Applying Theme to a Page
A Theme is an attribute of the page class that we can set in
various ways. Once the Theme is set, the page ensures that all of its controls
will render according to the visual settings defined in the Theme. Listing 1
illustrates how to define a Theme to a page.
Listing 1
<% Page Language=“C#” Theme=”myTheme” %>
Applying Theme to an Entire Application
In addition to applying an ASP.NET 2.0 theme to our ASP.NET
pages using the Theme attribute within the page directive, we can also apply it
at an application level from the Web.config file. Then the Theme will be
applied automatically to each and every page within the application. This is
illustrated in Listing 2.
Listing 2
<configuration>
<system.web>
<pages theme=”myTheme”/>
</system.web>
</configuration>
Applying Theme to all Applications in a Server
If we want to use a particular theme for all the web
applications in the server, we can do the same. We can specify the theme that
we want to use within the machine.config file. This is illustrated in Listing
3.
Listing 3
<pages buffer="true" enableSessionState="true"
enableViewState="true" enableViewStateMac="true"
autoEventWireup="true" validateRequest="true"
enablePersonalization="false" theme=" myTheme " >
</pages>
Thus adding the Theme attribute to the pages node within the
machine.config file is a great solution for the server having multiple
applications using the same Theme. Setting a Theme in the machine.config file
means that we do not need to use this theme separately for all the applications
on the server. If we specify another Theme in the application's web.config file
or in the Web page's Page directive, then settings that are set in the web.config
file override settings that are in the machine.config file and settings that
are placed in the Page directive override both settings in the machine.config
and in the web.config files.