Setting triggers on controls inside templated parents

When one wants to indicate clearly that a control is to perform an asynchronous or a synchronous postback, one should use the Triggers collection of the UpdatePanel. Of course, I am assuming you have an ASP.Net Ajax application and you are stuck on how to indicate the same thing on controls that are insides templated controls like DataGrid, DataList, GridView, etc.

The solution is to get a reference to the page ScriptManager then use the method RegisterPostBackControl on your postback control. You get a reference to the page ScriptManager with the static ScriptManager.GetCurrent(Page); method. You get the control you need inside the templated control Item/RowCreated event with a e.Item/Row.FindControl("postbackControlID");

So, the end result is:

ScriptManager sm=ScriptManager.GetCurrent(Page);
Control ctl=e.Item/Row.FindControl("MyControl");
sm.RegisterPostBackControl(ctl);

Of course, if you want it the other way around (set the controls as Ajax async postback triggers) use the RegisterAsyncPostBackControl method instead.

Special thanks to Sim Singh from India for asking me to research this.