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The sidebar is displayed on the left side of every content page. The About box displays a description for the page. The See Also box shows other pages on the same level in the navigation menu. The Summary box displays information about the selected record, if enabled for the specific view.

Customizing the About Box

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, double-click on Customers page node.

Change the About This Page property:

Save the page. On the toolbar, press Browse. Notice that the text in About box has been updated.

Hiding See Also Box

The See Also box displays links to pages on the same hierarchy level. Let’s hide the See Also box.

In the Project Explorer, double-click on Customers page node.

Change the following:

Press OK to save. On the toolbar, press Browse. Notice that the See Also box has disappeared.

Custom content may be added to the sidebar in the form of a user control.

Placing a Custom User Control in the Sidebar

In the Project Explorer, right-click on Customers / page container node, and press New Control.

Next to the User Control lookup, click on the New User Control icon.

Assign a name to the user control.

Press OK to save the new user control. Press OK to add the user control to the page.

Right-click on Customers / page / control1 – CustomerSidebar node, and press Rename.

Change the name to “sidebar”, and press Enter key to apply changes.

On the toolbar, press Browse. Notice that the user control is now present in the sidebar.

Every page in a generated web app has a title, displayed directly under the path. To change the page path in the navigation menu, use drag & drop techniques to move the page to the desired location.

Let’s change the title of the Customers page.

Specifying a Page Title

Start the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, double-click on Customers page node.

Change the title:

Press OK to save. On the toolbar, press Browse. Notice that the Customers page title now says “Customer List”.

It may be necessary to update the text of the header dynamically. Create a custom user control for complex page title customization.

Placing a Custom User Control in the Title

In the Project Explorer, right-click on Customers / page container node and press New Control.

Next to the User Control lookup, click on the New User Control icon.

Assign a user control name:

Press OK to create the user control. Press OK to save the properties of the control instance and have it added to the Customers / page container.

Right-click on the new control Customers / page / control1 – CustomerTitle, and press Rename.

Change the name to “title” and press Enter key to save changes.

On the toolbar, press Browse. Notice that the title text has been replaced with the custom user control.

Right-click Customers / page / title – CustomerTitle and press Edit in Visual Studio option in the context menu to start customization.