4.1. Problem

This chapter focuses on developing a user interface that is consistent, intuitive, visually pleasing, and meets the company's branding guidelines. This is accomplished using a variety of technologies in Visual Studio 2008. The main goals are as follows:

• Creating a style sheet that is used across all pages

• Creating a master page that contains the company logo, the application name, the user's information, a menu, a footer, and a content region

• Creating a nested master page for displaying lists of data in a GridView

• Creating a nested master page for all pages that enables the user to edit records

• Creating a tablike control for the menu, positioned horizontally across the top of the page

• Creating a tree control for the menu, positioned on the left side of the page

• Creating a custom GridView control that supports custom columns, paging, and sorting using objects at runtime

• Creating a control to display validation error messages passed back from the business logic layer

• Creating a base class for all pages to inherit that contains common functionality across all pages

• Creating a base page for all pages that enables users to edit records

• Creating the business classes, the data classes, and the table to bind to the menu

The main master page is designed to look like Figure 4-1.

Figure 4.1. Figure 4-1

The application has a header that contains the company logo, the application name, and the current user's information. Below the main header is a horizontal menu that looks like tabs. Clicking on a tab changes the side menu and content page. The side menu contains hyperlinks, which when clicked load pages with custom content regions. The footer contains copyright information and the version of the application. The Administration tab within the application will look like Figure 4-2.

Figure 4.2. Figure 4-2