Dynamically loading WebUserControl

Hi there,

im having an issue dynamically loading a webusercontrol.

In my vs2008 solution i have several projects. their is the main web project, then several other projects that are controls to be used in the main project.

In the main web application when a user requests a page it will dynamically load a WebUserControl in on of these other projects, based on a supplied Id in the querystring.

I publish each project that has a webusercontrol to a directory called controls under the main project.
ie:
c:\inetpub\wwwroot\MyWebProject
c:\inetpub\wwwroot\MyWebProject\Controls

so when i try and load a web control to my default aspx page i do the following

Dim defaultCtrl As Control = LoadControl("~/Controls/DefaultWebControl/newPage.ascx")
me.Controls.Add(defaultCtrl)

however i keep gettin an exception saying "Could not load type XXXXXX"
and the exception is of httpparser.

this is very frustrating, i cant see why this doesnt load.
if i try load the webusercontrol into a aspx page in the same project it will load. But it will not load for my main project..

Thanks for any help

did you import the control into the other projects?

the exeption occurs on the LoadControl line.

my web control is going to have all my html, im loading the control into a empty aspx.

cheers

yeah I just re-read and edited my original post... it's too early here. :P

haha no worries....

what do u mean by import? How do i import the control into my main project?

Well i found the issues was the i need to add a reference to the main project to the project that contains the web controls.

I was hoping that i wouldnt need to this as i this means i will have to rebuild and publish the main project anytime i need to add a new control...

does anyone know of anyway around this...

I don't think... there is a way around the build problems and potential unforseen runtime bugs. I have often wanted to break apart a large website into different projects but it's just been too problematic.

Of course the ASCX needs to be in the same project as the web application. The entire context of an ASCX is that it is a web user control for the project in which it exists. If the control sits outside the web project, it needs to be a server control, because the only reason you're make it an external web user control is if it was meant to be reused across web projects.

Is there a way around it? Yes, in crude but epic proportions. It'd involve you using reflection. Or, you could just have a look at DotNetNuke's code to see how they do it. People write frameworks for this kind of stuff :D