jQuery Validation plugin in ASP.NET Web Forms

Here are examples of using the jQuery Validation plugin with WebForms and emulating the concept of validation groups with it. It actually works pretty well once you smooth out a couple issues.

$("#signupForm").validate({
        rules: { 
                <%= tbUsername.UniqueID %>: {
                        required: true,
                        minlength: 2
                }, },
        messages: { 
                <%= tbUsername.UniqueID %>: {
                        required: "Please enter a username",
                        minlength: "username at least 2 characters"
                }, 
        });

<asp:TextBox ID="tbUsername" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>

You can check xVal.webForms here: http://xvalwebforms.codeplex.com/

Tested what Darin Dimitrov said and it works perfectly, but if you don't want to set a specific class to each of your fields, you can use jQuery selectors:

$('form').validate();
$('input[id$=Username]').rules('add', { 
    required: true, 
    messages: { 
        required: 'Some custom message for the username required field' 
    } 
});

<input name="ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$tbUsername" type="text" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_tbUsername" />

The best solution is use "<%=tbUsername.UniqueID %>" instead of tbUsername in jQuery rules.

$("#signupForm").validate({
rules: { 
    "<%=tbUsername.UniqueID %>": {
        required: true,
        minlength: 2
    }, },
messages: { 
    "<%=tbUsername.UniqueID %>": {
        required: "Please enter a username",
        minlength: "username at least 2 characters"
    }, 
}.

I recently posted a patch file for xVal.WebForms which resolves the multiple forms issue relaying on the well known ASP.Net validation Group. This patch also supports the ASP.Net CausesValidation property.

Yo can read about it here: http://cmendible.blogspot.com/

A great way to do this is to use:

<%= textbox.Name %> or <%= textbox.ClientId %> whenever you need to reference a server item.

i.e.

var phoneNumb = $('#<%= tPhone.ClientID %>').val(); 

or

$("#signupForm").validate({
        rules: { 
                <%= username.Name %>: {
                        required: true,
                        minlength: 2
                }, },
        messages: { 
                <%= username.Name %>: {
                        required: "Please enter a username",
                        minlength: "username at least 2 characters"
                }, 
        }.

.......

For SharePoint 2010 I found with loading different usercontrols as views (via ajax) that this worked if you move javascript into a library and can't use server tags for the control id's like this:

e.g #<%= tPhone.ClientID %>

$('input[id$=tPhone]').rules('add', 
{      
 required: true,      
 messages: 
 {          
  required: 'Some custom message for the username required field'      
 }  
});

Further to this if you dynamically load a user control via Ajax then you cannot use $(document).ready You will have to encapsulate the jQuery in a function library if its on the User Control at (server side event) page load its fine but in the scenario its loaded via Ajax with the Update Panel it will not dance.

I have not tried loading usercontrols via jQuery yet, this looks heavy and appears to load the whole page albeit perhaps slightly quicker or not.

Tests comparing loading techniques showed the Update Panel was as fast and resulted in the same or smaller page sizes than other techniques and basically loaded quicker or much more data as quick or quicker.