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Tip #40: Did you know…How to scope master pages?

  • Artikel

Master page is a  template page that can be used to create a consistent layout for your application. First you create a master page to define the look & feel of the application and then you create the content pages that contains the content.

You can attach these content pages to the master page at the following three levels:

  1. Page Level: You can use the page directive on each of the content pages

    <@Page Language="VB" MasterPageFile="~/Main.master"%>

    Or programmatically set it in the content page Page_PreInit Event

    for VB
    Protected Sub Page_PreInit(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.PreInit
            Me.MasterPageFile = "~/Main.master"
    End Sub

    for C#
    protected void Page_PreInit(Object sender, EventArgs e)
            {
                this.MasterPageFile = "~/Main.Master";
            }

  2. Application Level : By specifying the following in web.config file, all the aspx files will use the master page as Main.master (If  aspx file does not contain a Content control, the master page won't be applied to it )

    <configuration>
        <system.web>
                   <pages masterPageFile="~/Main.master" />
       </system.web>
    </configuration>

    [You will notice that the pages node already exists in web.config, add the masterPageFile attribute to this node]

  3. Folder Level: By specifying the following in web.config all the aspx files in a specified folder (admin) will use the master page as Admin.master (If  aspx file does not contain a Content control, the master page won't be applied to it )

    <configuration>
        <location path="admin">
        <system.web>
                   <pages masterPageFile="~/Admin.master" />
       </system.web>
       </location>
    </configuration>

    [you will notice system.web already exists, leave it as it is & add a new node 'location' with the above content under 'configuration']

By setting master page programmatically or thru web.config you may not get the Visual Studio master page design time features.

 

Deepak Verma
SDET | Visual Web Developer

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 31, 2008
    PingBack from http://www.codedstyle.com/tip-40-did-you-know%e2%80%a6how-to-scope-master-pages/

  • Anonymous
    December 31, 2008
    thanks.i didn't know the folder masterpage item.if you add an article about acces masterpages methods from child it would be good.

  • Anonymous
    January 02, 2009
    Great article!  But where were you 6 months ago when I was trying to figure this out?!

  • Anonymous
    January 03, 2009
    Absolutely Rocking post! Just the juicy tidbit I needed to jumpstart my current project.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2009
    I tried at application level works but child page does not recognize the content control at design time.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2009
    Thanks Sanjita for your feedback, the above post says "By setting master page programmatically or thru web.config you may not get the Visual Studio master page design time features.", this might get working for web.config in a future release.

  • Deepak
  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2010
    The design time features do not work in VS 2008, either.  Bummer.