ASP.NET 2.0 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Creating Multipage Applications

In This Chapter

✓	Learning the basics of a multipage application
✓	Adding pages to a Web project
✓	Getting from one page to another
✓	Keeping track of an application’s state
✓	Dipping your toe into data binding
✓	Using Master Pages to create a consistent look among your pages

Only the most trivial and boring of Web sites have just one page. Most Web sites go way beyond one page — perhaps to dozens or even hundreds of pages. Pervasive as they are, these multipage Web sites present several interesting challenges. This chapter shows how to add pages to your Web applications — and deal with the complications that result from having multiple pages. Those include such issues as how your users can get from one page to another, how to create pages that have a consistent appearance, and how to manage the “state” of an application so the application knows where it’s been and where it’s going.

All code listings used in this book are available for download at www.dummies.com/go/aspnetaiofd.

Understanding the Basics of a Multipage Application

To illustrate the programming techniques you’ll learn in this chapter, we’ll take a close look at a simple shopping cart application, similar to many similar applications you’ve undoubtedly encountered on the Web. Of course, this application is dramatically simplified so we can focus on a few basic programming techniques. For example, ...