There’re situations when you need access ASP.NET web controls very early in page lifecycle, more specifically – in Page PreInit event – and you can, but only top-level controls. But what if you need to access child/nested controls? The example below uses Infragistics WebHierarchicalDataGrid as a child of Infragistics WebSplitter, but this pretty much applies to any such scenario.

Let’s say you have following layout

<ig:WebSplitter ID="WSP" runat="server">
   <Panes>
      <ig:SplitterPane runat="server">
         <Template>

            <ig:WebHierarchicalDataGrid ID="WHG" runat="server">
            </ig:WebHierarchicalDataGrid>

         </Template>
      </ig:SplitterPane>
      <ig:SplitterPane runat="server"></ig:SplitterPane>
   </Panes>
</ig:WebSplitter>

As you can see grid “WHG” is nested withing first pane of splittet “WSP. Let’s see what happens if you try access the controls in PagePreInit event: Continue reading →