Master Pages in ASP.NET Whidbey

Master Pages in ASP.NET Whidbey

Michele Leroux Bustamante
IDesign: .NET Design and Business Solutions

October 2003

Applies to:
Microsoft ASP.NET Whidbey
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003

Summary: Learn about the Master Pages feature in ASP.NET Whidbey and the new level of productivity it brings to development. (29 printed pages)

Download MasterPagesSample.msi.

Contents

Life Without Master Pages
Introducing Master and Content Pages
A Little Peek under the Hood
Overriding Master Content
Default Master Pages
Location, Location, Location
Yes, You Can Nest Them
Conclusion

Note This document was developed prior to the product's release to manufacturing and, as such, we cannot guarantee that any details included herein will be exactly the same as those found in the shipping product. The information represents the product at the time this document was published and should be used for planning purposes only. Information is subject to change at any time without prior notice.

If I had to isolate which Microsoft ASP.NET 1.x features gave me the greatest improvement in productivity I would have to say ASP.NET and HTML controls along with User Controls. Coming from a C++ background I had spent very little hands-on time with Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) since most of my Web development efforts were focused on component development for the server-side or plugging in to Microsoft Internet Explorer and DHTML object models. I was in for a pleasant surprise when ASP.NET first released, to be able to drag and drop controls into a page designer and see automatically generated HTML. And just when I thought I might have to do some reading to learn how to tweak the resulting layout, I see property window integration and HTML view Microsoft Intellisense also providing selections to generate syntax for style settings and other properties. The rich features provided by ASP.NET server controls such as data-bound controls and validators also significantly reduced the coding effort required to produce common Web page functionality, so that large blocks of HTML and client script were replaced with simple <asp:xxx> control tags. User Controls provided a different type of productivity benefit, by supplying us with an easy way to design consistent looking headers, footers and other reusable HTML parts for a consistent site layout, not to mention the ability to fragment cache those parts.

This newfound productivity makes it possible for developers to focus on the business problems they are trying to solve. It enabled them to write code behind a functional Web page, allowing Web designers to improve on the presentation. Even I was able to become a pseudo Web designer (minus the graphical talent which I have to admit I lack), but the upcoming version of ASP.NET, code name ASP.NET 'Whidbey' (after the code name for the upcoming release of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET), and Master Pages (among many new features) will bring a new level of productivity to the mix.

Life Without Master Pages

In order to realize the value of new features, it helps to discuss the reasoning behind them. I'm going to start by briefly taking you through a few traditional approaches to designing an ASP.NET Web site today, with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, and I'll place emphasis on some of the pain points that will be removed with Master Pages. I have provided two sample projects that implement User Controls with two different approaches.

To design a Web site with a consistent look and feel you'll typically leverage user controls to design common interface elements. As you add new Web forms to the project, you can easily drag and drop these reusable controls so that each page shares these common elements. In my first example, using Visual Studio .NET 2003 I created a new project, and began by building a header and footer user control to be used on each page. The header control, hdr.ascx, contains a menu and header graphic with a logo. In the designer it looks like this:

Figure1. Design view for the hdr.ascx user control

Then I created a footer control, ftr.ascx, to look like this:

Figure 2. Design view for the ftr.ascx user control

I can place these controls onto each new Web form using drag and drop which generates the control registration tag and an instance of the control on the page. To refresh your memory, after adding a new Web form to the project, and placing the header and footer, it looks like this in the designer:

Figure 3. Before adding content, the design view of a new page consuming the header and footer controls would look something like this.

The HTML source includes two registration tags, and entries within the <form> tag for each control.

<%@ Page language='c#' Codebehind='default.aspx.cs'

AutoEventWireup='false'

Inherits='DotNetDashboard.ASPNET.UserControls._default' %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix='uc1' TagName='hdr' Src='hdr.ascx' %>

<%@ Register TagPrefix='uc1' TagName='ftr' Src='ftr.ascx' %>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN' >

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<title>.NET Dashboard</title>

7.1'>

content='https://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5'>

<LINK href='<% =Request.ApplicationPath %>/portal.css'

type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>

</HEAD>

<body>

<uc1:hdr id='Hdr1' runat='server'></uc1:hdr>

<uc1:ftr id='Ftr1' runat='server'></uc1:ftr>

</form>

</body>

</HTML>

To insert content between the header and footer, I usually start by dropping an HTML table from design view to provide structure, then drop page controls and content within. So, after adding three pages to the application (default.aspx, register.aspx and about.aspx) I modified each <form> section to include content in a consistently formatted table, something like this:

<uc1:hdr id='Hdr1' runat='server'></uc1:hdr>

<TABLE width='95%' align='center' border='0' cellspacing='5'

cellpadding='5'>

</TABLE>

<uc1:ftr id='Ftr1' runat='server'></uc1:ftr>

</form>

With the help of a style sheet each page has a consistent looking header, footer, and style, with individual content as shown in the figures 4, 5 and 6:

Figure 4. Default.aspx using header and footer user controls

Figure 5. Register.aspx using header and footer user controls

Figure 6. About.aspx using header and footer user controls

The beauty of this architecture is that I can edit any of the common user controls and have changes automatically reflected in each Web form that consumes them. Furthermore, if I restructure hdr.ascx so that menus are separated into a child user control, there is no impact on pages that reference the header. Sounds good, right? I thought so, too. Until after building an entire site map for a client using these techniques, I was given a new set of graphics from the Web designer that significantly altered the layout required for each page. Most creative Web designers don't design using squares and rectangles. They like to see overlapping graphical regions to make the site look more interesting. That means layering graphics and cutting them into rectangular parts that can be worked with in the HTML source. So, not only did I have to modify the contents of the header and footer controls, I also had to modify how they were positioned within each page frame, and I had to add some new user controls for containing sidebar content.

In my example above, I created a simple header and footer whose HTML tags are simply placed above and below the content are (as shown in Listing 1). The only effort in page layout is that for the content area. To add a sidebar that will have an alternate background color, new content, and that will span the height of the browser window I have to add table structure to organize the user control elements and page content. In my UserControlsV2 project sample, I demonstrate this by adding a sidebar control to the layout that allows users to subscribe to the newsletter. Consider the following desired result:

Figure 7. Runtime view of Register.aspx after modifying the page layout to include a sidebar on the right

This seemingly small change requires me to modify some existing user controls, create a new sidebar user control, and edit each page to massage the organizational layout. That last part is what really hurts. After a few pages worth of copying and pasting the new HTML layout and moving existing content into this new layout, you can imagine that I may introduce some errors even on a good day. And I get to do it all over again any time a significant change occurs with the site presentation. Furthermore, regression testing in this type of scenario literally requires testing every page in the site because I touched each page. So, if this is a pain for a three-page code sample, imagine the impact with a significant Web site.

My new HTML source layout looks like this:

<table width='100%' height='100%' border='0' cellpadding='0'

cellspacing='0'>

<TBODY>

<uc1:hdr id='Hdr2' runat='server'></uc1:hdr>

</td>

</tr>

<td>

</td>

<td align='right' valign='top' class='PaneRight'

height='100%' nowrap=true width='225'>

<uc1:sidebar id='Sidebar2'

runat='server'></uc1:sidebar>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<uc1:ftr id='Ftr2' runat='server'></uc1:ftr>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Using Visual Studio .NET 2003 there is a workaround for this challenge I present to you. As you might guess, you can reverse the roles of the Web Form and the User Control. You can create a single Web form that injects dynamic user control content as the user navigates. There are several issues with this approach. For example, you have to come up with a new resource navigation architecture since you will no longer have a unique *.aspx resource for each page. This also means that the browser URL may not indicate a resource name that matches the content being displayed. The following table provides an example for how the three pages from my previous example might be requested in this new scenario:

Old Resource	New Resource	Functionality
https:///default.aspx	https:///default.aspx	Placeholder control has default content for home page.
https:///register.aspx	https:///default.aspx?page=register	Load register.ascx user control into default.aspx placeholder control.
https:///about.aspx	https:///default.aspx?page=about	Load about.ascx user control into default.aspx placeholder control.

You can provide the user with a URL scheme consistent with the previous example if you create a custom HTTP handler factory to control how a request for *.aspx are handled, and make use of some combination of Server.Transfer and Server.Execute functionality to achieve variations on how the resulting output is generated. If the core benefit of editing just a few *.aspx page templates, and replacing some part of the content at runtime is your priority, this is an acceptable solution with our current ASP.NET architecture. But, I'm sure you'd agree that all that up front work to make it possible is just wrong because is shouldn't be so complicated.

Master Pages were designed to make it easy to edit page templates in a single location, without modifying how we work with the page model and without the trickery on the back end. Now I'll show you how ASP.NET Whidbey is going to knock your socks off with greater productivity.

Introducing Master and Content Pages

ASP.NET Whidbey introduces a solution for the challenges I mentioned above by creating two new concepts: Master Pages and Content Pages. Given my introduction so far, you can imagine how this is going to play out right? You'll create a Master Page for the site layout and design and create Content Pages for each content resource, somehow connecting them to the Master Page. As users navigate to *.aspx resources in your site ASP.NET will serve up the requested page displaying it within the layout of its associated master, and le voila.

Figure 8. Creating a new Master Page using the new item templates

Creating a New Master Page

After creating a new Web Site using Visual Studio 'Whidbey' for ASP.NET you will have a single default.aspx file to begin with, and an empty Data subdirectory. If your intention is to standardize the look and feel of each page in the site (the point of this article) you'll start by adding a new Master Page to the Web site. Among several new options in the Add New Item dialog you'll see you have a choice between adding a new Master Page or a new Master Page using Code Separation.

Master Pages have a *.master extension and, like Web Forms, contain top-level HTML elements such as <html>, <head>, <body> and <form>. The new Master Page will include default HTML source similar to this:

<%@ master language='C#' compilewith='site.master.cs'

classname='ASP.site_master' %>

<html>

<title>Untitled Page</title>

</head>

<body>

<asp:contentplaceholder id='ContentPlaceHolder1'

runat='server'>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

</form>

</body>

</html>

Of note is the new <% @master %> declaration and the new ASP.NET <asp:contentplaceholder> control tag. Clearly the <%@ master %> declaration, similar to the <% @ Page %> declaration for a Web Form identifies the resource type and supports several attribute settings. If you request code separation when creating this declaration will include compileWith and classname attributes to indicate the source file and the partial class definition to compile with this resource:

<%@ master language='C#' compilewith='site.master.cs'

classname='ASP.site_master' %>

A ContentPlaceHolder control was also generated within the <form> tags of the Master Page's HTML source:

<asp:contentplaceholder id='ContentPlaceHolder1'

runat='server'>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

</form>

This control will be used to place dynamic content from individual content pages that use this master. If we take a look at the designer view of this new master, it looks like this before we add content:

Figure 9. Design view of a new Master Page prior to modification

So, let's design the site. The first change I'm going to make to my new master is to edit the <head> section to add a title representative of my site, add some other <meta> tags for site description and keywords, and also insert a <link> tag to pull in the style sheet. The edited <head> section now looks like this:

<title>.NET Dashboard Newsletter</title>

development, database, programming, Web sites, Michele Leroux

Bustamante, IDesign, UCSD Extension, training, Microsoft, .NET

Framework' >

the needs of .NET developers, providing cool tips for the advanced

programmer, and keeping you informed on what's happening with

.NET!' >

</head>

These settings will apply to every content page that I associate with this master. Next, I'm going to design the HTML layout. The content placeholder will eventually contain dynamic page content, so I'll design the Master Page's layout around this control to build a consistent look and feel for each page. As you would with Web Forms you can use the designer interface or directly edit HTML source. Here I added header and footer HTML above and below the content placeholder control within the <form> tags, to include a top-level menu, a graphic header, and a footer area:

<table id='tblHeader' class='HeadBg' width='100%'

cellspacing='1' cellpadding='1' border='0'>

<tr>

<table id='tblMenu' class='OtherTabsBg' cellspacing='1'

cellpadding='1' border='0'>

<tr>

<td class='OtherTabs'><a

href='Default.aspx'>Home</a>

 | </td>

<td class='OtherTabs'><a

href='register.aspx'>Register

</a> | 

</td>

<td class='OtherTabs'><a

href=About.aspx>About Us</a></td>

</tr>

</table>

</td>

</tr>

<asp:image id='imgLogo' runat='server'

imageurl='images/dndhdr.jpg'>

</asp:image>

</td></tr>

</table>

<asp:contentplaceholder id='pageContent' runat='server'>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

<table id='tblFooter' width='100%' cellspacing='1'

cellpadding='1' border='0'>

<tr>

2003 Michele Leroux Bustamante, all rights

reserved  

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</form>

The only change I made to the content placeholder was to provide a new identifier for the id attribute setting it to 'pageContent'. So, with the help of my trusty style sheet, the designer view for this Master Page now looks pretty impressive.

Figure 10. You can place default content in a Master Page's ContentPlaceHolder control from design view.

In design view the content placeholder is presented as a container for default content for each page, but any default content you supply here can be overridden at the page level. You can place any arrangement of ASP.NET controls, HTML controls and user controls within content placeholder area. For now, I will place some literal text indicating this content should be overridden:

<asp:contentplaceholder id='pageContent' runat='server'>

h1>Page content goes here!</h1>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

Before we dive deeper into this process, let's see how we add content pages to the Web site that will use this new Master Page.

Adding Content Pages

Visual Studio 'Whidbey' provides a few new templates for adding Content Pages to the Web Site. Instead of using the Web Form item template you will select one of the Content Page templates (with or without code separation):

Figure 11. Selecting one of the Content Page templates (with or without code separation)

Content pages still have the *.aspx file extension, but the new item templates insure that the HTML source defaults to something appropriate for a content page.

To complete the process of adding a new content page, you will be invited to associate a master. In the alpha release of Visual Studio 'Whidbey,' a dialog box appears allowing you to make a selection from a list of existing masters in your open project. In my example so far there is only one to choose from:

Figure 12. When adding content pages to an application, the alpha release asks you to select from a list of Master Pages in your application in a subsequent dialog.

Adding a content page to the Web site actually adds a new *.aspx resource with the appropriate settings to make it a valid content page. For my new register.aspx page I requested code separation so the HTML source looks like this:

<%@ page language='C#' master='~/site.master'

compilewith='register.aspx.cs' classname='ASP.register_aspx' %>

No default HTML content is added, save the <%@ Page %> declaration. Once again the compilewith and classname attributes indicate the file and partial class to compile with this Page object. In addition, a new master attribute exists to specify the master filename to link to this page. But check out the designer view. Since the master already has content and a style sheet, you can see a muted version of the master content surrounding the area where this page's content will go.

Figure 13. Content page displaying the master's layout around the Content control at design time

At design time a content page will display the master's layout around the Content control where you design page specific content, and show default content from any of the Master Page's content placeholders until you begin to customize.

Although the default HTML source does not have any content, a Content control is presented in design view. This control appears in the same location as where the ContentPlaceHolder control is located in the master layout. A list of Common Content Tasks allows you to default to the master's placeholder content or begin with an empty content area. From the ToolBox you can begin designing this content area, and you'll notice you cannot drop controls outside this content control. Assuming I copy the design for my register.aspx page in my earlier example, design view looks like this when I'm done:

Figure 14. Designer view of a completed design for the registration.aspx page's content.

Here is its HTML source:

<%@ page language='C#' master='~/site.master'

compilewith='register.aspx.cs' classname='ASP.register_aspx' %>

<asp:content id='regContent' contentplaceholderid='mainContent'

runat='server'>

<h1>.NET Dashboard Event Registration</h1>

<p>For more information about our upcoming events, please enter your e-

mail and provide a password and we will send you

an e-mail to our private events directory.

Click Submit to complete the process.</p>

<tr>

<div style='DISPLAY: inline; WIDTH: 70px; HEIGHT: 15px'

ms_positioning='FlowLayout'>

E-mail:</div>

</td>

<td >

<asp:textbox id='txtEmail' runat='server'

width='300px'>

</asp:textbox>

</td>

<td >

<asp:requiredfieldvalidator id='valEmailRequired'

runat='server' errormessage='E-mail is a required

field.' controltovalidate='txtEmail'>

*</asp:requiredfieldvalidator>

<asp:regularexpressionvalidator id='valEmailFormat'

runat='server' errormessage='Invalid e-mail format.'

controltovalidate='txtEmail'

validationexpression='w+([-+.]w+)*@w+([-

.]w+)*.w+([-.]w+)*'>

*</asp:regularexpressionvalidator>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<div style='DISPLAY: inline; WIDTH: 70px; HEIGHT: 15px'

ms_positioning='FlowLayout'>

Password:</div>

</td>

<td >

<asp:textbox id='txtPassword' runat='server'

width='300px' textmode='Password'>

</asp:textbox>

</td>

<td >

<asp:requiredfieldvalidator id='valPasswordRequired'

runat='server' errormessage='Password is a required

field.' controltovalidate='txtPassword'>

*</asp:requiredfieldvalidator>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<div style='DISPLAY: inline; WIDTH: 70px; HEIGHT: 15px'

ms_positioning='FlowLayout'>

Confirm Password:</div>

</td>

<td >

<asp:textbox id='txtConfirm' runat='server'

width='300px' textmode='Password'>

</asp:textbox>

</td>

<td >

<asp:requiredfieldvalidator id='valConfirmRequired'

runat='server' errormessage='You must confirm your

password.' controltovalidate='txtConfirm'>

*</asp:requiredfieldvalidator>

<asp:comparevalidator id='CompareValidator1'

runat='server' controltovalidate='txtConfirm'

errormessage='Passwords must match!'

controltocompare='txtPassword'>*

</asp:comparevalidator>

</td>

</tr>

<asp:button id='Button1' runat='server' text='Register

Now!' />

</td></tr>

<asp:validationsummary id='ValidationSummary1'

runat='server' />

</td></tr>

</table>

</asp:content>

The new ASP.NET Content control, identified by the <asp:content> tag, acts as a container for all HTML and controls for the content page. The IDE automatically places the HTML for all activities in design view within these tags. You'll also notice that Content pages cannot have standard HTML tags such as <html>, <body>, <head>, <form> outside the <asp:content> tag.

A Little Peek under the Hood

In my discussion so far, you can see that a number of new objects are being introduced to the page processing architecture, namely MasterPage, ContentPlaceHolder and Content types. Some of these types are accessible at runtime and some are not, but all of these new types have a purpose as the runtime generates the actual Page object to cache in server memory, and indirectly play a role in the process of rendering HTML output.

As I've mentioned, the MasterPage object is compiled from the combined content of the *.master resource and its code-behind file (if specified in the <%@ master %> declaration). The resulting System.Web.UI.MasterPage type actually inherits System.Web.UI.UserControl and inherits most of its functionality from that and other base classes up the chain. Master Pages contain zero or more ContentPlaceHolder controls which are responsible for rendering output from Content controls of requested content pages at runtime. When the MasterPage object is compiled its referenced user controls, ASP.NET server controls, and ContentPlaceHolder controls are also compiled and cached on the server. Each instance of System.Web.UI.ContentPlaceHolder within a Master Page acts as a naming container for the contents of requested page, but does not directly reference a Content control since this type is not part of the control tree at runtime. In fact, the ContentPlaceHolder will have a Controls collection that directly references actual controls generated from its associated Content control on the requested page.

The Page object has been extended to support Master Pages so that if a master is used the Page type will be generated to include a strongly typed reference to its Master Page through its Master property. In fact, the Controls collection of a content page now includes a single item-the same MasterPage reference. The MasterPage object in turn has a Controls collection that includes any HTML literals, user controls, and content placeholder controls as mentioned previously. The following diagram illustrates these relationships at runtime, based on my second project sample.

Figure 15. The hierarchy of access to the Controls collection within the Page, MasterPage, and its children in terms of runtime ownership and access

In summary, at runtime your page object can access the strongly typed master and any of its public properties. Likewise, the MasterPage along with most controls has a Page property from which it can reference the Page object for this request. You can leverage this and other available information through the MasterPage and Page object model to centralize common functionality for all pages sharing a master, by writing handlers for page events as part of the master's code base. The order of events begins with the topmost object in the page hierarchy, which means the Page object receives page events first, followed by the MasterPage, and then its contained user controls.

This control hierarchy is generated at runtime when ASP.NET combines the page and its master into a single page object that will be responsible for writing HTML to the response output stream. The default behavior of ASP.NET uses the PageHandlerFactory to drive processing for *. aspx requests. This is consistent with previous versions of ASP.NET, and is indicated as default configuration in the <httpHandlers> section of your machine.config file:

<add verb='*' path='*.aspx'

type='System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory' />

<add verb='*' path='*.ascx'

type='System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler' />

<add verb='*' path='*.master'

type='System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler' />

</httpHandlers>

Notice that Master Pages, along with user controls, are among resource requests that are rejected by the runtime, by passing those requests to an instance of the HttpForbiddenHandler object. PageHandlerFactory implements the interface IHttpHandlerFactory, and is responsible for returning an object that implements IHttpHandler and that knows how to process the requested resource and send the appropriate HTTP response. The Page object implements IHttpHandler and is the type that is returned by the PageHandlerFactory's GetHandler() method. You can read Inside IIS and ASP.NET for a backgrounder on ASP.NET 1.x modules, handler factories and handlers.

Requests for content pages are treated like requests for Web Forms, since they have the same file extension, however if a Master Page is specified the page build is handled differently since a merge between the Master Page and its content page will take place, ultimately returning a Page object that has a reference to its Master Page. Since this type is generated dynamically, the Master property of the page is strongly typed.

From a very high level, when a content page is requested the following things occur. The runtime checks the output cache to determine if the requested resource lives there, and returns that cached output in the response with no further processing. If the output cache does not contain the resource, the PageHandlerFactory is instantiated and the runtime calls its GetHandler() method. GetHandler() ultimately returns a compiled Page object representing the requested page resource. If the server has already cached this type and no source files have changed, the cached type is returned to handle processing the request.

Note Do not confuse the output cache which stores the HTML output for the requested resource, with cached server objects that have been previously JIT compiled.

If the page resource or any of its dependencies including the referenced master and other user controls have not been cached, they will be individually compiled and cached on the server. Ultimately the Page object is returned which will reference its master and other dependencies in the appropriate object hierarchy. The runtime calls the Page object's ProcessRequest() method which triggers a chain reaction driven by the Page object to write HTML from the hierarchy of masters, user controls, server controls and literal HTML to the output stream in the correct sequence. This is similar to how things were handled in past versions of ASP.NET but now a more complex hierarchy may exist with the existence of one or more Master Pages, with the merging process for masters and content, and with the choreography required for HTML output location with content placeholder and content controls. Of course, these details are encapsulated within participating objects and hidden from you.

Overriding Master Content

Although the primary use for Master Pages is to provide common content for all pages, it is feasible that some pages may want to customize some master content. For example, since content pages cannot include HTML elements such as the <head> section that contains title and other meta tags, the only way to customize those settings would be to somehow access them through the master. As I mentioned above, the Page object has access to the Master Page through its Master property or through the Controls collection. Consider the contents of my first project's <head> section in the site.master:

<title>.NET Dashboard Newsletter</title>

development, database, programming, Web sites, Michele Leroux

Bustamante, IDesign, UCSD Extension, training, Microsoft, .NET

Framework' >

the needs of .NET developers, providing cool tips for the advanced

programmer, and keeping you informed on what's happening with

.NET!' >

</head>

The Page object could use the Master property to access the HTML header and look for a <title> element to modify, but there is a much easier and more object-oriented approach. Since the Master property is strongly typed any public properties exposed by the MasterPage class, including those you create, can be early-bound. So if I create two string properties, Title and Keywords, along with their associated data members in the code-behind file:

protected String m_HtmlTitle =

'https://www.dotnetdashboard.net';

public String HtmlTitle

set

}

protected StringCollection m_keywords = new StringCollection();

public StringCollection Keywords

set

}

Additionally, here is a function that will build a keyword string:

public String GetKeywords()

,', nextString);

}

sb.Length = sb.Length - 1;

return sb.ToString ();

}

And it will update the site.master to use those members using rendering statements:

the needs of .NET developers, providing cool tips for the advanced

programmer, and keeping you informed on what's happening with

.NET!' >

<LINK href='<% =Request.ApplicationPath %>/portal.css'

type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>

</head>

I will now be able to access title and keywords through their respective properties from any page that references this master. When the master's HTML is rendered, it will render the current contents of each property as part of the header section. In the Page_Load for the content page I can modify these properties:

this.Master.HtmlTitle = '.NET Dashboard - About Us';

this.Master.Keywords.Add ('IDesign');

This approach provides a measure of control over which elements of the master can be easily updated with the provision of custom public properties. But, there is an alternative to this approach that is slightly more appealing and directly leverages the new page model. Since the <head> element can be run on the server, you can also embed a content placeholder within this element as shown here:

<asp:contentplaceholder id='headContent' runat='server'>

<title>.NET Dashboard Newsletter</title>

development, database, programming, Web sites, Michele Leroux

Bustamante, IDesign, UCSD Extension, training, Microsoft, .NET

Framework' >

the needs of .NET developers, providing cool tips for the advanced

programmer, and keeping you informed on what's happening with

.NET!' >

</asp:contentplaceholder>

</head>

As mentioned earlier, any content placed within a content placeholder of a Master Page will become default content for its pages. Used in this scenario, the default <head> section will be generated for all pages, unless overridden in the HTML source as shown here:

<asp:content id='newHeadContent' contentplaceholderid='headContent'

runat='server'>

<title>.NET Dashboard Newsletter - Registration</title>

development, database, programming, Web sites, Michele Leroux

Bustamante, IDesign, UCSD Extension, training, Microsoft, .NET

Framework, IDesign' >

the needs of .NET developers, providing cool tips for the advanced

programmer, and keeping you informed on what's happening with

.NET!' >

</asp:content>

Since the <head> element is not part of the design view for a page, you have to modify this content directly in source view. You'll also see in my sample project MyNewsletterV3, that I specifically break down the title and keywords part of the <head> element into separate content placeholders to make it possible to update fragments from each page. When I discuss nesting Master Pages below, I'll explain this example further.

Default Master Pages

I made a change between the samples MyNewsletterV1 and MyNewsletterV2 to move the Master Pages and user controls into a /templates subdirectory, to better organize the site as I added new pages. This meant that I had to edit each *.aspx page that referenced site.master and update the master file path in the <%@ page %> declaration. But, rather than updating the location I decided to use an alternate method for specifying the master for each page. Master Pages can be specified at the application level using the <pages> element of your web.config file. After adding the following element to the <system.web> section of my web.config file I have:

I was able to remove the master attribute altogether from each *.aspx page that formerly included one:

<%@ page language='C#' compilewith='register.aspx.cs'

classname='ASP.register_aspx' %>

With this default setting, any *.aspx resource that does not specify a master attribute in the <%@ page %> directive will automatically be assumed to use this master. Effectively, that means all *.aspx pages in the application directory will be treated as content pages which means that all content should be contained within the appropriate <asp:content> element. You can override the default master by providing a master attribute in specific pages. You can provide an alternate master or an empty string which will result in the *.aspx resource no longer being treated as a content page but as a traditional Web form:

<%@ page language='C#' master='' compilewith='register.aspx.cs'

classname='ASP.register_aspx' %>

Location, Location, Location

One of my pet peeves is the issue of handling relative paths. When you navigate between development, QA and production environments, you'll often find that relative paths that work perfectly well on production, and sometimes even QA, do not work on your development environment due to the location from which you run your code, and the setup of its virtual directories. An article I wrote, Organization Strategies: Handling Relative Paths in ASP.NET explains some workarounds using ASP.NET server controls which will give you some background on the issue. I mention this now, because those issues still exist with ASP.NET Whidbey (as of the alpha) and also because Master Pages introduce a new twist.

The Master Page is merged with the requested page at runtime, and the Page object is the primary resource. That also means that relative paths are 'relative' to the page, not to the location of the master. In my second example, I moved the Master Page and all user controls to a /templates subdirectory. Since they were originally located in the application root, all references to images and page links were relative to that root. So menus.ascx file specified the following page links:

<td class='OtherTabs'><a

href='Default.aspx'>Home</a> | </td>

<td class='OtherTabs'><a

href='register.aspx'>Register</a> | </td>

<td class='OtherTabs'><a href='About.aspx'>About Us</a></td>

And the new sidebar.ascx specified the following image button:

<input type='image' name='imgButton'

id='imgButton' src='images/btn-subscribe.gif' border='0'

/></TD>

The article I just mentioned explains why I cannot use the / character or ~/ character as a prefix, since that requires my development machine to point https://localhost to this application directory, rather than having a virtual application subdirectory such as https://localhost/MyNewsletter_V2. So, now that I moved the files to the /templates directory, I must find a way to refer to the /images subdirectory (for example) to properly load those files. One way to do this is to hard code the ../ prefix since I know it is one directory up the chain. Another way is to use a rendering statement such as shown above for the <link> element in the header:

<LINK href='<% =Request.ApplicationPath %>/portal.css'

type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>

The former technique will work only if my relative path is correct, the latter makes it possible for me to move the controls to any directory beneath the application root, and have it properly find things relative to that root.

As I was going through this process, however, I discovered an interesting twist. That is that the Master Page is actually loaded into the context of the requested page location, thus any reference to relative paths are actually relative to the location of the page. Furthermore, the user controls referenced by this master, though also located in the /templates subdirectory, because referenced by the Master Page also follow this rule. Of course the use of Request.ApplicationPath throughout would work regardless (at runtime) since it would dynamically return the correct relative path for the resource. In fact, the only way I can share a header control between masters and pages that are located in different directories, is to use the latter solution.

Yes, You Can Nest Them

In my final example, MyNewsletterV3, I show you how to use nested Master Pages to achieve a finer level of granular control over site templates. A corporate portal might have a common header and footer for the entire site, but have slightly different templates for inner content for individual departments. Each department may also host a large number of pages. Because masters can be nested, we are able to introduce layers of consistency and reusability while maintaining a level of control over what can be overridden by child masters and pages. To demonstrate this, I made a copy of MyNewsletterV2, and added two new masters to the /templates directory: departmentA.master and departmentB.master. The <%@ master %> declaration also has a master attribute allowing me to specify a parent master, so I can edit the HTML source of each new master setting the master attribute to site.master. The HTML by default will look something like this when I'm done:

<%@ master master='~/templates/site.master' language='C#'

compilewith='departmentA.master.cs'

classname='ASP.departmentA_master' %>

<html>

<title>Untitled Page</title>

</head>

<body>

<asp:contentplaceholder id='ContentPlaceHolder1'

runat='server'>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

</form>

</body>

</html>

I'm actually presented with Intellisense to provide the master name.

Figure 16. Masters can reference other masters by setting the master attribute of the <%@ master %> declaration.

The fact that these masters reference another parent master means that I can only place HTML content within a Content control, so I'll have to modify the above HTML to remove all content and create a content control for each of the master's content placeholders I'd like to override, as is done with content pages. In this example, departmentA.master and departmentB.master will override the header logo for all pages that use them by providing and populating a Content control for the logoContent content placeholder. For example:

<asp:content id='newLogoContent' contentplaceholderid='logoContent'

runat='server'>

<asp:image id='imgLogo' width=% runat='server'

imageurl='../images/dndhdr3.jpg'>

</asp:image>

</asp:content>

The site.master makes it possible to override individual contents of the HTML header section by providing content placeholders for the title and keyword tags:

<asp:contentplaceholder id='titleContent' runat='server'>

<title>.NET Dashboard Newsletter</title>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

<asp:contentplaceholder id='keywordsContent' runat='server'>

development, database, programming, Web sites, Michele Leroux

Bustamante, IDesign, UCSD Extension, training, Microsoft, .NET

Framework' >

</asp:contentplaceholder>

the needs of .NET developers, providing cool tips for the advanced

programmer, and keeping you informed on what's happening with

.NET!' >

<LINK href='<% =Request.ApplicationPath %>/portal.css'

type='text/css' rel='stylesheet'>

</head>

This means that pages or masters that use site.master can selectively override each part of the header, without providing public properties and adding rendering statements as I discussed earlier. But, even if the new masters decide not to override these settings in the parent master, if you want to allow pages using departmentA.master or departmentB.master to override these settings we have to provide a content placeholder in the new master that can be overridden. Since content placeholders are not 'passed through' (at least, not in the 2.0 alpha) I achieve this by providing content placeholders within the content controls for the site.master content. In both child masters, I provide new values for title and keywords, and allow content pages to override title further by supplying content placeholders around my new default content:

<asp:content id='newTitleContent' contentplaceholderid='titleContent'

runat='server'>

<asp:contentplaceholder id='titleContent' runat='server'>

<title>.NET Dashboard Newsletter - Department B</title>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

</asp:content>

<asp:content id='newKeywordsContent'

contentplaceholderid='keywordsContent' runat='server'>

Services, development, database, programming, Web sites, Michele

Leroux Bustamante, IDesign, UCSD Extension, training, Microsoft,

.NET Framework' >

</asp:content>

For page content, I must also pass through the ability for pages to override by supplying content placeholders:

<asp:content id='newPageContent' contentplaceholderid='pageContent'

runat='server'>

<asp:contentplaceholder id='pageContent' runat='server'>

<h1>Page content goes here!</h1>

</asp:contentplaceholder>

</asp:content>

Conclusion

From this article, and from the three sample projects provided here demonstrating the use of Master Pages, you should gain a pretty clear picture of this new and exciting feature for ASP.NET Whidbey. Master Pages make it possible for you to design a set of consistent looking interfaces for one or more pages in your Web application, with the ability to layer this for departmental hierarchies. While you can continue to leverage User Controls for fragment caching and segmented reusability, the beauty of being able to aggregate them so that modifications to the overall site layout no longer require editing individual pages throughout the application is priceless.

About the Author

Michele Leroux Bustamante is an Associate of IDesign Inc., a Microsoft Regional Director, a member of the International .NET Speakers Association (INETA) and a published author. At IDesign, Michele contributes her diverse background to .NET training and high-end corporate consulting. She focuses on the C# language, .NET Framework architecture, ASP.NET, and Web Services; and she also provides guidance to technology executives. Contact her at mlb@idesign.net or visit IDesign: .NET Design and Business Solutions to find out more. Also, visit .NET Dashboard to subscribe to her monthly .NET newsletter

Master Pages in ASP.NET Whidbey

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