PreventCollapse bug

[improwise]

There seems to be a bug with the PreventCollapse option of the RadPanelBar.

We use a RadMultiPage together with a RadTabStrip. The RadMultiPage is set to only Render the selected RadPageView. On a few of the RadPageViews, we use RadPanelBars, which we ALWAYS want to have expanded (as they serve mostly as visual aids boxing contents togehter). For the RadPanelBars we have set Expanded = true and PreventCollaps = true.

The first time you visit the RadPageView containing the RadPanelBars, this seem to work as the RadPanelBars are expanded. However, if you click back and forth on the RadTabStrip (changing RadPageViews), you will soon find that all RadPanelBars have collapsed, despite the fact that they should not be able to do so. If you expand them on the page, you can not collapse them again (other than repeating the above described method).

It seems like this must be due to a bug in the RadPanelBar, as the Expanded = true and PreventCollaps = true should prevent any collapse, right?

 

[improwise]

Also, this knowledgebase article must be faulty:

http://www.telerik.com/support/kb/aspnet-ajax/panelbar/preventing-a-radpanelbar-panelitem-from-collapsing.aspx

As it claims you prevent collapse by setting PreventCollaps = false, which seems very strange.

[improwise]

If we set EnableViewState to false on the RadMultiPage, it seems to solve (or rather work around) this bug as the RadPanelBar is now always expanded, but of course, there are other drawbacks to this...

[Nikolay Tsenkov]

Hi Patrik Johansson,

Could you, please, post an example that will reproduce the behavior?
Thanks!


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Unfortunately, I don't think I can do that as I would have to post to much code to make it runnable. We currently worked around it by removing the RenderOnlySelectedPage on the RadMultiView, which will of course mean that each RadPageView wont reload at all unless we tell it to. This will probably work in this case, as the number of tabs are quite limited, but it's not an optimal solution.

[Nikolay Tsenkov]

Hi Patrik Johansson,

The problem is that I have tested the scenario and it doesn't reproduce at my end.
That is why I need an example that will enable the possibility of debugging this issue.


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Any news on this? This must be a bug as the RadPanelBar is by default expanded (expanded = true) and we never collaps it, still, the second time you access the usercontrol containing it, it is collapsed always. What could cause it to collapse when we do everything we can to have it expanded? I mean, with Prevent Collaps it should never collaps even if we tried to make it, even less when we don't.

[improwise]

This has to be a bug, we modified our code and added a:

    protected void radPanelBar_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        radPanelBar.Items[0].Expanded = true;
    }

And we can see in the debugger that expanded gets set to false, besides having this declaration:

<telerik:RadPanelBar ID="radPanelBar" Runat="server"
    Width="100%" onload="radPanelBar_Load">
    <Items>
        <telerik:RadPanelItem runat="server"
            Text="My text"
            Owner="radPanelBar" Expanded="True" Selected="True">

[Nikolay Tsenkov]

Hello Patrik Johansson,

This would happen only if the item is empty. Then logically it can not be expanded (no content).
Also - there is a strange property that you use (Owner) which is not part of the interface of RadPanelItem.


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Well, the problem is that the PanelItem does indeed contain items, which you can see if you manually expand the collapsed PanelBar. And the Owner owner property was added by your designer, it is not something we have added (or even know what it is or use), but I do agree with you, its existence is strange and when trying to reproduce it being added again using the latest version of your controls, we can't.

[Nikolay Tsenkov]

Hi Patrik Johansson,

Could you, please, test using the latest version of RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX the problematic scenario?
Please, let me know how did that went.


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Hi Telerik,

When you say latest release, do you refer to 2011.1.315.40 (which we have used since it was released) or some later internal build?

[Nikolay Tsenkov]

Hi Patrik Johansson,

I apologize, but I am confused. What exactly do you mean by this "its existence is strange and when trying to reproduce it being added again using the latest version of your controls, we can't."?

If you are able to reproduce the problem, please, send us a sample which will reproduce it at our end. There is no other way to go about this problem since we are not able to reproduce it.


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Small update, we decided not to user the RadPanelBar at all as we don't feel we trust it 100% in its current implementation.

[improwise]

Any news on this? We are still having massive problem with the RadPanelBars which we have not yet had a chance to remove, the PreventCollapse just isn't working as it seems, even more strange, the RadPanelBar collapses even if we havn't asked it to on postback.

Something is very strange with the Rad designer it seems, we keep getting stuff like:

Owner="radPanelBarCustomerUser"

in the mark-up code and I am 110% sure we did not put it in there. This is also in other items like:

<telerik:RadComboBoxItem runat="server" Owner="radComboBoxXXX"
                                        Selected="True" Text="Alla" />

[Nikolay Tsenkov]

Hi Patrik Johansson,

"We are still having massive problem with the RadPanelBars which we have not yet had a chance to remove, the PreventCollapse just isn't working as it seems, even more strange, the RadPanelBar collapses even if we havn't asked it to on postback."
 - As I previously said:

• "If you are able to reproduce the problem, please, send us a sample which will reproduce it at our end. There is no other way to go about this problem since we are not able to reproduce it."

"Something is very strange with the Rad designer it seems, we keep getting stuff like:
Owner='radPanelBarCustomerUser' in the mark-up code and I am 110% sure we did not put it in there."
 - I was not able to reproduce this.


Regards,
Nikolay Tsenkov
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Having just upgrade to the latest version of the ASP.NET AJAX we notice that this but is STILL there. Sometimes the RadPanelBar shows up as collapsed, even thought we have set expanded=true, selected=true and preventcollapse=true. If you expand it yourself by clicking on it in the webpage, it will open and display the contents, so the contents is obviously there. And this doesn't occur every time, but only sometimes. 

Any hopes of having this bug fixed finally so that we don´t have to put this into our code behinds whenever using RadPanelBar?
   
protected void radPanelBar_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // This is necessary becase of a bug in the Telerik control
        radPanelBar.Items[0].Expanded = true;
    }

[Kate]

Hi Patrik,

I understand that isolating the issue might not be so easy task but I am not quite sure that we would be able to help you if we can not replicate the problematic behavior on the first place.

All the best,
Kate
the Telerik team

[improwise]

I think we have finally been able to track down this bug, it has to do with the visible=true setting.

We have a page with a RadGrid containing a Select button, which then executes:

    protected void radGridMessage_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        radPanelBarMessageDetails.Visible = true;
    }

which is supposed to show the radPanelBarMessageDetails which contains a DetailView (for testing purposes, we've added a static label as well just to make sure it always has content). Every second time we click the Select button, the radPanelBarMessageDetails  will be collapsed, despite the PreventCollapse = true. 

Normally, the radPanelBarMessageDetails  would have visible=false by default (to not show a message until the user has clicked a message), that is why the SelectedIndexChange set it to vissible. However, if we just change the visible to true instead of false in the markup, it will work as it should every time

Summary, with visible=false, the PreventCollapse property does not seem to work as it should. 

With visible=false for radPanelBarMessageDetails  in markup:

http://screencast.com/t/07iyTQL1qw

With visible=truefor radPanelBarMessageDetails  in markup:

http://screencast.com/t/kWzll7w4oBcF

[Kate]

Hello Patrik,

Thanks for clarifying. I tested the issue that you describe using the code in the attached runnable page and the 2012.1.215.35 version of the the Telerik controls. However, I am not able to replicate the behavior that you describe. Please take a look at the page that I attached. Can you modify it in a way that it demonstrates the issue and send it back to me so I can test it locally and determine the reason for the problematic behavior?

Regards,
Kate
the Telerik team

[improwise]

Thanks for looking into this. Please try to implement it using a RadGrid and a Select button which trigger SelectedIndexChanged() to see if that is related to the problem, as that is how it looks in our setup.

[Kate]

Hello Patrik,

I noticed that you also have ajax on the page and since there might be various settings causing your issue the best way I could help you is that you open a support ticket and send me the modified page with the replicated issue. Thus I could inspect it locally and see what is causing the problematic behavior instead of trying to reproduce it on the first place.

Greetings,
Kate
the Telerik team