Loading Images/FlashBanners in Rotator from DataBase

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The most common use of the a rotator control is to rotate images and flash banners on a webpage. These images and Flash banners are sometimes loaded from a database. The following project demonstrates the use of r.a.d.rotator to display either images, flash banners, or a combination of the two and assumes you use virtual paths from your database table pointing to the excact locations of the image files in your app.( You will find an example attached at the bottom of this description.

STEPS:

1. Set your images and/or flash banners in the right directory of your web application.
2. Set up your database and Images/Flash Banners table.
   Lets say you have an 'Images' table in your database as in our case, you could have an ImageAddress and Extension column.
3. Create asp panels within the rotetor frametemplate to hold :
   
   a) the flash banner embed object and
   b)the images from the database
   
   and databind to the ImageAddress field (note that the ItemDataBound event will be used).
   In this example, we demonstrate how to alternate between images and flash banners
   If you just need images only or just flash banners, you can just use one panel for either the images or the flash banners.
   So we have the following in our aspx:

   <radr:radrotator id="rotator1" runat="server" datasourceid="SqlDataSource1" frametimeout="2050"

   height="60px" transitioneffect="gradientwipe" width="468px" onitemdatabound="rotator1_ItemDataBound">

   <frametemplate>

   <div style="text-align: center">

   <asp:panel id="flashPanel" runat="server" visible="false">

   <object id="coolspot" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://active.macromedia.com/flash4/cabs/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0"

   height="60" width="800">

   <param name="movie" value='<%# Page.ResolveUrl((string)DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "ImageAddress")) %>'>

   <param name="quality" value="high">

   <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000">

   <embed bgcolor="#000000" height="60" name="coolspot" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"

   quality="high" src='<%# Page.ResolveUrl((string)DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "ImageAddress")) %>'

   type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="800">

   </embed>

   </object>

   </asp:panel>

   <asp:panel runat="server" id="imagePanel" visible="false">

   <img id="Images" runat="server" alt="" class="RotatorImage" src='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "ImageAddress") %>' />

   </asp:panel>

   </div>

   </frametemplate>

   </radr:radrotator>

   
   
4. Hook to the ItemDataBound event and add the following in the codebehind to check the file extension for whether to display an Image or a Flash Banner. (This can be easily done to display only one or the other):

5. For alternating images/flashbanners:
   C#

   protected void rotator1_ItemDataBound(object sender, Telerik.WebControls.RadRotatorItemEventArgs e)

   {

   string extension = (string)DataBinder.Eval(e.Item.DataItem, "Extension");

   if (extension == ".swf")

   {

   Panel flashPanel = (Panel)e.Item.FindControl("flashPanel");

   flashPanel.Visible = true;

   }

   else

   {

   Panel imagePanel = (Panel)e.Item.FindControl("imagePanel");

   imagePanel.Visible = true;

   }

   }

   VB

   Protected Sub rotator1_ItemDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Telerik.WebControls.RadRotatorItemEventArgs)

   Dim extension As String = DirectCast(DataBinder.Eval(e.Item.DataItem, "Extension"), String)

   If extension = ".swf" Then

   Dim flashPanel As Panel = DirectCast(e.Item.FindControl("flashPanel"), Panel)

   flashPanel.Visible = True

   Else

   Dim imagePanel As Panel = DirectCast(e.Item.FindControl("imagePanel"), Panel)

   imagePanel.Visible = True

   End If

   End Sub

   **The checks are only necessary when alternating between images and flash banners. Otherwise you just use one panel.

QUICK NOTES:

The Page.ResolveUrl method is used where we cast the object value of the flash banner to a string as return value:
C#

VB