(alert: newbie-crossing ahead)

When working in designer with a page that uses a master page, I can't seem to minimize the contentholders from the master page past a certain extent. So they overlap, and they are sort of "in the way" of each other, visually and in terms of clicking on other parts, when I'm working on the page.

Is there any mitigation for this? Or am I making incorrect assumptions here about filling these content areas?

I thought at first that the master page would be a "sub-page holder"...but then I realized that it's just a template. So now I'm thinking you have to make a "working" page that uses the master page, and then put the "sub-pages" in the content areas of the working page. And the sub-pages are going to be...not really pages, but chunks of content, so maybe...user controls?

(I've got three books on this, but, unfortunately, I'm documentation-and helpfile-lexic...I only seem to be able to learn (at least at first) from code examples and trial and error, until I get the functional flow of the thing.)

Any guidance on this would be appreciated. (The master page behavior...not my learning proclivities... :)
Thanks!

Wirerider:

The master page is not just a template. Rather, it is the part of every page that inherits from it. When you put objects in the place holder(s) your are adding to what is already there.

I have had position problems with controls I place in the placeholder. I solved them by
setting the VWD tool option to not generate any style data by default for every control.
Later, when I get all the objects on an aspx page that I want, I then go create either a
style parameter for every contol by hand, or make a style sheet for every page, which amounts to the same thing.

As far as learning how to do new things, I can't imagine how learning to do things via trial and error could possibly work given the number of classes, properties, methods that
exist in the .net world.

VV