Master Pages - Updating content without full page refresh?

[Rob]

Hi,

I have a master page that contains a table layout. The contentplaceholder is
located in one of the table cells. With frames technology it was possible
for hyperlinks to load the linked pages into a frame without having to
reload any other frames.

Is it possible to replicate this kind of behaviour using master pages and
content pages? In other words, I want only the cell that contains the
contentplaceholder to refresh when the appropriate menu items are selected,
rather than the entire masterpage. I don't think using an AJAX update panel
in the master page would work.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[Aidy]

You could still use frames (*dons flame suit* ), but other than that
it'll need to be an AJAX solution.

 

[Mark Rae]

I have a master page that contains a table layout. The contentplaceholder
is located in one of the table cells. With frames technology it was
possible for hyperlinks to load the linked pages into a frame without
having to reload any other frames.

Not natively, though Ajax would certainly do what you require.

One of the commonest misconceptions about MasterPages are that they are
somehow the ASP.NET 2 equivalent of framesets - they aren't at all.

In fact, a MasterPage is really nothing more than a UserControl.

 

[Rob]

Thanks for your response.

I've tried placing an AJAX update panel around the contenplaceholder in the
mastersheet, with menu items set as triggers. This doesn't seem to have the
desired effect though. Is anybody able to offer any advice on how I could
achieve this using AJAX.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[Mark Rae]

I've tried placing an AJAX update panel around the contenplaceholder in
the
mastersheet, with menu items set as triggers. This doesn't seem to have
the
desired effect though. Is anybody able to offer any advice on how I could
achieve this using AJAX.

No, that's not what I meant - you certainly can't do that.

What you would need to do is to redesign / rewrite the content page in
question so that it used Ajax internally.

However, you really do need to get out of the mindset of a frameset...

MasterPages don't change the content of the "main" frame or whatever - they
reload the entire page every time...