Role-based enabling/disabling of controls in asp.net

Question

Currently i m working on a project where there are users with four roles who can access the same pages (there are plenty of pages with nearly 80-90 controls in each :( ).

The requirement is that, depending on each role, the user should be able to view the particular controls in each page(i.e. controls visible to one role need not be visible to other role).
It looks very simple functionality and i also know that i can do it using code behind (e.g. controlname.visible=false etc.),but since there are plenty of pages with numerous controls in it which are specific to particular role it becomes very lengthy and less maintainable code.

Can any one give me best way to do this,which will be robust,well maintained code.(jQuery,Javascript solutions will also do..)

Answer 1

This was the really good question clicking my mind last year.. this is what i came up with, its a bit lengthy but i hope this could help..

First you will have to take a look at ControlAdapters in Asp.net.

http://www.asp.net/cssadapters/WhitePaper.aspx

Overview: 1.Create a control adapter for a control type you want to enable and disable based on roles. 2.apply some attribute on asp.net controls, that specify which roles can access that control.

in asp.net page try some thing like this

<asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server" CRAN="1"></asp:TextBox>

here CRAN is my custom attribute and 1 is the roleid that can access this control on page.

now its time to create a Control Adapter that will enable/disable this control based on roles.

public class TextBoxAdapter:
     System.Web.UI.WebControls.Adapters.WebControlAdapter
    {

        protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
        {
            if (this.Page is ISecurable)
            {
                WebControl tb = this.Control as WebControl;

                string roles = tb.Attributes[Constants.ControlRoleAttributeName];
                bool result = true;
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(roles))
                {
                    result = false;
                    string[] role = roles.Split(',');
                    foreach (string r in role)
                    {
                        if (Roles.IsUserInRole(r))
                        {
                            result = true;
                        }
                    }

                }

                tb.Enabled = result;
                //tb.BackColor = Color.Red;
            }
            base.OnLoad(e);
        }
    }

this is the control adapter i have created this will enable/disable the control based on roles. you can modify this show/hide control.

you will have to register this control adapter in App_Browser folder of asp.net in a .browser file

<browsers>
  <browser refID="Default">
    <controlAdapters>

     <adapter controlType ="System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox" adapterType="MyProject.ControlAdapter.TextBoxAdapter" />
    </controlAdapters>
  </browser>
</browsers>

Conclusion: You will have to only apply an attribute on element in order to show hide them. i have created adapter for Textbox you can try creating some generic adapter like WebControl/Control.

Regards.