Hi and thanks in advance for your help,

I attached an image that will describe my request; The conccept is in the image file and has "4 parts", I
marked the parts in red and bold.

1. Is the "main menu of the application", on the right side will be a search textbox and maybe a combobox.

2. Is a list that displays all the data for the page, it can a tree with 1 or 2 levels or a flat list, anyway it's a
tabular list with 3-7 columns that can be expanded to the right (now we see the collapsed state), it will
have only 2
states: collapsed with 3 columns or expanded with 7 columns.

3. Is the "Details" when clicking on an item on the left screen(part 2), when left screen(part 2) is expanded,
then this part(3) is collapsed and vice versa, when something is collapsed I can see some of the details but
not all of them. This part also have a menu like in the pic.

4. Is the part to filter/Advanced search on the left tabular data.

Now to my questions:

How would you conceptual would implement this site, like I think:

master page  for the main screen and

frames/Divs for the list and details with a button that will expand or collapse the columns

I would appreciate Ideas, thanks Dani.

Great Man,

 As per your explaination,i can make out i think clearly that you have decided fine design,but fact is that elements like frames,div and masterpage you are mixing up,which is really enemy of performance and  Maintainace,i reacently had one assinment where i met with this type of application ,trust me it is worst,anyways you too are enough mature to deciside what is better for your requirement,but i just suggest you what ever you want to implement,better choose Div based Solution rather than frames ,mastpage...
fine,you can have almost complete handle on div,you can make it fix,collapse,show,hide what ever and is great friend of every browser..

Regards
shabir hakim

Ok, I accept your idea about Divs realting to performance and browser compatibilities But:

1. How can I always keep my page the exact same layout and concept as masterpage? Not worring about refreshing and getting the same items from DB?

I would appreiciate some detailed answer,

Thanks,

Dani.

Hi,

I would have created a Masterpage for the whole site, and used User Controls for 1,2,3 etc.

A comibnation of master pages with user controls is the best approach.

HTH,

Vivek

Hi I appreciate your help and hope it's not a hassle for you.

Let me see if I get it correct, and some other info please:

1. Build a master page for the site that will include 3-4 "ContentPlaceHolder", for the general design of the site. Shabir Hakim has mentioned some preformmence issues, I'll be happy if you can write your opinion about it.

2. Question: what about parts 2 and 3 which should be collapsed or expand (as I mentioned - only 2 states).

3. Question: every "ContentPlaceHolder" should "influance" other "ContentPlaceHolder" data like search or details when clicking a row on the left screen will display data on the right. How can I deal with it?

Thanks for your help,

Dani.

1. Use contentplace holders for actual pages, and you can put UserControl directly on the masterpage (like Header,footer.ascx etc) or inside their own contentplaceholders in case some pages want to set different headers). AFAIK there are no significant performance issues with MasterPages, infact you will face a lot of maintenance issues if you do not use MasterPages. So master pages are very important for a modular design.

2. You can use jQuery to create the treeview sections, for collapsing and expanding sections. jQuery is the best option while working in such scenarios.

3. With Masterpages and content pages, you can dynamically change them, refer this link for details on how to utilize MasterPages:

http://www.odetocode.com/articles/450.aspx

HTH,

Vivek

Hi and thanks a lot for your help and patience,

I think you missunderstood me in questions 2,3:

Q2: What I need is the treeview ofcourse and I agree JQuery will be a good solution, but I asked about the horizontal expnad and collapse, look at the pic I attached and my first post: when left side of the page(marked as 2 on the attached image) is collapsed(we can see onky 2-3 columns ) then right side of the page(marked as 3 in the attached image) should be expanded, and vice versa.

Q3: I didn't read the article (yet, will do in a minute) but I was talking about interaction beween 2 contentplaceholders.

Thanks again,

Dani.

ferchen:

Q2: What I need is the treeview ofcourse and I agree JQuery will be a good solution, but I asked about the horizontal expnad and collapse, look at the pic I attached and my first post: when left side of the page(marked as 2 on the attached image) is collapsed(we can see onky 2-3 columns ) then right side of the page(marked as 3 in the attached image) should be expanded, and vice versa.

With jQuery, you can expand/collapse andy <div> based section with a class ID horizontally and vertically.

ferchen:

Q3: I didn't read the article (yet, will do in a minute) but I was talking about interaction beween 2 contentplaceholders.

With Masterpages, you can easily interact with content placeholders, there are multiple ways to do this, just google it out :)

HTH,

Vivek

Hi and thanks a lot for answering and your patience,

I read the article on the link you attached on masterpages, it does give the desired prespectibe.

Again to the topic of the collapsed and expanded screen: which technicue should I use:

1. Left side and right side each will be a contectplaceholderin a masterpage?

2. Left side and right side will be in the same content placeholder, and the inner division will be inside the,

page itself.

Thanks again,

Dani.

It depends on your usability scenarios, but here are some rough ideas from whatever l ve got after seeing your screenshot:

1. If the left side menu/treeview is constant across all pages, then you should put it inside a user control and place that user control inside the masterpage.

2. If on clicking an item in this treeview control will load up a new pages on the right side, then all such pages should be inside contentplaceholder on the mastpage (sinlge contentplaceholder will load the clicked pages inside it).

Hope this helps,

Vivek

 Hi,

Left side is always a tree but on each page the data is different which means sometimes it will be a kind of a group and it's subcategories, some other case will be a customer with his subcusotmers.

click will always show the details on the right side.

I didn't understand the second option you have suggested.

Thanks,

Dani.

 Hi,

Can you please answer the last post?

Thanks in advance,

Dani.

Once you click a menu item on the left bar, the code should load the relevant page in the right side content placeholder and "activate" the correct tab.

So the menu items on the left side tree structure will have links like: ~/xx.aspx, ~/yy.aspx. The masterpage framework will automatically load these pages in the main contentplaceholder control on the masterpage itself. You just need to call a method in each page class page_load to make the current tab prominent, like : SetActiveTabs("page1").

HTH,

Vivek

 So you mean:

Left side and right side should each have it's own contentplaceholder on the masterpage?\

TIA,

Dani.

ferchen:

Left side and right side should each have it's own contentplaceholder on the masterpage?\

If the left side section is constant throughout the website, then no need to put it in a contentplace holder, just make a user control for it and drop it in the masterpage itself.

Contentplaceholders should be used for for those sections which change based on user action (like content pages which show up under different tabs when the user selects an item from the left menu).

HTH,

Vivek