Applying Web Site Designs To ASPX Pages

I've gotten a small job applying a fancy web site design to LaGarde's Storefront 6.0. So far I'm just tweaking the default design using Storefront's built-in design options (i.e. editing the style sheet and user controls). I've worked with web site designers who are not satisfied with that and we've totally scraped the limited Storefront design for some web sites. We get rid of virtually all the banners and navigation and I apply the design to each and every web page. I even create custom user controls (i.e. ASCX pages for horizontal navigation and special product links).

I think it is a good idea to retain the header and footer user controls because they make it easy to edit that section of the web pages.

Although Microsoft was trying to separate the web page design from the web page code using the ASPX and VB code behind files, it is still too easy for the web designer to break pages by removing a page directive or a user control. If the code in the VB code behind file doesn't find a web control it was trying to reference you get that nasty "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." error. What Microsoft really acomplished was giving ASP.NET developers plenty of work just applying web page designs to ASPX pages rather than writing code.

BV Commerce has the same problem just because it is written in ASP.NET. I should try to find some more work doing nothing but applying a design to its pages.

posted by Robert Robbins @ 7:57 PM