Multiple Projects on single web site

[Paul Cheetham]

Hi,

We are developing a large modular application, and in order to simplify
splitting of work between developers etc. we want to develop it using
several different projects, and then combine the results into a single site.
We plan to do this by having a 'Site' folder in which the main project
will sit, with each of the other projects as a sub-folder of this.

The main project has master pages defined, as well as custom error pages
etc. which we would like to reference in all the other projects.

Can anyone tell me:
- Is this possible at all - has somebody managed it?
- Is there a way of making all the projects use the Web.config file from
the main project?
- Are there likely to be any problems using session to pass data between
applications?
- Anything else I need to know, any tutorials etc?
I am using VS2005 Pro (c#)

Thankyou

Paul.

[GroupReader]

For what it's worth, here's the way I've been doing it for years:

- Create one solution.
- The solution can contain multiple projects.
- Usually, there is only one "web application" project. All the others
are supporting libraries.
- When we *do* have multiple web applications, each web application has
a separate web.config.
- When deployed, IIS can be set up so that both web applications
*appear* to be the same application.
- There shouldn't be any problem (maybe a few path issues that can be
fixed) sharing common pages like error pages and login pages.
I think each separate web application has separate session (right?).
Not shared.
Each separate web application can share authentication cookie (login
status) without problems.

Another way... I don't normally do it this way...
Your developers could just deploy their .aspx and .dll files to the
main web application when they are done with them. I've seen this
work. (They develop in a separate web application, then combine files
with the main application at deployment time).

In VS2003 we used to partition everything with "projects". In VS2005,
that's a little more difficult and we tend to partition everything by
"folders". Common code like base pages, etc... need to be in the
App_Code folder, for example.

[Paul Cheetham]

OK, Thanks for that.

I'll have a play around and see what works best.
Paul

GroupReader wrote:

For what it's worth, here's the way I've been doing it for years:

- Create one solution.
- The solution can contain multiple projects.
- Usually, there is only one "web application" project. All the others
are supporting libraries.
- When we *do* have multiple web applications, each web application has
a separate web.config.
- When deployed, IIS can be set up so that both web applications
*appear* to be the same application.
- There shouldn't be any problem (maybe a few path issues that can be
fixed) sharing common pages like error pages and login pages.
I think each separate web application has separate session (right?).
Not shared.
Each separate web application can share authentication cookie (login
status) without problems.

Another way... I don't normally do it this way...
Your developers could just deploy their .aspx and .dll files to the
main web application when they are done with them. I've seen this
work. (They develop in a separate web application, then combine files
with the main application at deployment time).

In VS2003 we used to partition everything with "projects". In VS2005,
that's a little more difficult and we tend to partition everything by
"folders". Common code like base pages, etc... need to be in the
App_Code folder, for example.