Build Your Own ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB, Second Edition

The star of the show will be the master page, but because it needs to have the

sitemap and the theme in place, we’ll deal with these first.

Preparing the Sitemap

As we saw in Figure 5.1, on the left of every page of our Dorknozzle site will sit

a menu that contains links to the site’s pages. We’ll implement that list using

the SiteMapPath control, which will require a sitemap file.

Adding Files to your Project

If the project is running in debug mode, you can’t add new files to it, so you

must first stop debugging. You can do this by closing the browser window

(if you’re using Internet Explorer), by selecting Debug > Stop Debugging,

or by clicking the Stop icon on the debug toolbar.

In Solution Explorer, right-click the root node and select Add New Item…, as il-

lustrated in Figure 5.33.

Figure 5.33. Adding a new item to your project

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Preparing the Sitemap

Figure 5.34. Adding a sitemap file

From the templates list, choose Site Map, as depicted in Figure 5.34 and leave

the filename as Web.sitemap.

Click Add to have the file created and added to your project. You’ll be presented

with a default, empty sitemap that you can start modifying. Change its contents

as shown below. For now, you need only add a few nodes; you can add the rest

later on.

File: Web.sitemap

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<siteMap

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >

<siteMapNode url="~/" title="Root" description="Root">

<siteMapNode url="~/Default.aspx" title="Home"

description="Dorknozzle Home" />

<siteMapNode url="~/HelpDesk.aspx" title="Help Desk"

description="Dorknozzle Help Desk" />

<siteMapNode url="~/EmployeeDirectory.aspx"

title="Employee Directory"

description="Dorknozzle Employee Directory" />

<siteMapNode url="~/AddressBook.aspx" title="Address Book"

description="Dorknozzle Address Book" />

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Chapter 5: Building Web Applications