HTTPModule/HTTPHandler to process request

[Steve]

Hi there,

I'm trying to create a new website that will have a common aspx file
serve as a template. I want all other pages to use this file and
'inject' their own content i.e. user controls, static html etc. The
thing is that I don't actually want these other 'pages' to exist on
disk (since I don't want to have to maintain multiple aspx pages - just
the content). I basically want an XML file that defines the content
'page' path, template file and the actual content. This XML file will
serve as the configuration for the whole process.

The other thing that I want to do is make sure that all of my pages
have friendly URLs i.e. an entry in the XML file with a page path such
as /test.aspx will actually show in the browser as
http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx (even though the physical file does not
exist).

At the moment, I am able to capture a request (using HttpModule) to
this page and write the content of it to the Response object but I'm
not sure how to 'inject' the associated user controls.

I have seen this functionality in action but can't quite put my finger
on how to replicate it. I have also seen reference to using
Context.RewritePath but as far as I can understand this requires a
physical file to exist.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

[Wouter van Vugt]

Hi,

there are two things needed here.

Context.RewritePath as you have noticed. In IIS you can set whether the
file which is being requested has to actually exist. I think for ASPX
this is turned of by default (meaning you can request some not existing
ASPX and ASP.NET will handle it) You will need your HttpModule and
rewrite the path to and actual existing page and pass along the data
found in the URL. For instance, rewrite www.mysite/test.asp to
www.mysite.default.aspx?page=test

Next in the default.aspx code you'll need to read this setting and load
the appropriate user controls. E.g. some kind of XML like:
<Pages>
<Page name='test'>
<Control id='myControl' filePath='~/control.ascx'/>
</Page>
</Pages>

You can load usercontrols using Page.LoadControl.

Hope it helps,

Grtz, Wouter van Vugt
Trainer - Info Support - www.infosupport.com
www.dive-in-it.nl

[Flip]

Maybe you've already looked at this, so please excuse me if I'm stating the
obvious. I'm just looking to help ( and learn a thing or two too ;>)

Have you looked at the master pages in 2.0? Maybe you're using 1.1, in
which case I would strongly suggest looking at 2.0 for this feature alone!
It's worth the price of admission! If you are, maybe there was some other
bigger reason to avoid Master pages, which I missed (sorry).

Good luck.

[Steve]

Hi there,

Unfortunately, ASP.NET 2.0 master pages will only get around the
problem of the templates (and management has already pushed version 2
to phase three). This would still leave me with the problem of the
friendly URLs too.

Thanks for the help though!

[Steve]

Hi there,

Thanks for the help!

Unfortunately I don't think that this is quite what I was looking for.

I am already handling request for pages that don't physically exist and
am able to load their templates (see XML below). Another question here
though - can I load a Page object and pass it through to the Response?
The reason that I ask is that I am aware of the Page.LoadControl method
but need a Page object to be able to perform this with. I have been
unable to work out how to pass this dynamically built page through to
the Response (remembering that the actual page that was requested
doesn't physically exist - only it's base template does and I don't
want its name appearing in the URL [see below]).

In your example of RewritePath your final URL is actually pointing to
http://www.mysite.com/default.aspx?page=test. I am looking for the
request to be for http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx and the URL to remain
as http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx.

<pages>
<page>
<path>test.aspx</path>
<templateFile>template1.aspx</templateFile>
<content>
... various references to ascx files and some static html
</content>
</page>
</pages>

So for the example above, I would request
http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx and a Page would be constructed by
opening template1.aspx and loading the specified controls. It would
then be served AS http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx (even though this
file doesn't exist on disk).

I think that I am starting to come to the conclusion that I may need to
actually build this page and write it to disk and then RewritePath to
this newly created file. Is there another way to do it i.e. write a new
ASPX file to disk based on an existing ASPX and some user controls?!

Like I say, I have seen functionality like this before but only from
the front-end.

Thanks again

[gerry]

I haven't been following this thread, but the way I do this , and the way I
believe this is generally done is to create a single 'master page' ( just to
confuse things ;-) ) that handles all incoming page requests.
this page contains your basic site layout which includes one or more
placeholders for navigation, content etc. those content is determined at the
time of the request.
I do my url rewriting in Application_BeginRequest and the rewrite will
always take the form
Context.RewritePath("~/masterpage.aspx","","requestedPage=requestedPage&o rig
inalQueryString")
then the master page would use the requestedPage parameter to determine what
page to build doing its grunt work in the Page.OnInit() method.

http://www.hgha.ca is an example of a website that uses this approach -
there is one and only one physical aspx on the server although it appears to
have 100+ pages when browsing. fyi, this lets users log in and modify the
content right online and in many places the content is extremely "amateur".
one additional point for this site , the .htm extension is mapped in IIS to
the aspnet process so that the user only sees .htm pages and no .aspx pages

Gerry


"Steve" <ma**@aimackay.me.uk> wrote in message
news:11**********************@z14g2000cwz.googlegr oups.com...

Hi there,

Thanks for the help!

Unfortunately I don't think that this is quite what I was looking for.

I am already handling request for pages that don't physically exist and
am able to load their templates (see XML below). Another question here
though - can I load a Page object and pass it through to the Response?
The reason that I ask is that I am aware of the Page.LoadControl method
but need a Page object to be able to perform this with. I have been
unable to work out how to pass this dynamically built page through to
the Response (remembering that the actual page that was requested
doesn't physically exist - only it's base template does and I don't
want its name appearing in the URL [see below]).

In your example of RewritePath your final URL is actually pointing to
http://www.mysite.com/default.aspx?page=test. I am looking for the
request to be for http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx and the URL to remain
as http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx.

<pages>
<page>
<path>test.aspx</path>
<templateFile>template1.aspx</templateFile>
<content>
... various references to ascx files and some static html
</content>
</page>
</pages>

So for the example above, I would request
http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx and a Page would be constructed by
opening template1.aspx and loading the specified controls. It would
then be served AS http://www.mysite.com/test.aspx (even though this
file doesn't exist on disk).

I think that I am starting to come to the conclusion that I may need to
actually build this page and write it to disk and then RewritePath to
this newly created file. Is there another way to do it i.e. write a new
ASPX file to disk based on an existing ASPX and some user controls?!

Like I say, I have seen functionality like this before but only from
the front-end.

Thanks again

[Flip]

Sorry I couldn't help more, but I'm reading the other responses to try to
learn (not having much luck at it though, I'm still too new, but I'll get
it! :>)

Good luck.


"Steve" <ma**@aimackay.me.uk> wrote in message
news:11**********************@g43g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...

Hi there,

Unfortunately, ASP.NET 2.0 master pages will only get around the
problem of the templates (and management has already pushed version 2
to phase three). This would still leave me with the problem of the
friendly URLs too.

Thanks for the help though!