Working with controls

Nintex Workflow 2013 includes a wide variety of server controls and user controls to support the presentation and interaction requirements of configuration pages for workflow actions. You can use these controls in the configuration pages of your own custom workflow actions, to provide a consistent presentation and interaction experience for users.

User controls and server controls

Nintex Workflow 2013 provides two different types of controls that can be used in, and are designed specifically for, configuration pages:

• Server controls

  Nintex Workflow 2013 server controls are ASP.NET Web server controls compiled into the Nintex.Workflow.ServerControls assembly. For more information about ASP.NET Web server controls, see ASP.NET Web Server Controls Overview.

• User controls

  Similarly, user controls in Nintex Workflow 2013 are ASP.NET Web user controls, dynamically compiled on demand when used within a configuration page. Each user control has a corresponding ASP.NET Web user control (.ascx) file, and the code provided for each user control can typically be found in the Nintex.Workflow.ApplicationPages assembly. For more information about ASP.NET Web user controls, see ASP.NET User Controls Overview.

Registering server controls on the configuration page

All of the server controls available for use in configuration pages are compiled into the Nintex.Workflow.ServerControls assembly. This assembly must first be registered before the server controls it contains can be used in your configuration page.

This Register directive is required, and automatically included in the starter configuration page provided by the Visual Studio 2012 workflow action adapter project template. For more information about the Visual Studio 2012 project templates included with the Nintex Workflow 2013 SDK, see Installing and using Visual Studio templates.

Registering user controls on the configuration page

As with server controls, you must first register a user control before it can be used on the configuration page. The Nintex.Workflow.ApplicationPages assembly, which contains compiled code provided for user controls, is required and automatically included in the starter configuration page provided by the Visual Studio 2012 workflow action adapter project template.

However, you must also add Register directives for the corresponding ASP.NET Web user control (.ascx) file of each user control that you want to use in your configuration page. To register a user control, add a Register directive to the page, immediately after the required Register directives, for the specified user control file. For information about the required Register directives, see Creating configuration pages.

For example, to register the CollapsableConfigurationProperty user control, add the following Register directive to the configuration page:

<%@ Register TagPrefix="Nintex" TagName="CollapsableConfigurationProperty" 
    Src="~/_layouts/15/NINTEXWORKFLOW/CollapsableConfigurationProperty.ascx" %>

Once the user control is registered, you can add and configure instances of the registered user control to the configuration property sections in the ContentBody control of your configuration page. For more information about working with the ContentBody control, see Working with the ContentBody control.

This section describes how to implement the various server controls and user controls provided with Nintex Workflow 2013.