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Creating Web Sites with ASP.NET 2.0

Creating Web Sites with ASP.NET 2.0

rom basic, static HTML pages to totally data-driven and data-centric Web applications, the demands on a Web developer are much more complex and demanding than they were just a few years ago. The advent of social networking sites like MySpace, which is written in ASP.NET 2.0; interactive mapping sites; and sites streaming full-motion video has required developers to adapt and change. One of the best tools to use to build these types of web applications is Microsoft’s ASP.NET 2.0. This article delves into some of the more interesting features of ASP.NET 2.0 and shows you how to begin using ASP.NET 2.0 on your next web project.

The ASP.NET 2.0 feature list is impressive. It ranges from high-level issues such as the project structure architecture all the way down to web control features such as the Focus method, which causes the cursor to appear in a control. ASP.NET 2.0 offers features that every ASP.NET developer will find useful, including:

  • Multiple project types
  • A wide variety of web controls
  • Project folders to help organize files
  • Enhanced code-behind model
  • Master pages and themes
  • Site navigation features
  • Enhanced data access features
  • Membership and personalization
  • Portal architecture including web parts
  • Site administration tools

In this article I’ll take a detailed look at a number of these features including Visual Studio 2005 enhancements, the code-behind model, the web controls, the master pages feature, the themes and skins feature, and the site navigation features.

The advent of social networking sites like MySpace, which is written in ASP.NET 2.0; interactive mapping sites; and sites streaming full-motion video has required the Web developer to adapt and change with the times.

Creating a Web Site
With the release of Visual Studio 2005 SP1, Microsoft offers web site developers a choice between two different project types: the Web Site and the Web Application. The Web Site project really is not a project at all since Visual Studio 2005 solution and project files are not created. In the Web Site model all pages and code are stored in a directory, much like the traditional ASP model. When it comes to deployment, the easiest approach is to copy all of your files to your web server and everything compiles on demand. You could also use the aspnet_compiler.exe utility to precompile your site into a binary file and deploy to your web site.

The Web Application project is an implementation of the type of web project available in Visual Studio 2003 and consists of a solution (.sln) and project files (.vbproj). It is the result of Microsoft listening to the ASP.NET 2.0 developer community and responding to the needs of the community. It provides the benefit of generating a single assembly in the local /bin folder ready for deployment. This model also makes it easier to incrementally deploy changes made to your site. If you are converting a web application from Visual Studio 2003, this is the project model you are going to want to adopt. I use this model with most of the web applications I develop.

To create a web site with the Web Application project model, launch Visual Studio 2005 and from the File menu option choose New Project? and the New Project dialog box will appear (see Figure 1). Choose ASP.NET Web Application, the name of the project, the location, and the name of the solution if you select to have one created or specify if you want the new project added to the current solution. Click OK and Visual Studio will create the .sln and the .vbproj files (because it’s a Visual Basic project), a default.aspx page, and a web.config file.

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Figure 1: The New Project dialog box specifies the name, location, and language for your web application.
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Figure 2: The New Web Site dialog box specifies the name, location, and language for your web site.

To create a web site with the Web Site project model, launch Visual Studio 2005 and from the File menu option choose New Web Site and the New Web Site dialog box will appear (see Figure 2). Choose ASP.NET Web Site, the location of the web site, the language used, and lastly, the name of the web site.

I don’t need to explain the name of the web site and the language you want to use, but I’ll discuss other options. The location dropdown offers three options: File System, HTTP, and FTP. Creating a File System Web site is the simplest approach because your web site can reside in any directory on your hard drive or shared network drive. The advantage of a File System web site is that you can run it using Visual Studio 2005’s built-in development web server. You don’t need IIS (although you can use IIS to run a File System web site by creating a virtual directory for the directory in which you are storing the web site).

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Figure 3: The web site location can be an FTP folder on a distant server.

Choosing HTTP as the location will direct Visual Studio 2005 to automatically create a web site in an IIS virtual directory. This saves you the step of creating the virtual directory in IIS, but obviously you need to have access to an IIS server.

Choosing FTP as the location allows you to actually store and even code your application on a remote web server somewhere. If you’ve selected this option, click the Browse button to display the Choose Location dialog box and then select a directory, an IIS virtual directory, and then enter the parameters required to log on to an FTP location (see Figure 3).

After you have decided on the name, location, and language for your new web site, click the OK button to create the site. Visual Studio will create a Default.aspx page, web.config file, and an App_Data folder. One primary difference between the Web Site project model and the Web Application project model is that in the Web Site model settings are stored in a web.config file as opposed to a project file.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published in the September/October 2007 issue of CoDe Magazine, and is reprinted here by permission.

Controls, Partial Classes, and Smart Tags
To add controls to a page you can drag and drop them from the Toolbox (Design mode) or you can manually edit the HTML in source mode. The Design and Source tabs along the bottom of the page designer are used to jump back and forth between the two modes. The ASP.NET 2.0 Toolbox has new controls since ASP.NET 1.0/1.1 and existing controls have been better categorized (see Figure 4).

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Figure 4: The Toolbox contains all the controls categorized by function.
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Figure 5: Use the “Add New Item” dialog box to add items to your web project.

The code-behind model uses a feature in the .NET Framework 2.0 called partial classes. Partial classes are classes defined in two or more source files and combined at compilation time to create a single class.

To add items to the web site, right-click the web site name and select “Add New Item” from the shortcut menu. The Add New Item dialog box (see Figure 5) shows the types of things you can add to your web site. Note the “Place code in separate file” check box on the Add New Item dialog box. It represents the code-behind model implemented in ASP.NET 2.0.

The code-behind model uses a feature in the .NET Framework 2.0 called partial classes. Partial classes are classes defined in two or more source files and combined at compilation time to create a single class. Prior to ASP.NET 2.0, control declarations were stored in the Form Designer-generated section of code-behind files. ASP.NET 2.0 stores the control declarations in a separate file from the file where you create your own code-behind classes. To make sure that the control declarations do not get out of sync, the declarations for the web controls are not generated by Visual Studio 2005 at design time but are created by the ASP.NET runtime during compilation.

Throughout this article I’ll make references to smart tags, which you can think of as a list of the most commonly used properties or tasks for a control. You access the smart tags for a control by clicking the glyph (small black triangle) in the upper right-hand corner of the control.

System-Defined Folders
Table 1 illustrates some special system-defined folders.

Table 1. System-Defined Folders: ASP.NET uses these system-defined folders to hold specific portions of applications.

Folder Name

Description

App_Code

Reusable, non-page classes that are dynamically compiled at run time and made available to the application as a single assembly. Examples include utility classes and business objects.

App_Data

Designed to contain file-based databases used by the application including SQL Server Express (.mdf) and Access (.mdb) databases.

App_WebReferences

Stores Web service references used by the application.

App_Browsers

Stores browser definition files used by ASP.NET to identify individual browsers and determine their capabilities.

App_Themes

Stores all of the specific themes and skins for the application.

You store all of your non-page classes such as utility classes, business objects, or any other classes you may have created in the App_Code folder. To add an App_Code folder to your project, right-click the project name and select “Add ASP.NET Folder” and then select App_Code. ASP.NET monitors the folder, so whenever you change a class in the App_Code folder, ASP.NET will dynamically recompile the class and automatically make it available to the entire site. You can even place classes coded in different languages in subdirectories under the App_Code directory. Each subdirectory needs to be registered with a particular language in web.config.

The App_Data folder makes database integration easy. The App_Data folder holds file-based data stores including SQL Server Express 2005 database files (.mdf files), Access database files (.mdb files), Excel worksheets, XML files, and so on. The primary advantage of using App_Data is that files placed there are not downloadable if a request is made for the file over the wire.

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Figure 6: You can elect to set the current page or a specific page as the start page in the Start Options in the project’s Properties dialog.

ASP.NET’s compilation model offers a number of benefits including the ability to run the current form each time you run the site. A project’s Start Options, available on the project’s Property Pages dialog box, specifies, among other options, the ability to launch the current page or a specific page each time the site is launched (see Figure 6). See the article by Rick Strahl referred to in the “Reading Suggestions” sidebar.

The ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool page (see Figure 7) makes it fairly easy to administer your web site. You can launch it by selecting the ASP.NET Administration icon on the top of the Solution Explorer (see Figure 8). You can manage all aspects of your site with this tool including security, application settings, and providers. The security features include being able to add and delete users, assign folder permissions, add and delete user roles, and assign users to specific roles. The application settings include being able to add and remove application variables, configure email settings, take the site offline, configure the debugging and tracing options, and specify which page to use as the default error page.

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Figure 7: The ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool provides site configuration features.
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Figure 8: You access the Web Site Administration tool from the Solution Explorer.

ASP.NET 2.0 Web Controls
I’d like to now spend a little time discussing some of the important web controls in ASP.NET 2.0, including the BulletedList, HiddenField, Multiview, Wizard, and ImageMap controls.

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Figure 9: The BulletedList control makes creating manually maintained and data-bound lists easy.

BulletedList Control
The BulletedList control provides a quick and easy way to develop both bulleted and numbered lists. You can manually enter a list (see Figure 9) or you can use data binding to populate the items in the list. The BulletStyle property offers a number of options for bulleted and numbered lists.

HiddenField Control
Storing data in hidden fields on a page is nothing new?and is in fact a very common technique to save state data across posts back to the server. ASP.NET 2.0’s HiddenField control provides the ability to create a hidden field on a page and use it to store data to be sent back to the server on a post back.

FileUpload Control
Many web sites provide the ability for users to upload files. For example, an employment recruiting firm may allow people to upload their resume, or a printing company might allow customers to upload their print jobs. Microsoft’s ASP.NET team designed the FileUpload control to make this an easy feature to add to your site. The FileUpload control is comprised of a textbox to allow the user to type the file information and a Browse button that allows the user to go search for the file. To get the file uploaded you must add a separate button that results in a postback and executes the code to upload the file:

   Protected Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, _      ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click      Dim FilePath As String = _         Request.PhysicalApplicationPath & "Uploads"      If (FileUpload1.HasFile) Then         Dim FileName As String = Me.FileUpload1.FileName         FilePath += FileName         Me.FileUpload1.SaveAs(FilePath)         Label1.Text = "Your file was saved as " & _            strFileName      Else         Label1.Text = "Please select a file to upload."      End If   End Sub

In the preceding code, the FilePath variable will hold the folder location to which the file will be uploaded. If there is a value in the textbox portion of the FileUpload control, indicated by the HasFile property, then the file name is combined with the file upload path. Next, the SaveAs method for the control is executed thereby actually uploading the file.

MultiView and Wizard Controls
The MultiView and Wizard controls both allow you to create multiple sections of controls on the same page. The Wizard control has features built in to facilitate its operation such as built-in Next and Prev buttons. With the Multiview control the responsibility to add and code the navigation falls to you.

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Figure 10: MultiView controls contain individual View controls.

MultiView Control
As the name implies, a MultiView control is a container control hosting a number of View controls. Each View control is an independent section that in turn hosts its own controls (see Figure 10). Use MultiView controls to replace multiple forms related to a specific function, such as you’d find in an online shopping cart. Instead of having multiple forms for each action in a shopping cart, you could use a single MultiView control and simply control which views a page displays at specific times. The ActiveViewIndex property holds the index of the currently active view. Assigning ActiveViewIndex to 0 displays the first view in the control. Programmatically assigning a value to the ActiveViewIndex property, or calling the SetActiveView method and passing a view object reference, is one technique for displaying a specific View control:

   Me.MultiView1.ActiveViewIndex = 1   Me.MultiView1.SetActiveView( _      Me.MultiView1.Views(1))
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Figure 11: The NextView CommandName property value advances to the next view.

You can also specify which view to display using a technique that doesn’t require writing any code at all. For example, you can add a CommandButton and set its CommandName property to NextView or PrevView thereby causing the MultiView control to automatically switch views when a user clicks the button (see Figure 11). If you prefer jumping to a specific view instead of moving forward or backward one view at a time, you can set the CommandButton’s CommandName property to SwitchViewByIndex and its CommandAgrument property to the index of the view to switch to. To switch to a view by its ID instead of index position you can set the CommandButton’s CommandName property to SwitchViewByID and its CommandArgument property to the ID of the view.

The ViewState for a page with a MultiView control automatically stores the data for all of the controls for each view. Since all the controls are on the same page, accessing properties and methods for a control in a view is no different than accessing properties and methods for a control not contained in a view.

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Figure 12: Use the Wizard control to implement step-by-step processes.

Wizard Control
The Wizard control works much like the MultiView control in that they both contain sections to place controls in. While the sections in a MultiView control are views, the sections in a Wizard control are called steps. These steps are stored in the WizardSteps collection. The primary difference between the two controls is that the Wizard control can display links to all of the steps in a sidebar on the left-hand side of the control (see Figure 12). The DisplaySideBar property controls the display of the sidebar.

You can add or remove steps from a wizard control by selecting the Add/Remove WizardSteps option from the smart tag Wizard Tasks menu.

Each step is configured to be of a certain type. The StepType attribute determines how the step behaves and which buttons appear on the step (see Table 2).

Table 2. StepType Attribute Settings: The StepType attribute accepts these values.

Attribute

Description

Auto

This is the default setting. It automatically sets the first step as a Start step, the last as a Finish step, and all others as Step steps.

Complete

Specifies that the step has no sidebar or navigation buttons. Displaying a completion message is a common usage for this type of step.

Finish

Specifies that the step has a Previous button and a Finish button.

Start

Specifies that the step does not have a Previous button and does have a Next button.

Step

Specifies that the step has a Previous button and a Next button.

Master pages provide the ability to define page templates on which you can base other pages.

Based on the value of a step’s StepType property, the built-in Next, Previous, Finish, and Cancel buttons control all the page-by-page navigation tasks automatically. Setting the DisplayCancelButton property to True causes the Cancel button to be displayed. Clicking the Cancel button causes the CancelButtonClick event to fire. You can set the value in the ActiveStepIndex property to manually select the active step. You can code event handlers for a number of Wizard events such as ActiveStepChanged, NextButtonClick, PreviousButtonClick, and SidebarButtonClick.

ImageMap Control
HTML has supported image maps for what seems like hundreds of years, and ASP.NET 2.0 supports them in the form of the ImageMap control. Just in case you’re unaware of what an image map is and how it works, image maps contain clickable regions called hotspots. A developer can configure each hotspot to respond when clicked on by a user. ASP.NET 2.0’s ImageMap control supports three different types of hotspot objects: CircleHotSpot, RectangleHotSpot, and PolygonHotSpot. Unfortunately Visual Studio 2005 does not provide an editor to easily define hotspot x and y coordinates, so you need to use an external graphics program.

You use the ImageURL property to determine the image to display in the control. You add hotspots by clicking the ellipses button for the HotSpots collection and launching the HotSpot Collection Editor (see Figure 13).

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Figure 13: The HotSpots collection defines the clickable areas on an ImageMap.

Select the type of hotspot from the Add button dropdown and click Add. You use a single set of x and y coordinates to define Rectangle and Circle hotspots while you must use a string of x and y coordinates to define polygon hotspots. The HotSpotMode property specifies the behavior for the hotspot. The Postback setting causes a postback to occur, and the Navigate setting causes a redirect to the page specified in the NavigateURL property.

Master Pages
Master pages provide the ability to define page templates on which you can base other pages, giving you?in effect?visual web page inheritance. Pages based on a master page, referred to as a content page, do not technically inherit the master page settings. Instead, ASP.NET combines the master page and the content page to form the resulting page (see Figure 14). The power lies in the fact that visual and program code changes made to the master page are immediately reflected in the content pages based on the revised master. Web site projects can contain more than one master page and you can embed a master page within another master page.

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Figure 14: Master pages combine with content pages to form the rendered page.

A complete master page contains HTML, optional ASP.NET web controls, optional user controls, and one or more required ContentPlaceHolder controls. A ContentPlaceHolder control is a special ASP.NET web container control () responsible for containing the controls placed on a content web page. You will find the ContentPlaceHolder control in the Standard section of the Toolbox. You can place one or more ContentPlaceHolder controls on a master page. All content on a content form is restricted to one of the ContentPlaceHolder controls defined on the content page’s master page. The master page content on a content page is grayed out and not editable from within the content page. The only live areas available in the designer are the ContentPlaceHolder controls defined in the master page.

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Figure 15: Select the Master Page item type to create a master page.

To create a master page you simply create a new page of type master page (see Figure 15). If you look at the HTML source for the master page you’ll see the @Master directive, which defines the master page. The ASP.NET page parser uses the @Master tag attributes to create and compile the page:

   

The attributes for the @Master should look familiar. You typically see these same attributes on the @Page directive.

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Figure 16: A master page is comprised of HTML, web controls, and one or more ContentPlaceHolders.

Just because creating the master page is easy that doesn’t mean getting to the final layout is. This is where the talented graphics people come in handy. Unfortunately for this article you’re stuck with my graphics skills. In Figure 16 and Listing 1 you can see that the page contains a table for layout, some simple background colors, a company logo, and some text. You should note the key item in the HTML code?the .

I have only one ContentPlaceHolder on my master page at the moment. I could have added more but one will do for now. With the master page created it’s time to move on to creating the content Web Forms based on my master page.

To create a content page based on a master page you can simply click a checkbox and select the master page to use. I deleted the Default.aspx created when I created the project since I want to use Default.aspx as the name of my first content page. Go ahead and add a new Web Form by right-clicking on the project name to display the shortcut menu and select “Add New Item.’ Select Web Form from the list of installed templates, enter the name of the form, Default.aspx in this case, and check the “Select master page” checkbox (see Figure 17). Click Add to display the “Select a Master Page” dialog box, which lets you select the master page to use with the new content page. The new content page will display, and the content inherited from the master page will appear grayed out and disabled (see Figure 18).

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Figure 17: Check the “Select master page” checkbox to create a content page.
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Figure 18: Master page content is disabled while designing the content page.

Click the Source tab on the bottom of the design surface to reveal the HTML source for the page:

         

The MasterPageFile attribute on the @Page directive signifies which master page the current page works with. As you can see, there isn’t much there. Key elements are the MasterPageFile argument in the @Page reference and the control. The controls define where to display content for the page and are directly tied to the specific ContentPlaceHolder control on the master page through the ContentPlaceHolderID property.

You can add content to a control by dragging and dropping controls into the control or manually via HTML coding. Launch the project to see how the master page will look when it renders.

Now that the fundamentals regarding how things look are out of the way, let me tackle a few coding issues you may run into. For example, master pages support the same events that a regular page supports, which means you can add code to the event handler for the Load event on the master page. Yes, you can add code to the same event handler in the master as well as the content page. Which code runs? The answer is both.

Event firing order becomes critically important when you add event handling code to master pages and the content forms based on them. The following events occur when ASP.NET renders a page. I’ve listed these events in the order in which they occur.

  • Content Page Pre Initializes
  • Master Page Child Controls Initialize
  • Content Page Child Controls Initialize
  • Master Page Initializes
  • Content Page Initializes
  • Content Page Initialize Complete
  • Content Page Pre Loads
  • Content Page Loads
  • Master Page Loads
  • Master Page Child Controls Load
  • Content Page Child Controls Load
  • Content Page Load Complete
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Figure 19: The page event firing order determines when specific events will be raised.

In my example for this article I created the EventFiringOrder.aspx form containing a single label to help demonstrate when events occur. I added code to the appropriate event handlers in both the CoDeASPNET20 master page (see Listing 2) and the EventFiringOrder.aspx content page (see Listing 3). When you launch the form you can see the order in which the events occurred (see Figure 19).

Another issue related to working with master pages is: How do you programmatically access controls located on the master page from within a content page? The Master object provides a reference to the master page and is used to access master page attributes. Suppose you want to manipulate the value displayed in a textbox located on the master from within the content page. One approach would be to use the FindControls method on the Master object to locate a reference to the textbox:

   Protected Sub Page_LoadComplete( _      ByVal sender As Object, _      ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _      Handles Me.LoadComplete         Response.Write(         "EventFiringOrder.aspx Load Complete
") Me.Label1.Text = _ CType(Master.FindControl("Textbox1"), TextBox).Text End Sub

While this approach works, it is late bound, meaning that you don’t get IntelliSense assistance and it is not strongly typed. Alternatively, you can create a property on the master page that references the textbox and access the Text property from within the content page:

   Partial Class WhatsNewIn20      Inherits System.Web.UI.MasterPage         Public Property DateTextBox() As TextBox         Get            Return TextBox1         End Get         Set(ByVal value As TextBox)            TextBox1 = value         End Set      End Property   ...

To reference properties on the master page from the content page, you need to add the @MasterType directive to the content page:

      

To access the public properties on the master page from the content page you just use the Master object and reference the property as you would any other property exposed by the Master object:

   Protected Sub Page_LoadComplete( _      ByVal sender As Object, _      ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _      Handles Me.LoadComplete         Response.Write(         "EventFiringOrder.aspx Load Complete
") Me.Label1.Text = Master.DateTextBox.Text End Sub

So how do you specify the master page to use at run time? You can change the MasterPageFile attribute of the @Page directive at design time to specify which master page to use. That is great at design time but what if?based on some criteria only available at run time?you want to specify which master page to use? Knowing the content page events and their firing order comes into play here. The content page’s PreInit event fires first, and at that point there will not yet have been any master page activity. Setting the content page’s MasterPageFile property in the PreInit event gets the job done:

   Me.MasterPageFile = "MasterPage3.master"

Themes and Skins
You just saw that master pages provide the ability to control the layout and common content for the pages in your web site. Themes provide the ability to control the appearance of the controls in your site through the use of visual style template files.

While the capabilities of master pages and themes do overlap somewhat, combining them can help you achieve the following objectives:

  • Build web applications with a consistent layout and control appearance across the site.
  • Provide the ability to quickly change the site layout and appearance by modifying template files.
  • Provide the ability to have the user choose their desired look from a number of appearance options.

By default, ASP.NET stores each theme’s .skin files in a folder located under the App_Themes folder. As a developer you can apply themes at the application, page, or control level. At the application level you specify themes in the web.config. At the page level you specify themes in the Theme attribute of the @Page directive. At the control level you specify themes with the SkinID property.

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Figure 20: The SmokeAndGlass theme has been added to the project.

Creating a theme from scratch that looks professional enough to use on a production site is not easy. Instead of creating a theme you can use one that ships with Visual Studio 2005 named SmokeAndGlass. I located the SmokeAndGlass folder on my machine at C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 8SDKv2.0QuickStartaspnetsamplessecuritylogincontrols_vbApp_Themes and copied it to the App_Themes folder for my project (see Figure 20). Next, I will create a page containing a few labels, textboxes, a Calendar control, and a couple of buttons. Without assigning any theme support to the page it looks fairly bland when I run it. While the page functions just fine, its appearance could use some help. To apply the SmokeAndGlass theme to my entire site you can add this snippet to the web.config file:

               

I am only interested in applying the theme to my page at this point, so I’ll add the Theme attribute to the @Page directive. I’ll set the Page’s Theme property on the Properties window:

   
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Figure 21: Here’s the web page at run time with the SmokeAndGlass theme applied.

Next I will run the page to see how it looks (see Figure 21). By adding and setting the Theme attribute for the page I get a noticeable change in the appearance of the controls on the page.

If I was interested in only applying the theme to an individual control I would set the SkinID property for the control to one of the values available in the dropdown.

You may be wondering what exactly is stored in a .skin file. A .skin file contains control definitions and style settings for the control. The code below shows a portion of the SmokeAndGlass.skin file reformatted for legibility. It contains the default style settings for the Label, Textbox, Button, and LinkButton controls:

            

You can add additional settings for an individual control by copying and pasting the initial definition, making the desired changes, and assigning a SkinID to the control. You can omit the SkinID property for a control definition to indicate that it is the default definition. If you do not set the SkinID property for controls added to a Web Form then the default definition for that control type will be assigned to the control. This is why a simple theme change can change the look and feel of the all the controls you have placed on Web Forms.

I’ve discussed how you can apply theme settings in the web.config file for site-wide application, at the page level through the use of the Theme attribute on the @Page directive, and by assigning the SkinID property of a control. You can also apply themes programmatically. To set the theme for a page at run time, use the following code in the page’s PreInit event handler:

   Protected Sub Page_PreInit( _      ByVal sender As Object, _      ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _      Handles Me.PreInit         Page.Theme = "SmokeAndGlass"   End Sub

If you just want to programmatically set the theme for an individual control you also do that in the page’s PreInit event handler. I have added another button definition to the SmokeAndGlass skin below; notice the SkinID has been assigned the value SAGButton:

   

Setting the SkinID for a specific button looks like this:

   Protected Sub Page_PreInit( _      ByVal sender As Object, _      ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _      Handles Me.PreInit            Page.Theme = "SmokeAndGlass"      Me.Button1.SkinID = "SAGButton"   End Sub

Running the form with the preceding code in place applies the default SmokeAndGlass control theme to all the controls except Button1, which uses the assigned SAGButton definition.

Site Navigation
ASP.NET 2.0’s site navigation features make it easy to add functionality that helps your users navigate your site. To implement these navigation features you’ll use an XML site map file containing the structure of your site. The structure of your site contains all of the pages in the site and how they relate to each other. To add a new site map to your site, select “Add New Item” from the project shortcut menu. Select Site Map from the Add New Item dialog box and accept the default name of web.sitemap (see Figure 22).

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Figure 22: Select Site Map on the Add New Item dialog to create a navigational site map.

The web.sitemap XML file contains two types of XML elements: a single siteMap and multiple siteMapNodes. Table 3 describes the structure and attributes of a siteMapNode.

Table 3. SiteMapNode Attributes: The table lists and describes SiteMapNode attributes.

Control

Description

url

Describes where the page is located in the Web site. If the file is located in the application root directory just use the file name (~/benefits.aspx, for example). If the file is located in a subdirectory beneath the application root directory, be sure to include the name of the subdirectory (~/members/reservations.aspx). Each url specified in the site map must be unique.

Title

Specifies the text that will appear in the menu.

Description

Specifies the tooltip text for the item (optional).

ASP.NET resolves the web application root operator (~) to the root of the current application. For example, the URL ~/Images/somepicture.gif would resolve to http://www.takenote.com/images/somepicture.gif.

ASP.NET 2.0 provides three navigation controls that can take advantage of the site map (see Listing 4). You will find these controls in the Navigation section of the Toolbox.

Figure 23: The SiteMapPath control displays a bread crumb trail that tracks a user’s location in the site.
Figure 24: Select Edit Menu Items? to manually configure a menu when not specifying a data source.
  • The SiteMapDataSource control, located on the Data tab in the Toolbox, connects the navigation controls to the site map.
  • The SiteMapPath control provides a bread crumb trail to keep the user informed of their location in the site hierarchy (see Figure 23). Selecting the “Auto Format?” option from the SiteMapPath Tasks menu (displayed by clicking the control’s smart tag glyph) provides a way to configure the display of the control.
  • The Menu control displays a menu horizontally or vertically. You configure the menu direction and create menu items with submenu items below them. Menu items that are always displayed are called static items, while submenus that appear only when the user hovers the mouse over a static menu item are called dynamic menus, and their sub-items as dynamic menu items. Each different menu item type has its own set of associated visual styles, so you can get just the right look and feel for your menus.

You can manually create and maintain menus, or you can bind them to a SiteMapDataSource control. Clicking the smart tag glyph for the Menu control displays the Menu Tasks options. Like the SiteMapPath control, the “Auto Format?” option presents a list of pre-defined visual styles available for the control. The Choose Data Source option defines whether you want to maintain the menu manually or if you want to bind it to a SiteMapDataSource. Leave the data source as None and click on “Edit Menu Items?” to manually configure the menu. Using the Menu Item Editor (see Figure 24) you add root items and child items below them. The Text property for a menu item specifies the text to appear in the menu. The NavigateURL property specifies where to redirect users when they click a menu item. Menus bound to a SiteMapDataSource display menu items that reference the nodes defined in the site map pointed to by the SiteMapDataSource control.

The MenuItemClick event fires when the user clicks a menu item and provides an opportunity for you to code an event handler. In the code below, e.Item refers to the item the user clicked:

   Protected Sub Menu1_MenuItemClick( _      ByVal sender As Object, _      ByVal e As          System.Web.UI.WebControls. MenuEventArgs) _      Handles Menu1.MenuItemClick         Dim Message As String = e.Item.Text   End Sub

TreeView Control
The TreeView control provides a hierarchical display of information. While this example uses it as a navigational control, you can use the TreeView control to display information from a wide variety of data sources including XML files, strings, or from data retrieved from a database. Within the Treeview control each individual item is called a node. A TreeView control has three types of nodes:

  • Root. Top-level node that has no parent node. Root nodes have one or more child nodes.
  • Parent. A mid-level node that has a parent node and one or more child nodes.
  • Leaf. A bottom-level node that has no child nodes.

You can expand a node by clicking the plus (+) sign or collapse it by clicking the minus () sign associated with the node.

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Figure 25: Add, remove, indent, and move TreeView items up or down with the TreeView Node Editor.

You populate the TreeView control similarly to the way you populate a Menu control?by either manually creating and maintaining nodes or binding a TreeView to a SiteMapDataSource control. Clicking the smart tag glyph displays the TreeView Tasks dialog box. The “Auto Format?” option provides a wide variety of predefined formatting options. Use the Choose Data Source option to specify whether you want to maintain the TreeView manually or bind it to a SiteMapDataSource. Leave the data source as None and click “Edit Nodes?” to configure the TreeView manually (see Figure 25).

That should be enough to keep you busy for a while. When you are ready to continue learning more about ASP.NET 2.0, I suggest you explore the data access and data binding capabilities, the caching feature to increase the performance of your site, and working with the portal architecture and associated web parts.

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