ASP.Net Page Template and using asp tag in rendered pages

Question

I want to use page templating in ASP.Net (Visual Studio 2012 with .Net 4.0).

The base page emits the basic template inclusive of the body, html, form, and other tags. That means the rendered pages just have what goes inside the body part. The template adds the header and footer. Although I have not finalized a design, I am looking at a concept documented here . (Yes, I know that coding practice is to not give links to pages, which can go away, but I do not want to side track the question.)

The part of each page is:

<%@ Page language="c#" Codebehind="AdvancedPageInheritance.aspx.cs" AutoEventWireup="true" Inherits="PageInheritanceSample.AdvancedPageInheritance" %>

Anything after that first line is part of the body.

If I drag and drop controls onto the form, VS2012 emits code such as:

<asp:CheckBox ID="CheckBox2" runat="server" OnCheckedChanged="CheckBox1_CheckedChanged" />
<asp:Button ID="Button2" runat="server" Text="Button" />

VS2012 automagically emits the warning, "Unrecognized tag prefix or device filter 'asp'."

One thought is to simply add in the body stuff programatically, but that is a page. I rather use the GUI.

How can I avoid the warning? Is there a better way to do templates? That author wrote the article 10-years ago, so things might have changed since then. The warnings are understandable, but in error, as there is a form, body, and html tags, just not directly visible.

(I just answered my question by catching a phrase in Vs2012 and researching it a bit. Master Pages are the answer. Obviously, Microsoft must have added that with either VS2008 or VS2010. I will leave this post, as others, like me, may not know the concept "Master Page" and may reserach page templates, just like I did. I hope that this post says other people time. Google should hopefully pick up on ASP.Net and Page Templates.)

Answer 1

Ideally you would use the MasterPage for laying out your main template.

Your Content pages would then have the appropriate <asp:Content /> controls, where you add your content. To add a content page you would add a new 'Web Form' item in Visual Studio and, by selecting the 'Select Master Page' checkbox, you can choose the master page the content page should use.

See Here for a tutorial on Master Pages

Then you would use a BasePage for site-wide code; for example anything that has logic needed on most pages. Your Content pages would inherit this BasePage

As a side-note, see this page Unrecognized tag prefix or device filter 'asp' in VS2012 with regards to your "Unrecognized tag prefix or device filter 'asp'." message