How do I stop HtmlEditorExtender encoding html in postback?

Question

I have a user control that contains a text box, an HtmlEditorExtender, and a button. The user control is loaded into a parent page using LoadControl(). Whenever I click on the button to post the form, any formatted text in the text box gets encoded, which is not what should happen.

---

For example, if I load the text control with

<p>test</p>

after I click on the button to post the page, the text returned by the .Text property is

<p>test</p> 

If I post a second time, it is further encoded as:

<p>test</p> 

and so on.

---

I confirmed that the control works fine (does not encode the HTML) if I add the user control at design time to the page. This issue only happens if I use LoadControl() to load it.

I have spent days trying to resolve this issue, but I just can't tell if I am doing something wrong, if the control is simply incompatible with this scenario, or if there is a reliable workaround.

---

Here is a simple example:

User control:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="TestDynamicRichTextControl.ascx.cs" Inherits="Sample.forms.TestDynamicRichTextControl" %> 
<asp:TextBox ID="txtBody" runat="server" Columns="80" Rows="15" TextMode="MultiLine"></asp:TextBox> 
<ajaxToolkit:HtmlEditorExtender ID="heeBody" runat="server" TargetControlID="txtBody"> 
    <Toolbar> 
        <ajaxToolkit:Bold /> 
        <ajaxToolkit:Italic /> 
        <ajaxToolkit:Underline /> 
    </Toolbar> 
</ajaxToolkit:HtmlEditorExtender> 
<br /> 
<asp:Button ID="btnTestPartialPostback" runat="server" Text="Test Partial Postback" onclick="btnTestPartialPostback_Click" /> 
<asp:Label ID="lblResult" runat="server"></asp:Label> 

User control code (BaseUserControl extends System.Web.UI.UserControl and declares Initialize()):

public partial class TestDynamicRichTextControl : BaseUserControl 
{ 
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) 
    { 
    } 

    public override void Initialize() 
    { 
        txtBody.Text = "<p>test</p>"; 
    } 

    protected void btnTestPartialPostback_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) 
    { 
        lblResult.Text = DateTime.Now.ToString(); 
    } 
} 

The main page contains this placeholder:

<asp:PlaceHolder ID="PlaceHolder1" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder>

The code of the main page:

public partial class TestDynamicControl : System.Web.UI.Page 
{ 
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) 
    { 
        PlaceHolder1.Controls.Clear(); 
        BaseUserControl formUc = (BaseUserControl)this.LoadControl("forms/TestDynamicRichTextControl.ascx"); 
        PlaceHolder1.Controls.Add(formUc); 

        if (!IsPostBack) 
            formUc.Initialize(); 
    } 
} 

Answer 1

The response to this question seems to be a decent workaround. When you get the text out of the editor, use HtmlDecode to convert it:

    String fixedText = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(txtBody.Text);

I'll go ahead and post this on your codeplex case also. (I assume it's yours.)