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ASP.NET MASTER PAGES

ASP.NET master pages allow you to create a consistent layout for the pages in your application. A single master page defines the look and feel and standard behavior that you want for all of the pages (or a group of pages) in your application. You can then create individual content pages that contain the content you want to display. When users request the content pages, they merge with the master page to produce output that combines the layout of the master page with the content from the content page.


Example for master page file:

<%@ Master Language="C#" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 
    1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server" >
    <title>Master page title</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
        <table>
           <tr>
               <td><asp:contentplaceholder id="Main" runat="server" /></td>
               <td><asp:contentplaceholder id="Footer" runat="server" /></td>
           </tr>
        </table>
    </form>
</body>
</html> 
 

Content Pages

You define the content for the master page's placeholder controls by creating individual content pages, which are ASP.NET pages (.aspx files and, optionally, code-behind files) that are bound to a specific master page. The binding is established in the content page's @ Page directive by including a MasterPageFile attribute that points to the master page to be used. For example, a content page might have the following @ Page directive, which binds it to the Master1.master page.


In the content page, you create the content by adding Content controls and mapping them to ContentPlaceHolder controls on the master page. For example, the master page might have content placeholders called Main and Footer. In the content page, you can create two Content controls, one that is mapped to the ContentPlaceHolder control Main and the other mapped to the ContentPlaceHolder control Footer, as shown in the following figure.
Replacing placeholder content
MasterPagesMerge graphic
 





Content Page looks like:


<% @ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Master.master" Title="Content Page 1" %>
<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server">
    Main content.
</asp:Content>
    
<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="Footer" Runat="Server" >
    Footer content.
</asp:content> 
 
The @ Page directive binds the content page to a specific master page, and it defines a title for the page that will be merged into the master page. Note that the content page contains no other markup outside of the Content controls. (The master page must contain a head element with the attribute runat="server" so that the title setting can be merged at run time.)
You can create multiple master pages to define different layouts for different parts of your site, and a different set of content pages for each master page.
 
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