Page Structure for C#

[Tim Cowan]

Hi

We are having some trouble trying to decide how to layout pages. We want to
have the header, footer, menu, and main page area.

What is the best way (and by best I mean the most easily maintainable) to do
this? The example is if we used frames and we had to make a structural
change we would change the one frame page and voila everything is altered.

I do not want to use frames so how do we mimic that with c#?

Tim Cowan

 

[Lateralus [MCAD]]

Tim,
Usually what I'll do is create either server controls, or user controls,
or a combination of the 2 and place them on my webforms. This should give
you the flexibility you're looking for.

HTH

 

[Nick Malik]

Hmmm...

If your users use IE and some newer open source browsers, you can use
IFrames
http://www.design-ireland.net/index.php?http://www.design-ireland.net/design/design-10.php

On the other hand, you can follow the advice of Lateralus and place web
controls on your page to give you headers and footers and nav bars (a very
common solution using ASP.NET). Six months ago, I would have recommended
this myself.

My preference, however, is fast becoming web-parts. Create a web part that
shows the actual page content (not the nav, or header or footer). Then
place all of the parts on a site hosted under Windows Sharepoint Services
(which is free with IIS on Windows Server 2003). Note that the next version
of ASP.NET will have support for web-parts.

Portal sites, like www.rainbowportal.net and www.dotnetnuked.com take this
approach, and work on existing versions of IIS.

So, if you are using Windows Server 2003, download and install Windows
Sharepoint Services. If you are using an older version of IIS, use one of
the opensource portals listed above.

HTH,
--- Nick

P.S. if you have WS2003, you can download Windows Sharepoint Services at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CB-1161-46F2-A363-8E0C2250D990&displaylang=en