Working with Pages

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Friday, June 15, 2012PrintSubscribe
Working with Pages

The Pages tab on the Project Explorer displays a hierarchy of application elements, starting with pages. Pages are composed of containers with data views and custom user controls.

Top-level pages are pages on the first level of the hierarchy.

The examples of top-level pages are Home, Customers, Employees, Categories, Customer Demographics, and Region. The examples of child pages are Orders, Customer Demo, Order Details, Employee Territories, and Products.

The Project Explorer displays a hierarchy of pages and page elements.

Creating a Page

A top-level page is created by clicking on the New Page icon on the toolbar.

New Page icon at the top of Project Explorer window.

This will open the New Page form where page properties can be specified.

The properties Name, Index, and Path effect the creation of a page.

The Name must be a unique sequence of alphanumeric characters that start with a letter.

The Index is an optional numerical order of the page. If it is not specified, then it will be assigned automatically when the page is saved. If it is specified, then the designer will try to position the page in the requested order.

The Path determines the hierarchical location of a page, as well as reflecting the text displayed on the menu to the end user. The vertical bar character “|” is used to separate multiple levels in the hierarchy. If there is no separator, then the page will be placed at the top of the hierarchy.

Below are sample settings for a new top-level page with a specific Index and Path.

Property Value
Name MyNewPage
Index 1005
Path My New Page

The page will be placed in the specified location based on the path and index when created in the Northwind sample.

New Page with index and path placed at specified location.

Here are the properties for a new page with an existing multi-level path.

Property Value
Name MyNewPage
Path Customers | Orders | My New Page

The page will be placed in the correct location. If the Path includes separators, then any Index is ignored, and the page is placed as the last child of an existing parent.

Page created with an existing mult-level path will be placed in the correct location.

If there is no matching path, then the missing parent pages will be created.

Property Value
Name MyNewPage
Path Customer2 | Orders | My New Page

The parent pages will have a special icon, because the External URL property of the parent pages is set to “about:blank”. Such pages will not have a physical implementation in the application and will simply designate static nodes in the navigation hierarchy.

Page created with a nonexisting multilevel path will create blank pages to match the path.

If a top-level page is created without a specified Index, then the page will be placed at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Property Value
Name MyNewPage
Path My New Page

The framework will automatically handle index allocation after the page is created – it will assign the first page with Index of “1000” and auto-increment by “10” for every succeeding page.

New Page with path but without index placed at the end of the list of pages.

If a page is created without a path, then it will become a system page. This page will not appear on the menu, but can be accessed via URL. The new system page will be added at the bottom of the hierarchy with a different icon. System pages are typically used to provide utility functions in applications and are meant to be presented to users through programmatic commands.

Page created without a path will be a system page.

When a page is selected in the Project Explorer, the New Child Page option will be available on the toolbar. It can also be accessed via the context menu of the page node.

New Child Page icon on the toolbar of Project Explorer.

Selecting this option will open the New Child Page form in the Designer window with Index and Path properties unavailable.

Specifying a name and creating a child page will add the page as the last child of the parent.

Creating a child page under Customers page node.

Rearranging Pages

Moving pages in the hierarchy can be accomplished by dragging and dropping the page nodes in the Project Explorer window. Dropping a page onto another page will place it under the hierarchy of the target page.

Dragging and dropping My New Page onto Orders page node.     My New Page moved under Orders page node.

The page can be moved from one node to another with Cut and Paste commands in the context menu. Use the Cut option on the context menu, and use Paste on the target page.

Cut context menu option on My New Page node.     Paste context menu option on Orders controller.

Holding CTRL while dropping directly onto a page will duplicate the page. If the drop location already has a page with the same name, the duplicated page name will be appended with a number. This can also be done by copying the first page, and then pasting the page in another location.

My New Page being copied onto Orders page node.     My New Page duplicate page node appended with a number.

Dropping a page on the right side of a target page node will place the page after the target. The mouse cursor will indicate where the page will be placed.

My New Page dropped after Orders page node.     My New Page dropped after Orders page node.

Dropping a page on the left side of a target page node will place the page before the target.

My New Page dropped before Orders page node.     My New Page page node placed before Orders in the Project Explorer.

Dragging and dropping a page with child nodes will move the child page nodes as well. Cutting or copying a page with children will also move or copy the entire group to the new location.

Reports page node with child pages dropped on Region page node.     Reports page node moved under Region along with all child pages.

Multiple pages can be selected by holding CTRL and clicking on pages. Clicking on a page node, holding SHIFT, and clicking another page node will select a range.

Customers, Employees, Categories, and Region page nodes selected.

Any drag and drop operations will be based on the order of selection. For example, the pages below were selected in the order of Customers, Employees, Categories, Region, and dropped to the right of Home. This resulted in the pages being reordered to Home, Region, Categories, Employees, and Customers.

Several selected pages dropped after Home node.     Several selected pages dropped after Home node.

Deleting Pages

Delete a page by right-clicking on the page and selecting Delete option.

Delete option for Customer Demographics page node.

You can also select the page(s) and press Delete on your keyboard.

Multiple page deletion prompt.

Renaming Page Nodes

The context menu of page nodes offers Rename option. If the command is activated on a top-level or child page, then the selected segment of the page Path will change. If the command is activated on a system page, then the Title of the page will change. The Path of a system page is always empty.

The following example shows renaming of the Customers / Orders / My New Page page node.

My New Page with Rename context menu option.     My New Page renamed.

The keyboard shortcut F2 will activate rename command on the selected page node. 

If you need to change the physical Name of the page, then select the page and change the Name property in the Designer window.

Hiding Pages from Navigation Menu

For certain pages, it may not be necessary to place them on the navigation menu. The Include in Menu option will remove the page from the menu.

Using the 'Exclude from Menu' context menu option for 'Customer Demographics' page.      'Customer Demographics' page is now excluded from the menu.

The page is still accessible via URL.