Hi,  I need some help understanding nested master pages.   From reading I understand why you would do this but I think my requirement is a bit different.

 I have a single solution in VS 2008 using themes, a root master page and misc content pages,  This solution is setup to allow me to deploy a number of websites using the same code, but different database content, different database connections and so on.  all of the logic of these sites is the same, its the layout that needs to be different.  I setup a theme folder for each website using the websites name.   For development I have a app setting for the name of the site I want to run at that time and then I change the global theme based on this setting.

The next thing I want to do is keep the root master page that contains all the coding for the site in the code behind ( so i dont have duplicate code), but what is different for each site is the site layout.  so I was thinking on using a nested masterpage that is changed based on my appsetting in the web.config file.  I can name the 2nd master page  website1.master, website2.master and they will have a matched theme with the same name.

 So at runtime I get the value of the website name in app settings, set the global theme then set the root masterpage to grab the layout from my 2nd masterpage located in a folder on the site.  From here I want to be able to run a content page and have it displayed inside.

Ive already setup 2008 deployment that allows me to only copy the files I need for each site and the webconfig settings for that site to deploy the sites individually.  Thats great for deployment but I want to be able to run the different sites in my development environment based on the app setting.  This is how the project looks

MyProject
.....App_Code
.....Bin
.....App_Themes
..........Site1Theme
...............default.css
...............default.skin
...............web.config - specific settings for this site, connection strings, email etc
...............default.master - specific layout for this site
.....Site2Theme
default.aspx
default.master - no layout just site logic
web.config - config info for all sites
 

The web.config and default master are in the theme folder just so everything is in one place,  if this cause compile issues I can move them elsewhere. 

Am I making sense here?  if I create say an about page in the root, I want it to automatically use the master page from the site im running based on the appsetting in the root web.config file.

Thanks
   -Keith
 

I would create an appSetting in web.config for which masterpage to use.

then in your page_preInit set the Page.MasterPageFile property to the file name of the appropriate master page.

You will have to make sure that your master pages all have the same contentPlaceholders to do this, though.

Hi,

We can use the @ Page directive like this :  <%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/MasterPage.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="Default" Title="Untitled Page" %>

And you also can specify master page files for our web forms in the web.config file, for example: <pages masterPageFile="myMaster.master" />

But when you want to set the master page programatically, you need to just use the PreInit event, set the master page in the page's PreInit event event:

protected void Page_PreInit(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  MasterPageFile = "~/foo";
}

That;s because the master page has to rearrange the page?s control hierarchy before the Init event fires.

The master page will not apply for the content page when you switch the theme for the page, as you put the master page in the theme folder of the app_theme folder.  You should specify the master page for the content page.

the more about the master page, you can refer these greate articles:

• http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/450.aspx
• http://www.beansoftware.com/ASP.NET-Tutorials/Master-Pages.aspx

Hope it helps.

 Great thanks for the extra info,   I finally got the nested master pages for each site setup and I was looking for a way to prevent me from having to add the code to each content page on the site.  The article from odetocode helped me setting up the base class for the page and now I can put all the logic in one place.  Thats what I was looking to do. Thanks

Having The master page in the theme folder was just to have a common place for it, but I got the "cant put anything else in the theme folder error".  I ended up making a 2nd folder named sites, with a folder for each site.  So there ive put the custom master page, config file changes for each site and setup both the master page and the theme in the pre_init base class.   It works wonderfully and now I have a layout for each site then all the code is in the parent master page.... ;)

At first I kept getting a error number 1 when I created the nested master page in another folder but if I create it in the same directory as the parent then move it, I dont get the error number 1.

Now I just need to be able to change the LINQ connection string at runtime and make my changes to my web deployment projects to make the config changes and move only the files used for each site.

Getting closer and what a time saver!!

Thanks

-Keith 

You can get away with creating base pages too if that's a route you're not keen on. You can use events in global.asax to set both the Theme and the Master page dynamically. See http://blogs.ipona.com/davids/archive/2008/03/30/8482.aspx.

 Yea I started with the base page but figured that more things to add to each page,  thanks for that link!! I set my theme and master page in the global.asax and thats working perfectly!!

Thanks

-Keith 

Using a base page is a good idea if you have lots of other things you want as part of your page, but for something simple I prefer the global event. It's just less work.