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Page Template In .Net 1.1

With the advent of .net 2.0 several new features were added to make systems more rich and efficient in terms of looks. One of the feature is master page for the consistent layout throughout the application.

But there were several systems who were still running in previous version of .net i.e. .net 1.1, because it is not possible to upgrade the system with every release. In .net 1.1 it is a challenge for developers to maintain the consistent layout throughout the system.

In this article I will show how to maintain consistent layout in .net 1.1. This topic contains following sections

Software requirement.
Prerequisite knowledge.
Creation of base class.
Create a web page.
Output.
Conclusion.

So let’s get started

Software Requirement

Before you start reading this tutorial you should make sure that visual studio 2003 (or above versions) is installed on your machine.

Prerequisite Knowledge

Before you go ahead, it is required that you should know

How to create a website (or web application) using Visual Studio.
What is Page class in .net.
How render method works.
How to inherit a class.
How to override a method.

Creation Of Base Class

A webform’s code behind class is inherited from the Page class. When the client requests the web page from the server. The request is processed and HTML is returned as a response. The render method of the Page class is responsible for rendering the HTML.

So if we want to control the way the page is rendered the very first step is to create a new class and inherit it from the Page class. The second step is to override the Render method.

using System;
using System.Web.UI;

public class PageBase: System.Web.UI.Page {
    private string _pageTitle;
    public string PageTitle {
      get {
        return _pageTitle;
      }
      set {
        _pageTitle = value;
      }
    }

    protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) {
        // First we will build up the html document, 
        // the head section and the body section.
        writer.Write(@ " <html>
          <head>
          <title> " + PageTitle + @" </title> 
          </head> 
          <body > ");

          // Then we allow the base class to render the 
          // controls contained in the ASPX file.
          base.Render(writer);

          // Finally we render the final tags to close
          // the document.
          writer.Write(@ " </body> 
          </html>");
          }
        }

PageTitle property is for setting the page title. base.Render() method calls the render method of base class i.e. Page class.

Create A Web Page

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"  CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>
<form id="SimplePageInheritance" method="post" runat="server">
	<p>
        This is the sample of the page with master page like feature 
        without using master page.
    </p>
</form>

Code behind

using System;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Xml.Linq;

public partial class _Default: PageBase {
  protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    PageTitle = "test";
  }
}

In the aspx page we have not declared html, head html tags because we have already declared it in the PageBase’s render method.

Output

Click to Enlarge

Conclusion

This approach ensures that we have got the same flexibility as master page. In the future if we have got the requirement to add footer in every page then we can do that by changing the codes at a single place i.e. render method.

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Wednesday, September 15, 2010

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