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Answer 1

+1 A:

If you use relative paths to your css/Javascript files, then they will need to be relative to the page, not the Master page.

This article does a very nice job of explaining the options you have in this situation, and towards the end they propose a nice solution to this type of problem, a user control that renders the script or link tag for you and calls ResolveClientUrl to make the paths correct.

wsanville 2010-02-12 02:44:58

This control look pretty good but just seems like over engineering. I may give it a whirl though.

JBeckton 2010-02-12 03:17:52

Answer 2

A:

Use the "~" operator to resolve everything relative to the root. Never use relative paths. Even when I'm not using themes, I use their syntax to get simple syntactic access to my CSS files by creating a folder structure like : App_Themes/Style/stylesheet.css Then in my ASPX page directives I add Theme="Style" and my CSS files will be automatically resolved - not exactly conventional but very effective :-)

UPDATE:

To resolve the JS, you could use the following in your master page code-behind:

string myScript = "js/footerFix.js";
Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptInclude("myKey", myScript);

With IIS7 you do not need to change anything to get "multi-site" behaviour; this is baked in. For example you can have several sites as follows and reach them via URL without any separate configuration aside from creating the virtual directories:

localhost/project1
localhost/project2
localhost/project3

IrishChieftain 2010-02-12 02:49:04

I figured out that my paths to style sheets gets updated if say my content page is a couple folders down in the tree but paths to js files do not

JBeckton 2010-02-12 02:56:08

I'm coming up on 10 years of ASP.NET experience, and I've thus far avoided ever having to use Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptInclude. It's an ugly hack that ignores the fact that HTML has a nice little "<SCRIPT>" element that you can use to, you know, include scripts.

Jason Kester 2010-02-12 03:07:36

Why don't you go the extra mile and answer the question? ;-)

IrishChieftain 2010-02-12 03:15:52

Answer 3

A:

As a rule, you should be using server-relative paths (as in, /images/stuff.gif) to everything all the time. Using relative paths (as in ../images/stuff.gif) will screw you every single time, as will trying to rely on ASP.NET "Magic" such as VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute and ResolveClientUrl.

Occasionally, on the server you'll need to prepend that path with a tilda (as in ~/images/stuff.gif) so that it will correctly navigate the virtual directories that ASP.NET requires you to base all your projects in.

Naturally, this also means that you'll need to set your dev box up with multisite so that you can change your root to something like http://mysite.dev/ and ensure that all your server-relative paths work correctly. (Using the VS.NET built-in server would technically work around that too, but really, do you want to use that thing???)

Jason Kester 2010-02-12 03:03:24

I used to set up local webs for each project but got tired of the extra work involved like setting up dns and such. I am just coming to .Net and on the other platforms I work with this is a non issue. I may just go back to setting up a new iis web for each project. I am on win7 ultimate so I don't think i'll need the dll for multiple sites here.

JBeckton 2010-02-12 03:26:32

Answer 4

A:

Put your script and stylesheet links in a <head Id="headRegion" runat="server" /> in the master page. Their src/href should be the absolute URL path that you get when running in WebDev.WebServer (eg /ProjectWeb).

In the Master Page OnPreRenderComplete(), rewrite any URLs inside headRegion.

Visual Studio can intellisense your scripts and css, and the project can be deployed under any virtual path.

protected override void OnPreRenderComplete( EventArgs e )
{
    base.OnPreRenderComplete( e );

    var root = Request.ApplicationPath;
    if (root == "/") {
        root = "";
    }

    foreach (Control c in headRegion.Controls) {
        if (c is HtmlLink) {
            HtmlLink hlink = c as HtmlLink;
            hlink.Href = ReplacePath( hlink.Href, root );

        } else if (c is LiteralControl) {
            var literal = c as LiteralControl;
            literal.Text = ReplacePath( literal.Text, root );
        }
    }
}

string ReplacePath( string content, string prefix )
{
    return content.Replace("/ProjectWeb", prefix );
}

Lachlan Roche 2010-02-12 03:45:46

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