while having the flexibility to customize the display for specific devices or types of devices, such as a handheld computer or a mobile phone.
The following table provides a side-by-side comparison of the controls used for ASP.NET Web server controls and ASP.NET mobile controls.
| Web server control | Mobile control | Comments or differences |
|---|---|---|
| AdRotator | AdRotator | Similar functionality. Mobile control adds ImageKey and NavigateURLKey properties. |
| Button, ImageButton, LinkButton | Command | Mobile control combines the functionality of the Web Forms Button, ImageButton, and LinkButton controls. |
| Calendar | Calendar | Similar functionality. Mobile control does not provide HTML-specific properties directly but exposes an underlying Web Forms Calendar control through the WebCalendar property. |
| [no equivalent control] | PhoneCall | Used to actively drop the data line and initiate the call on dial-capable devices. This is similar to the use of the mailto scheme for electronic mail addresses, which starts your e-mail client. |
| CompareValidator | CompareValidator | Validation is identical. |
| CustomValidator | CustomValidator | Validation is identical. |
| DataList, Repeater | List | Similar functionality. Mobile control can apply templates on a per-device basis. |
| DataGrid | ObjectList | Similar functionality. The ObjectList control provides multiple views to show the data collections |
| [no equivalent control] | DeviceSpecific | Used to enable property overrides and templates for mobile controls. |
| [no equivalent control] | Form | Similar to a page in an ASP.NET Web application. Mobile Web Forms pages can contain multiple Form controls. |
| Image | Image | Similar functionality. Mobile control can select an image from a set of device-specific images. |
| Label | Label | Same functionality. |
| Hyperlink | Link | ASP.NET cannot render the mobile control as an image. Use the Image control to create an image link (by specifying the NavigateURL property on the Image control). |
| Panel | Panel | Mobile panels can be used to provide device-specific rendering by using the ContentTemplate device templates to replace the panels. |
| RangeValidator | RangeValidator | Validation is identical. |
| RegularExpressionValidator | RegularExpressionValidator | Validation is identical. |
| RequiredFieldValidator | RequiredFieldValidator | Validation is identical. |
| CheckBox, CheckBoxList, DropDown, DropDownList, ListBox, RadioButton, RadioButtionList | SelectionList | Mobile control combines the functionality of the corresponding ASP.NET Web server controls. Use the SelectType property (and the associated ListSelectType enumeration) to define the type of selection list button to render. For example, setting the SelectionList control's SelectType property to the CheckBox enumeration corresponds to the ASP.NET Web server controls CheckBox and CheckBoxList; Dropdown is the same as DropDown and DropDownList. Use the Rows property to specify the number of items shown in the list when the SelectType property is the ListBox or MultiSelectListBox control. |
| [no equivalent control] | StyleSheet | Web Forms use cascading style sheets rather than StyleSheet controls. |
| Table | [no equivalent control] | Use the List, ObjectList, and SelectionList mobile controls |
| TextBox | TextBox | Similar functionality. Mobile control does not provide automatic postback, read-only, or multiline functionality. |
| [no equivalent control] | TextView | Used to display large blocks of text. Supports basic text formatting. |
| ValidationSummary | ValidationSummary | Same functionality. Mobile control shows error messages of validators on a particular form (through the FormToValidate property). |