Custom control in template column

[Dmitry]

Hello,
I create a custom control which inherits CompositeControl and put it in template column. Controls contains textbox and button. Here is how I render it:

writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Id, ClientID);
            writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Style, "width:100%", false);
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Table);
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Tr);
            writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Style, "padding: 0;margin: 0;width:95%", false);
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Td);
            _textbox.RenderControl(writer);
            writer.RenderEndTag();
            writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Style, "padding: 0;margin: 0;width: 24px", false);
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Td);
            _clearButton.RenderControl(writer);
            writer.RenderEndTag();
            writer.RenderEndTag();
            writer.RenderEndTag();

And it looks like this: http://ybex.com/d/hftqcnpzn4hf6rel5tzore55a8gw6tulq10aeh67.html
And this also happens when I put your control, i.e. DateTimePicker in template column. When I create column, I set its width manually, so I suppose controls in template should "know" its parent width and fit accordingly.
How can I fit controls into cell? Also I would like to stretch column when filter control doesn't fit its width.
I'm not sure those 2 questions are not mutually exclusive but they're both issues I want to solve.
Thank you.

[Dmitry]

Hello? 

[Pavlina]

Hi Dmitry,

To achieve your goal you can handle on ItemDataBound/ItemCreated event.Then use the UniqueName property of the column and FindControl method to access the custom control in the ItemTemplate and set the desired width. Check the following demo for more information.
Accessing Cells and Rows

Best wishes,
Pavlina
the Telerik team

[Dmitry]

Thank you for reply but I'm not sure this would be a good solution. Grid may have many columns (20+), and all of them are of TemplateColumn type. Those columns might have many controls, mostly custom. I just cannot access them by Controls[0] or FindControl() because in this case I would have to make a huge green and brunching if/else tree which I must support and feed it with all controls I'm going to develop in future. I'm not sure this is the trick all developers want to do with ready-to-use controls. Is there another workaround?
Thank you.

[Pavlina]

Hello Dmitry,

Please note that for template columns you must find the control in the grid Cells collection and extract its value. Basically, you can reference the grid item which wraps the controls and then get reference to control using the FindControl(controlId) method. More information is available here:
http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grid-accessing-cells-and-rows.html
http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grid-reference-controls-in-edit-form.html

Regards,
Pavlina
the Telerik team