Retaining the layout of the Web Application

A

AsifCh

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Oct 14, 2003
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Islamabad (Pakistan)
Hi,

We are currently developing a big application in ASP.Net and VB.Net. We are facing the problem to decide which method to use for retaining the layout of the application. The Application contains a Top Banner, A Left Side Menu and a footer . All of these controls should come on every page. we have several options to use these Like

1. Use the Web User controls and place these controls on every page.
2. Use the Frames which contains all these controls.
3. Use some thing like Master Pages in the ASP.Net 2.0 but their are no standard implementation.
4. or use any other method.


Currently I want to know that which method is best suited because we have very little time for development so we want a solution which can be used with minimum effort and time. Also can any body tell me the merits and demerits of all these methods.
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Regards,
Asif Raza Ashraf
 
My prefered method is Mater Pages; but since I use 1.1 I created a template base class then have all the pages inherit it. It is the cleanest and most effecient method.

Second in line is user controls but you will need to repeat the layout for such things as tables/headers/footers on every single page with a lot of messy copy/pasting.

LAST on the list is Frames.
 
Most people have done what Robby has done, either A because they don't know about Wilson Master Pages and some of it's 'competitors', or B (such as I) find Wilson Master Pages (and it's competitors) terribly cumbersome and over architected and design there own that work just as well if not better and are easy to implement... you could use A, but seriously, take the time like me and Robby did and do B until you get your hands on 2.0 - it's good experiance... in fact I like my own version more than I like 2.0 version, I think I made it easier to implement than that...but of coarse I biased...

Definitely don't do frames, if you go the user control route make a static function that you can call at each page load that will load the control for you at the top and bottom, that way if you have to change things in the future the impact of those changes will be minimal, whereas if you drag and drop them onto each page you're looking at a lot more of an impact.
 
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