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How Can I use HTML Helper in asp.net? [duplicate]

I'm liking the Razor syntax that Microsoft has developed for inline coding in their WebMatrix product (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_WebMatrix).
Now that Visual Studio SP1 has RTM'd, is it possible (and/or planned) to enable the use of Razor syntax in ASP.NET Webforms?

We (the ASP.NET team) currently have no plans to support the WebForms page model using Razor syntax. Furthermore it is unlikely that we would ever seriously consider this as the models are too different to make the two work together.

You can use Razor pages without MVC; this is called ASP.Net WebPages.
Just add .CSHTML files to a normal ASP.Net 4.0 project.
I explained how this works in my blog.

You could possibly integrate it using the RazorEngine available from Codeplex. It allows you to process razor outside of MVC. Though you don't get all the features you get from the MVC version of Razor, such as #Html and #Url and others.

I dare say that Microsoft have considered it, but there is no official word on the subject. Since you are not supposed to have C# or VB code in the ASPX file, you have to wonder about the point of adding Razor support to Web Forms. The code behind would still be a (partial) class file. You wouldn't put Razor there any more than you would put it in a class file in Web Pages or MVC. And swapping Server Controls and all that good declarative stuff for Html Helpers removes one of the key reasons for going the Web Forms route, IMO.

This really isn't that difficult to do. Working on it right now. Grab RazorEngine from CodePlex. It lets you compile Razor cshtml/vbhtml files into a class at runtime.
You can then take that class, and use it from a ASP.Net server control, inside its Render method. This is a great way to get HTML out of the body of a server control. Much, much cleaner.
Now, you can also add some methods that you can invoke from Razor. For instance, add something like RenderChild. Additionally, you could set the Server Control itself as the Model available to Razor. You could then invoke into the server control. Including doing something like grabbing one of it's child controls and invoking Render.

ITextSharp page break creates an unwanted empty page

Background
I've a document that I build up throu various steps.
In one of these steps I add content to a Document from a chapter structure I've built containing the content.
This part in particular is very simple. It simply adds the content to the document.
Sometimes my structure specifies there should be a page break, and thus document.NewPage(); gets executed. This works, usually.
We are using ITextSharp version 5.3.2.0. ( A few month old or so)
The problem
When document.NewPage() get's executed and is very close to the end of the document or perhaps just entered a new page I am guessing, I get an empty page with the rest of my content being added on the following page.
Only having the Document to work with at this point I can not seem to find a way how to determine if document.NewPage() should be skipped or not to work around this bug or issue.
Thanks

This can be caused by three things:
You're using a very old version of iTextSharp. If so, please upgrade to a more recent version of iTextSharp. We don't fix obsolete versions.
You're using page events and contrary to what is advised in the documentation, you're adding content in the onStartPage() method.
You're using writer.setPageEmpty(false); which is kind of asking iText to consider an empty page as not being empty.
In all other cases, the newPage() method is ignored if you're currently on a page that doesn't have any content.

Converting MVC2 to MVC3 and pages to Razor

First and foremost reason to update big old MVC2 project for me is the Razor engine. Now following this instructions
I successfully converted the project without yet touching .aspx and .ascx files.
1) Can you guys tell me now, how can I convert Master pages to layouts, and start converting pages and user controls without breaking any existing MVC2 pages? (it's a large project, can't do them all at once). Can I somehow use old master pages as layouts in razor pages?
I converted a couple of partial aspx pages which don't use a master page.
I used Telerik's aspx2razor converter - it helps although you still have to do a lot of manual revisions.
2) Is there any other better tool out there?

You can use Razor and the normal views side by side. By default, MVC3 looks for razor first, then will fall back to the WebFormsViewEngine.
So you should have no problem, and you can tackle each page in time as you see fit.

ASP.NET C# Properly Generating HTML for Page

I realize this is probably a fundamental thing I should know but I am self-teaching myself C# and asp.net so I am a little lost at this point.
I right now have 2 pages. One is an .aspx (with aspx.cs file included) that is blank and html is generated for it from a Page_Load function in the cs file. The HTML is very simple and it is just an image and some text.
The second file is a shtml file which has lots of things, serverside includes, editable and noneditable areas. I want to put my webapp into this file. My asp.net app uses Response.Write to just write out the html. This does not flow well with this page as all that does is write it at the top of the page which is because it is ran first and generates it at the top.
How can I make it to where I can generate HTML code inside the page, like within a specific DIV so it does not mess up the page. Where would a starting point be in learning how to do that.
I should note that I do not need any interaction from the user. All of this should generate right away.

I think you need to read up on some basic ASP.Net documentation and tutorials. Response.Write is not the correct approach - you need to understand how the ASP.Net page lifecycle works and how WebControls are used to render the html.
ASP.Net tries to abstract away having to create your html manually for the most part.

So if i have understood the questions correctly.
You already have an existing page/application (the shtml file) that you want to extend with some new ASP.NET components by including output from the ASP.NET page in the existing page?
This is as not something that is out of the box "supported" by ASP.NET and you "won't" be able to execute the aspx page using SSI. But you can do the opposite, an ASP.NET page does support SSI. So if you are not using any other scripts in the shtml file this might be a solution.
Otherwise the only common solutions would be either to use an AJAX framework and let it call the ASP.NET from within the existing pages or to use an iframe solution. In both cases the client will be resposible for making the calls to the ASP.NET pages and merging the results.
And then you have a issue with controlling the output from the ASP.NET page?
The Polymorphic Podcast has a good article on Controlling HTML in ASP.NET WebForms .

You can add a Literal control to the page inside the div:
<div>
<asp:Literal ID="litMarkup" runat=server />
</div>
then in your code-behind:
litMarkup.Text = "<strong>Your markup</strong>";

I don't know how well this would work for you, but could you try using an iframe to house the ASP.NET page? This should keep it in the specified region and not overwriting your shtml file. It may be something to think about.

If it is necessary that you generate your HTML output from C# code, and you would use this in more than one place, I think you may be thinking of something like what are called ASP.NET Custom Controls (not to be confused with "User Controls"-- though you probably could put together a solution with those as well, using a Literal control as another person suggested). The MSDN documentation would be a good starting point. In general, though, the writing-out-HTML-yourself-from-code model (like you would with, say, CGI applications), is not the usual ASP.NET model of development, as it largely defeats the point of using ASP.NET at all. You'd mostly want to do this sort of thing if you are writing your own web control, though this might be exactly what you are doing (hard to tell from the description).

.Net include page - like php require

Is there a c# command to include another web page - the equivelant of the php require?
I know how to do server side includes but was looking for something code based.
Thanks
Thanks for the answers all. I think I might need to explain further. I have several sub-pages that I will be loading during the use of the site using an xmlhttp request. Initially however, I need to load the starting sub-page before the user has interacted with the site. I could do this with js, but that would require more overhead in server calls from the client for the initial load. I already use master pages, but this is a little different. Since this is done serverside initally but must remain able to be refreshed clientside, I don't think I can make these pages into controls can I? I am pretty new to .Net so I may be making my life harder than I need to.

I think what you may be looking for are MasterPages and UserControls. A MasterPage allows you to define a basic template that is "filled in" by the implementing pages by having the implementing page add it's own content to the ContentPlaceHolders defined on the MasterPage. A UserControl is a re-usable piece of markup and associated code that you can reference from your mark up or add dynamically to the page being rendered in codebehind.

The way ASP.NET is structured, you shouldn't really need to do this. Code is compiled, so all of your classes and functions should be accessible simply by referencing the relevant assembly or namespace, without having to include individual code files.
You might be looking for user controls, which allow you to create fragments of markup with their corresponding code behind, and then reference these in your page.

With ASP.NET MVC it looks like this:
<% Html.RenderPartial("LogOnUserControl"); %>
This way you can put another UserControl on your page.

you can use include in asp.net like php include from below mentioned code
<!--#include file="include/leftmenuscript.inc"-->
You can also use a master page, as someone stated below, which flushes out your basic layout and lets you define content place holders, which other pages can implement and fill in the content. Master pages are a popular approach for defining page elements that are consistent across all pages, like your nav there (also things like headers, footers, common scripts, CSS, etc.).