Adding controls to the HTMLGenericControl

Question

I have a set of UL elements set to runat="server" in VB.NET. I am trying to load them all into a HTMLGenricControl by creating an array of them in the code behind. So that I can then just past the one HTMLGenricControl array object into my method for processing. Otherwise my method has about 18 parameters, one for each UL control. I wondered if anyone had any decent examples on how to achieve this.

Here is a couple of controls.

        <nav id="my-menu1"><ul id="ul1" runat="server"></ul></nav>        
        <nav id="my-menu2"><ul id="ul2" runat="server"></ul></nav>
        <nav id="my-menu2"><ul id="ul3" runat="server"></ul></nav>

Then in code behind Page load something like this...

    Dim objUl As HtmlGenericControl = New HtmlGenericControl("ul")
    objUl.Controls.Add(ul1)
    objUl.Controls.Add(ul2)
    objUl.Controls.Add(ul3)


    MyMethod(objUl)

Otherwise it is something like

    MyMethod(ul1, ul2, ul3)

Somehow in above code I am going slightly wrong. Was hoping someone could advise me on my lack of understanding.

Answer 1

add to list of Control to hold different types of controls (button, label, ..) or make it specific to HTMLGenricControl:

Dim GenericControls as new List(of Control)
GenericControls.add(ul1)

pass by reference to some method

Sub MyMethod(byref GenericControls as List(of Control)){
 For each c as Control in GenericControls
   Dim UL = Ctype(c, HtmlGenericControl )
 End for
end Sub