I have created a new skin for dnn 5 and everything looks great and works great, up until I try and add a usercontrol to the skin. I'm still pretty new to dnn so hopefully someone can help me out. I want to add a dynamic label into the skin (index.ascx). To do this, I created a usercontrol in the admin/skins directory. I called it MyLabel. The code looks like this

Design Side:

<%@ Control Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" Explicit="True" Inherits="DotNetNuke.UI.Skins.Controls.MyLabel" CodeFile="MyLabel.ascx.vb" %>
<asp:Label ID="lblMyLabel" runat="server" style="padding: 0 0 0 5px;" Enableview_state="false" /> Item(s)

Code Behind:

Namespace DotNetNuke.UI.Skins.Controls
    Partial Class MyLabel
        Inherits UI.Skins.SkinObjectBase
        Const MyFileName As String = "MyLabel.ascx"
#Region " Web form Designer Generated Code "
        <System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()
        End Sub
        Private Sub Page_Init(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Init
            InitializeComponent()
        End Sub
#End Region
        Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
            Try

            Catch exc As Exception    'Module failed to load
                ProcessModuleLoadException(Me, exc)
            End Try
        End Sub
    End Class
End Namespace

In the skin file (.ascx) I added this

<%@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="MYLABEL" Src="~/Admin/Skins/MyLabel.ascx" %>

                <div class="floatright" style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">                    
                    <dnn:MyLabel runat="server" id="dnnMYLABEL" />
                </div>

In the .html file I added this

                 <div class="floatright" style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">
                    <object id="dnnMYLABEL" codetype="dotnetnuke/server" codebase="MYLABEL">
                    </object>
                </div>

This method works up until I go in and parse the skin package. When I parse it, the parse replaces the <dnn:MyLabel runat="server" id="dnnMYLABEL" /> with <object id="dnnMYLABEL" codetype="dotnetnuke/server" codebase="MYLABEL"></object>

I'm not sure if this is simply an issue with the skin parser, or that I am simply going about doing this wrong.

Please help!!! Thanks

Frank

Thanks for the response. To help me further understand this, why does the default MinimalExtropy come with both a html and ascx file then? Is it just to show you can use either method?

Thanks again for the response.

I don't think "more robust" is correct.  It is just a different way to do it.  It all depends on ones preference.  I tend to work with ascx files (and don't even create the html version) because the sites I work on usually have some non standard requirements that require processing in the skin itself.  as far as nail chewing goes, I prefer a cup of coffee while waiting fror a process to finish :)

But back to the original question, as Sebastian said, html skin files get parsed to the ascx file.  If you just start with an ascx file (no html) file then there is nothing to parse.  the site will just use your ascx file.