Learning ASP.NET 2.0 with AJAX

Chapter 6. Style Sheets, Master Pages, and Navigation

Back in the early mists of time, when the Earth was young and the Web was new (Circa 1994)we created web pages in HTML (HyperText Markup Language). After many eons (or so it seemed), we were able to add styles to the HTML elements, allowing us to take greater control over the presentation of web pages.

Eventually content (the HTML)was divided from presentation and layout through the use of styles, and that was good. In fact, it came to pass that presentation information was given its own file—a style sheet—to allow for reuse, a consistent presentation across many pages, and easier maintenance, and that was very good indeed.

Styles and style sheets are a significant, but often overlooked tool for web developers, too often ignored by “programmers” who disparage style sheets as being in the realm of “designers”—leading to the creation of web applications that are terribly difficult to maintain.

A new innovation for creating sites with a common look and feel across all of the pages are Master Pages, covered later in this chapter. Master Pages can easily contain menus and other navigational aids such as site maps and bread crumbs, and these too will be covered in this chapter.

Styles and Style Sheets

A style specifies how an object will be rendered to an output device, typically a browser. Styles can be used to manipulate the layout and appearance of controls and text, detailing every aspect from border color to font size.

Web applications ...