How to make user controls know about css classes in ASP.NET

asp.net Css Visual Studio-2008 User Controls

asp.net Problem Overview

Since there are no header sections for user controls in asp.net, user controls have no way of knowing about stylesheet files. So css classes in the user controls are not recognized by visual studio and produces warnings. How can I make a user control know that it will relate to a css class, so if it is warning me about a non-existing css class, it means that the class really do not exist?

Edit: Or should I go for a different design like exposing css classes as properties like "HeaderStyle-CssClass" of GridView?

asp.net Solutions

Solution 1 - asp.net

Here's what I did:

<link rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" href="Stylesheet.css" id="style" runat="server" visible="false" />

It fools Visual Studio into thinking you've added a stylesheet to the page but it doesn't get rendered.

Here's an even more concise way to do this with multiple references;

<% if (false) { %>
    <link rel="Stylesheet" type="text/css" href="Stylesheet.css" />
    <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-1.2.6.js" />
<% } %>

As seen in this blog post from Phil Haack.

Solution 2 - asp.net

Add the style on your usercontrol and import css in it.

 <%@ Control Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="WCReportCalendar.ascx.vb"
Inherits="Intra.WCReportCalender" %>
 <style type='text/css'>    
      @import url("path of file.css");
       // This is how i used jqueryui css
      @import url("http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.0/themes/base/jquery-ui.css");               

 </style>

 your html

Solution 3 - asp.net

If you are creating composite UserControl, then you can set the CSSClass property on the child controls..

If not, then you need to expose properties that are either of the Style type, or (as I often do) string properties that apply CSS at the render type (i.e. take them properties and add a style attribute to the HTML tags when rendering).

Solution 4 - asp.net

You Can use CSS direct in userControl.

Use this in UserControl:

 <head>
    <title></title> 
    <style type="text/css">
      .wrapper {
          margin: 0 auto -142px; 
         /* the bottom margin is the negative value of the footer's height */ 
       }
    </style>
 </head>

This will work.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Serhat Ozgel	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - asp.net	Adam Lassek	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - asp.net	Abdul Saboor	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - asp.net	Rob Cooper	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - asp.net	Kirtish Srivastava	View Answer on Stackoverflow