How best to integrate RadControl Demo into Sitefinity

I'm in need of creating a custom form field widget in the form of a Cascading drop down or cascading combo boxes in sitefinity. I keep finding examples... 

(here is a nice one offered by the Telerik RadControl site demos.telerik.com/.../defaultcs.aspx)

But am at a loss when it comes to how best to do it...since examples are often in prior versions (we are using sitefinity 6.1) or the example is partial...code/syntax that addresses how the controls should talk to each other but no code about how to incorporate into sitefinity...I've looked at everything I can find and I seemingly come close but just can't get it working.

Does anyone have any such code...instructions about how to integrate into sitefinity?

Any help would be greatly greatly appreciated...

G

At a high level, you should be able to do something close to the following:
1. In your project, add a new Web User Control
2. Add the code from the example to the control's markup and code behind
3a. Register the user control on a widget or page template (Design > Page Templates, Design > Widget Templates)
OR
3b. Follow the instructions here to add the widget to the toolbox so you can just drop it on a page: http://www.sitefinity.com/documentation/documentationarticles/adding-controls-to-the-toolbox 

Without knowing how specifically you'd like to use the control, I'm not sure what to specifically suggest.  If you could post a little more detail on how you need to use the widget, that'd be helpful.

I appreciate you responding Nate - thanks for that.

You said it: "Without knowing how specifically you'd like to use the control, I'm not sure what to specifically suggest." - the request is to have a custom widget available (from within Sitefinity) that can be added to/as a (custom) Form Field control by dragging and dropping - and voila...you have a working (client side) example of a cascading drop down or combo boxes. We decided it would have to be client side (obviously so as to not be concerned with server side data connection) so we were thinking a Country - State cascading relationship (Canada and US).

This is an exact description (with source code attached at the bottom btw) of what we are looking for:

www.sitefinity.com/.../inter-field_communication_dynamic_states_dropdown_depending_on_a_country_dropdown

So (I'm new to CMS development) - great I think - I'll just bring in the example. But I've not been successful as of yet...close but never quite there. So the question ends up being...given the attached code in the link above...what would you consider to be the best form (?) to integrate that code into a custom widget for a possible Form Field insertion? I keep thinking this should be really straight forward and because it doesn't end up that way, I must have chosen to wrong manner/method to bring it in. Should I try to create a custom module? field? widget?

One (inadvertent wrinkle) we submitted a question (not nearly as detailed) to support...and they sent us a video link on how to create a custom from field (it's a date calendar)...but the code for the cascading drop downs is more involved...so is the implication that...if I want to eventually add it to a form...I have to make a custom form field? Can I make just a custom field? And then specific steps to integrate...because that's where I'm getting hung up. 

Sorry for the length Nate...and anyone else listening...it's just been not a straight forward exercise...a noob still finding his way around (I'm afraid).

Thanks for getting back Nate - Cheers,

G

Thanks for the detail! That helped. So I'm going to suggest that you go with a Field Control, since that's what the examples use, and it's also easy to get them to show up in the Toolbox. Once you've added your Field Control to your project and added the code from the examples, you'll need to do the following the instructions on that link I posted, specifically the "Register through the advanced settings" section.  I just used the option on the left when they show the picture to provide the virtual path to the control, but either way will do the trick.

That should get the widget registered so that you can drag it from the toolbox onto a page.  Regretfully, I don't have any specific experience with cascading combo boxes in Sitefinity, but I'd be glad to try to point you in the right direction if you have questions related to implementation of that piece.

Hope that helps!

Hello guys,

 First off I want to congratulate Nate on a job well done with the explanations. He leaves me with little to add actually.
Secondly, Grey, you say you are a noobie to Sitefinity and I can sympathize with that. My advice to you is to try out Sitefinity Thunder. It is a free add-on and it makes widgets much easier than one would by themselves. Concerning the specific issue - a FieldControl that uses a combobox, I have an instructional Video here. It uses Rad Rating but I think Grey can get a very clear example on how to set up the samples he likes. And again I recommend people who are new to Sitefinity to use Thunder and pay attention to the code it generates until they obtain enough experience to be able to create controls by themselves.

Additionally, a lot of information can be drawn from our RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Documentation.

Thank you - that did the trick. Great advice and very quick respond...thanks on both counts Nate and Sitefinity...

Sorry for not getting back sooner, got side tracked with other issues.

G

Hi Grey,

 Glad to hear we were of help.