How to access html controls in code behind

Question

I'm trying to follow this example on how to validate credentials. However, it uses asp: controls for the login form.

If I were to use html controls instead so CSS styles can be applied, eg

<div id="login">
<a href="#" id="lclose"></a>

        <form action="#" runat="server">
            <fieldset>
                <div class="frame">
                    <h4>Login</h4>
                    <small>Sign in to your account.</small>
                    <div class="clear"></div>
                    <input type="text" value="Username" class="input-text autoclear" />
                    <input type="password" value="Password" class="input-text autoclear"/>
                </div>

                <div class="separator"></div>

                <div>
                <input type="submit" value="Sign in" class="input-submit float-right" runat="server" onserverclick="LoginButton_Click"/>
                <a href="#" class="float-left">Forgot your password?</a>
                </div>

            </fieldset>
        </form>

</div>

How do I access the Username & Password in code behind similar to?

protected void LoginButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // Validate the user against the Membership framework user store
    if (Membership.ValidateUser(UserName.Text, Password.Text))
    {
        // Log the user into the site
        FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(UserName.Text, RememberMe.Checked);
    }
    // If we reach here, the user's credentials were invalid
    InvalidCredentialsMessage.Visible = true;
}

What is the correct syntax instead of UserName.Text, Password.Text?

score 17 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 06 '14 at 12:45

Add id and runat server attributes to the input tag (see below)

<input type="text" value="Username" class="input-text autoclear"  id="Username" runat="server"/>
<input type="password" value="Password" class="input-text autoclear" id="Password" runat="server"/>

You also need to change Text to Value in your code:

protected void LoginButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // Validate the user against the Membership framework user store
    if (Membership.ValidateUser(Username.Value, Password.Value))
    {
        // Log the user into the site
        FormsAuthentication.RedirectFromLoginPage(UserName.Value, RememberMe.Checked);
    }
    // If we reach here, the user's credentials were invalid
    InvalidCredentialsMessage.Visible = true;
}

You can also add a html checkbox for RememberMe

<input id="RememberMe" type="checkbox" runat="server" value ="RememberMe"/>

Now you can check the checked states by calling RememberMe.Checked

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 01 '13 at 17:32

Add runat="server" and id="your_id" and you should have access to them. For example:

<input type="text" value="Username" class="input-text autoclear" 
   runat="server" id="UserName" />
<input type="password" value="Password" class="input-text autoclear" 
   runat="server" id="Password"/>

Then you can access the values like this:

Membership.ValidateUser(UserName.Value, Password.Value)

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 01 '13 at 17:27

You can access them from code behind by adding runat="server" on the html elements.

http://www.w3schools.com/aspnet/aspnet_refhtmlcontrols.asp

The below link has an example of how you can do this

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa478973.aspx

How to access html controls in code behind

3 Answers3

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