Build Your Own ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB, Second Edition

You’re all set now! Loading FrontPage.aspx in your browser will generate the

output shown in Figure 4.12.

Figure 4.12. Using a master page

Although the example is simplistic, it’s easy to see the possibilities: you can create

many web forms based on this template very easily. In our case, the master page

contains a single ContentPlaceHolder, but it could have more. Also, the master

page can define some default content for display inside the ContentPlaceHolder

on pages whose web forms don’t provide a Content element for that placeholder.

Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

It’s clear that controls make it easy for us to reuse pieces of functionality in

multiple places. For example, I can’t imagine an easier way to add calendars to

many web forms than to use the Calendar web server control.

However, controls don’t solve the problem of defining and managing the visual

elements of your web site. Modern web sites need constant updating to keep

them fresh, and it’s not much fun editing hundreds of pages by hand just to

change a border color, for example, and then having to check everything to ensure

that the changes are consistent. The process is even more painful if the client

wants a more serious update, like rearranging components on the pages.

The good news is that this maintenance work can be made a lot easier by planning

ahead, correctly following a few basic rules, and efficiently using the tools HTML

and ASP.NET offer you.

An essential tool for building reusable visual styles is CSS (Cascading Style

Sheets). HTML was initially designed to deliver simple text content, and paid

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Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)