Creating custom headers and footers in Application level events using global.asax

Introduction

This is a very simple example that shows how to use the global.asax file to create custom header and footers for all your pages.

Background

The Global.asax file contains a number of events that happens when any ASP.NET application is running. In this example, I am using the "Application_BeginRequest" and "Application_EndRequest" events to show how to create a custom header and footers. Application_BeginRequest gets fired whenever the ASP.NET page gets a new request to handle. It happens before any page, Web Service, or any HTTP handler gets the opportunity to process the request. Therefore, I am using it to create my custom header here. Application_EndRequest gets fired whenever the request is complete. We can control the application response before handing the event to HTTP handlers. Therefore, I am using it to create my custom footer.

Code

The code is very, very simple. Therefore, I did't bother to include my test application. Basically, do the following steps:

1. Create a new ASP.NET application using C#.
2. Visual Studio creates the global.asax file for you.
3. Replace the code for the Application_EndRequest and Application_StartRequest events with the code below:
C#

protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{

    Response.Write("<H1> Welcome to my website! </H1>" );
    Response.Write(" This is my header that comes from Application level " );
    Response.Write("<HR>");

}

protected void Application_EndRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    int yearDate ;
    string dateStr;
    yearDate = System.DateTime.Now.Year;
    dateStr = yearDate.ToString();
    Response.Write("<HR>");
    Response.Write("Copyright 2002-" + dateStr );
    Response.Write("This is my customer footer that  from Application level" );
    Response.Write("<HR>");

}

That is it. Of course, don't forget to keep the layout of your form to "FlowLayout". Run it, and you will get the custom header and footer as in the image above. However, nothing is stopping you from creating a very fancy header and footer and replacing my code with them.