Master Pages - Design question

Question

Hi,

Would you guys think that a master page should be part of the company's framework or it should be part of each application? Or perhaps the company's framework should only have a interface to provide the least functionality to all master pages ?

Currenlty we face two problems: Firstly, the original idea was to have a common layout for every and each business application. That's why the master page seats at the company's framework. Secondly, some applications needed to have a different layout, what has caused some pain as the whole logic for menus, CSS classes and etc were at the framework ...

Can you guys tell me what your thoughts are?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Share some CSS and design library (templates, images, palette,) but a single shared master page is unlikely to be flexible enough.

Answer 2

I would try to move UI elements like common controls into your framework libraries, and create a master page for each application in the application. This will give you the ability to maintain common UI elements across your applications through the use of common controls, and will provide the flexibility to create different layouts for each application.

Something else to consider is the use of different master pages in the same app for different purposes. For example, you might use one master page for internal staff, one for customers, etc. Or you might use one master page for normal browsers, and another for devices like blackberry.

Answer 3

I think it depends on your company's requirements. I used to work for an organisation where it was part of our core framework. This however was only because all of our Web applications were internal and were required to have the same look and feel.

Answer 4

If you are thinking of having a shared master page it probably means you have too much logic in it. At my company they historically created base master pages and base pages that had a lot of common functionality. The problem is that this is very inflexible. I have started using a MVP framework and taken logic out of the pages and having a common master page is no longer really needed, it just has layout logic.

Answer 5

Master Pages are designed to hold elements that are going to be static throughout your website, on multiple pages. You could use it to hold footers, headers, and so on.

I don't think you should even consider having the same master page for multiple applications, that would limit what you can do with your master pages severely. In fact I encourage you to have multiple Master pages inside one application if you need it. There's nothing wrong with that.

If you try to use the same Master Page across multiple applications, you'll have to do some very creative programming to maintain their flexibility, and you know what... Error that would be introduced in one application would percolate to all. So that's definitely a no-no idea.

Hope that helps.