using different site.master files for themes

Question

is having different site.master files common practices for theming. right now i have my menu system and different links and styles based on different ".master" files in an asp.net-mvc site. another developer thought that was a strange approach and i wanted to get some thoughts from the community.

Answer 1

The most flexible way of "themeing" MVC seems to be providing your own ViewEngine ... this is not as complex as it sounds ... essentially you tell the ViewEngine to look in specified folders for Master Pages and Views .. or to fall back to the default "Views" folder for base implementations ..

For my own implemenation of MVC themes I referred heavily on this article by Christophe Geer: ASP.NET MVC Themed View Engine ... but I am sure there are many other sources available.