Spacing menu options across menu bar

runnerpaul · April 26th, 2011, 08:20 AM

Hi,

I have worked through "Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB" and am now using the skills I learned to create a website of my own.

The theme of my layout is based on the Monochrome theme from the book. However I am having trouble with the menu. Currently the menu links are all appearing toward the left of the menu bar. I would like to have them evenly spaced across the menu bar like in the Planet Wrox Site. As far as I can see I have created my menu is a similar way. Can anybody suggest what I ma be missing or how I can resolve this?

Cheers
Paul

runnerpaul · April 26th, 2011, 08:43 AM

By the way, here is my master page and css file:

Code:

<%@ Master Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="Site.Master.vb" Inherits="Site" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head runat="server">
    <title></title>
    <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="HeadContent" runat="server">
    </asp:ContentPlaceHolder>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
        <div id="PageWrapper">
            <div id="Header"><a class="HeaderLink" href="~/" runat="server"></a></div>
            <div id="MenuWrapper">
                <asp:Menu ID="Menu1" runat="server" CssClass="MainMenu" DataSourceID="SiteMapDataSource1" 
                    Orientation="Horizontal" StaticEnableDefaultPopOutImage="False">
                    <DynamicHoverStyle CssClass="DynamicHoverStyle" />
                    <DynamicMenuItemStyle CssClass="DynamicMenuItemStyle" />
                    <StaticHoverStyle CssClass="StaticHoverStyle" />
                    <StaticMenuItemStyle CssClass="StaticMenuItemStyle" />
                    <StaticSelectedStyle CssClass="StaticSelectedStyle" />
                </asp:Menu>
                <asp:SiteMapDataSource ID="SiteMapDataSource1" runat="server" 
                    ShowStartingNode="False" />
            </div>
            <div id="Main">
                <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="MainContent" runat="server"/>
            </div>
            <div id="Sidebar"></div>
            <div id="Footer">Footer goes here</div>
        </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Code:

*
{
	font-family: Arial, Sans-Serif;
}

body
{
	/* 
		Clears white space around the body except for the top which gets 10 pixels.
	*/
	margin: 10px 0 0 0;
}

a
{
	/*
		Clears the underline on normal links, and give them #308462 as the color.
	*/
	color: #308462;
	text-decoration: none;
}

a:hover
{
	/*
		Underlines links when the users hover the mouse over them.
	*/
	text-decoration: underline;
}

h1
{
  /*
    Makes h1 elements smaller than their browser default.
  */
 font-size : 20px;
}

.Introduction
{
  font-style: italic;
  color: #003399;
}

#PageWrapper
{
	/*
		Sets the total width for the entire page. 
	*/
	width: 844px;
	background-color: #cccccc;
	margin: auto
}

#Header
{
	/*
		Gives the header the same width as the PageWrapper. The height creates some room for the logo
		that is set with the background-image.
	*/
	background-image: url(Images/Header.jpg);
	width: 844px;
	height: 86px;
}

.HeaderLink
{
	/*
		The #HeaderLink is nested in the #Header. It provides a link to the homepage.
	*/
	width: 844px; 
	height: 86px; 
	display: block;	
}

#MenuWrapper
{
	/*
		The menu spans the page width, right below the header.
		At the top and left a few pixels padding is applied to create some room.
	*/
	background-image: url(Images/MenuBackground.jpg);
	width: 827px;
	height: 36px;
	padding-top: 7px;
	padding-left: 17px;
}

#MenuWrapper a
{
	/*
		Links in the Menu are white. This gets overriden by styles in chapter 7.
	*/
  color: #fff;
}

.MainMenu
{
	/*
		The Menu gets a white border on all four sides.
	*/
	border: 1px solid white;
	width: 814px;
	height: 19px;
	background-color : #cccccc;
}

#Main
{
	/*
		Defines the main content area. The #MainContent element has a minimum height of 500 pixels, but can grow if necessary.
		The font-size is 80% of its parenty element, which in this case comes down to 80% of the font
		the user has specified as the default font in the browser.
	*/
	font-size: 0.8em;
	width: 659px;
	border-left: 1px solid white;
	border-right: 2px solid white;
	float: left;
	background-color: #e1e1e1;
	min-height: 500px;
	padding: 10px;
}

#Sidebar
{
	/*
		The SideBar is positioned to the right of the MainContent area. It gets the same font-size as #MainContent
		and gets a background image called Sidebar.jpg. To ensure the image is visible in (most) browsers
		on a small page, the element gets a minimum height of 500px. This is ignored by IE 6.
	*/
	font-size: 0.8em;
	background-image: url(Images/Sidebar.jpg);
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-color: #cccccc;
	width: 152px;
	min-height: 500px;
	padding-top: 10px;
	padding-left: 10px;
	float: left;
}

#Footer
{
	/*
		The footer is positioned below all other content (yet still within PageWrapper).
		At the top, it gets a border with a dashed style, while all other sides have no border.
		clear: both is used to clear the impact of the float properties used for #MainContent and #SideBar.
	*/
	clear: both;
	height: 37px;
	background-color : #bee4cf;
	color: White;
	text-align: center;
	font-size: 0.7em;
	font-weight: bold;
	line-height: 37px;
}

.MyButton
{
    color: #308462;
}

.StaticMenuItemStyle, .StaticMenuItemStyle a
{
    color: #707070;
    font-size: 14px;
    font-weight: bold;
    text-decoration: none;
    padding-left: 2px;
}

.StaticHoverStyle, .StaticSelectedStyle
{
    background-color: #c1e4ce;
}

.DynamicMenuItemStyle
{
    font-size: 14px;
    color: #707070;
    background-color: #cccccc;
    padding: 4px 2px 4px 3px;
}

.DynamicHoverStyle
{
    background-color: #707070;
    color: White;
}

.DynamicHoverStyle a
{
    text-decoration: none;
} 

.PleaseWait
{
    height: 32px;
    width: 500px;
    background-image: url(Images/PleaseWait.gif);
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    padding-left: 40px;
    line-height: 32px;
}

Imar · April 26th, 2011, 01:27 PM

Hi there,

Are you using VWD 2010 and .NET 4? if so, some of the 3.5 code is not compatible. The Menu in ASP.NET 4 renders differently than it did previously. A few ways to fix:

1. Modify the CSS to match the new rendered HTML (<ul> and <li> elements instead of tables)

2. Add the following to your web.config:

Code:

 
<pages theme="Monochrome" controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion="3.5" clientIDMode="AutoID">

The latter option affects more controls, so make sure things look the way you want if you apply this fix.

Cheers,

Imar

runnerpaul · April 27th, 2011, 10:30 AM

Cheers. that has helped. The links are a little out of position now but I'll get that sorted.

I was using VWD2010. Would I be correct in thinking I may have selected .NET 3.5 at some point when I began working through the exercises in your book?

Its an excellent book by the way!

Cheers
Paul

Imar · April 27th, 2011, 10:59 AM

It's the other way around. You have a VWD 2010 / .NET 4 project, and try to use it with code (from my book) targeted at .NET 3.5

By adding that switch to the web.config, you tell the .NET 4 project to render in 3.5 mode, making it compliant with my / your 3.5 code.

Hope this helps,

Quote:

Its an excellent book by the way!

Thanks!

Imar