asp.net site default document in subfolder

Question

My default document is in subfolder not in root how can i make it default in asp.net 2.0 website.

Tried iis7 default document setting to '/pages/default.aspx' '~/pages/default.aspx' but it didn't work.

Answer 1

Default document is not the same as start page. Default document means if I requested mysite.com/somefolder and didn't specify a file, which file should IIS display.

If you want to use a specific page as your home page, create a Default.aspx file and write this in it's codebehind class:

public override void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) {
    context.Response.Redirect("pages/default.aspx", true);
}

As the client might have disabled Javascript, a server side approach would be more reliable. However it's best to issue a permanent redirect instead of a simple Response.Redirect. Also doing it using JS will be bad from a SEO point of view.

Answer 2

You don't need to create a dummy Default.aspx page.

In your Global.asax.cs file, write the following:

public void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var routeCollection = RouteTable.Routes;
    routeCollection.MapPageRoute("DefaultRoute", string.Empty, "~/YourDesiredSubFolder/YourDesiredDocument.aspx");
}

Explanation:

• Application_Start code is guaranteed to run once and only once on the application start.
• The first line of code, gets a collection of the URL routes for your application.
• The second line of code, defines a new route pointing to your inner page in the subfolder that you wish.
• The second argument is empty to indicate that this route is used when there's no specific page is requested and there's no Default document existing.