Newbie - general ASP.Net advice sought

[John Dann]

I'm reasonably comfortable with HTML and VB2005 coding but now want to
add some ASP.Net pages to a website. Learning ASP.Net and hosting it
on a suitable server are both doable, but my question is as follows:

I want to add in just a few ASP.Net pages to the new website. It will
probably turn out that the new site will be 75% passive (ie straight
HTML) content and 20-25% active (ASP.Net) pages. What I'm puzzling
over currently is how best to manage this mix of pages.

One feature that I do want is a common look between the HTML and ASP
pages and so I'd prefer an approach that used templates or master
pages or something similar.

Now I guess I could set up the whole site as ASP pages, using an ASP
master page but this strikes me potentially as overkill with a lot of
unnecessary code in the passive HTML pages which would be ASP in name
only but with no functional controls. Alternatively I could add in
HTML rather than ASP pagesto the website for the passive-only pages,
but then (?) presumably lose the ability to use a single master page
for the whole site.

Another concern (bear in mind that I've never set up an ASP site
before) is that passive pages with superfluous ASP code would be
served slower than the equivalent HTML page.

Any advice appreciated.

JGD

 

[John Dann]

I don't think a common look is a strong reason for moving from html to aspx.
You can try achieving the common look with css. This is quite feasible.

If I've not misunderstood your comment, then possibly I haven't
explained in enough detail:

The 'common look' isn't the reason for moving to aspx, it's the need
to have some pages that will host active content, but it is only some,
ie a minorityof, pages within the overall site.

And the HTML element styles will certainly be controlled by an
external CSS file. But CSS doesn't provide the common content (header,
footer etc) that master pages or templates or some such (depending on
what the authoring tool might call them) provide. This is why I'm keen
to have some sort of master page so that page design can focus on the
content that is specific to that page.

JGD

 

[Eliyahu Goldin]

I don't think a common look is a strong reason for moving from html to aspx.
You can try achieving the common look with css. This is quite feasible.

 

[Guest]

Set it up using ASP.Net, Master Pages. You're not breaking any design rules
by using an ASPX page that just hosts content only. The technologies are
there and are designed for exactly what you're trying to accomplish, why not
use it?

As far as speed is concerned for a HTML content page versus an ASPX content
page, in today's world is a non-issue. Your machines processor will laugh at
it. Not a big deal.

Hope that helps.