Newbie needing help......please!

[geordienz]

I have an aspx page which I would like to give the same look and feel as the html index page.
How do I display all the same navigation stuff but integrate the asp form into the page. Sorry if this seems like a stupid question but I really am very new at all this.
TIA

[RFH Reseller: Sol]

Firstly, we need to make sure you get your acronyms right. ASP (also know as classic asp) is not the same as ASPX (which is the file extension used to signify .Net scripted files).

The next thing you have to realize is that most off the scripting languages work by pre-processing files on the server looking for code segments and executing those before rendering the final output to an end user (so that things can be clearer this would include PHP and other backend technologies not normally associated with windows servers).

So, the answer to your question would be that you should think of ASPX as an HTML file but with extra bits which get processed by the server before sending the ouput. Now, depending on how you develop the code that is processed by the server may be contained within the ASPX file (in between <script runat='server'> blocks), or in a seperate code-file which is pointed to within the '@Page' directive in the ASPX file.

If you find you are using common layouts than it is probably best to also look at MasterPages. This will allow you to define areas of your site that will be common for several pages and hence the individual ASPX pages would just need to populate these areas. The technique for this is simple since you would put 'ContentPlaceHolder' controls in the master pages and use a 'Content' control in the ASPX pages to put the content into the place holders.

I would really recommend you look at the ASP.Net website especially the 'Get Started' and 'Learn' sections.