ASP.NET 2.0 - Site branding for different layouts

[Knoxy]

Hi folks,
Just a quick post to see if anyone had any thoughts on branding a
website for completely different website designs. I have a site at the
minute that gets installed with another application on customers
networks. It's ASP.NET 2.0 but written in a combination of old ASP.NET
1.1, AJAX with/and "heavy" use of client side javascript throughout the
site.

But, it now turns out that this needs to have a different branding (and
a completely different layout) for another company that wishes to
resell our application.

Now, I have previously done my own custom branding on several sites but
these have been applied onto the same design so it was just a case of
changing logos and colours etc. No sweat.

With a totally different layout, this could be a nightmare to do? - I
have just started working with ASP.NET 2.0 and am wondering can this be
easily achieved with master templates and loading them dynamically
based on company specific information stored in the registry. I havent
worked with Themes and Skins but I'd imagine they'd come into play...

If I go the master templates way, all my javascript code would have to
change as master templates generate its own named clientID for each of
the web server controls.

I just don't want a scenario where I have to manage multiple sets of
code! This could be quite a big job and I want to run with the correct
design before I get started.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Mark Rae]

If I go the master templates way, all my javascript code would have to
change as master templates generate its own named clientID for each of
the web server controls.

No it wouldn't, if you design it properly. I do exactly this as part of my
band management site.

There have been loads of threads about this recently - basically, all you
need to do is to be able to specify the MasterPage dynamically at runtime,
which you do in the content pages' Page_PreInit method. Thereafter, the look
and feel may be entirely different, but the internal structure will be the
same.

In this way, each band gets a secure private site which looks and feels
exactly like their public site, but different from all the other bands'
sites.

It really is a wonderful new feature of ASP.NET 2.