Does a MasterPage know what page is being displaye

Question

When I navigate on a website utilizing MasterPages, does the application know what page I am on? If so, does it store it in an object I can access?

The reason I am asking is so I can replace this:

//masterpage 
<div id="nav_main">
   <ul><asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="navigation" runat="server">                    
   </asp:ContentPlaceHolder></ul>
</div>

//content page(s)
<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="navigation" ID="theNav" runat="server">
   <li><a href="default.aspx">Home</a></li>
   <li id="current"><a href="faq.aspx">FAQ</a></li>
   <li><a href="videos.aspx">Videos</a></li>
   <li><a href="#">Button 4</a></li>
   <li><a href="#">Button 5</a></li>
</asp:Content>

With a more elegant solution for the navigation, which highlights the link to the page by having the list item's ID set to "current". Currently each page recreates the navigation with its respective link's ID set to current.

Answer 1

To get the current request URL from within the master page you would do:

string s = this.Page.Request.FilePath; // "/Default.aspx"

I also recommend moving your navigation into the master page instead of the content page. This will make it easier to maintain / access.

Answer 2

The navigation control, not the master page, should be in charge of what page is currently highlighted.

Either the page that is loaded should notify the navigation item who it is, or the nav control itself should keep track of it.

The point is that master pages are supposed to simply be a holder that content is displayed in. They aren't supposed to control anything.

Answer 3

You should be able to get the page by accessing the Page property. IE:

string type = this.Page.GetType().Name.ToString();

Answer 4

You'd probably just use one of the Request path from within the master page to set the current. I'd probably also have a property on the master page to override it, so that pages without links or something could set it to something reasonable.

Answer 5

There's also the Request.RawURL

Answer 6

Yes, Use the below code in your master file. It will give you the content page name.

Page.ToString().Replace("ASP.","").Replace("_",".")