Absolute path for img and js excluding project folder name Visual Web Dev

Question

I've this little but annoying issue in my project in Visual Web Developer 2010 Express. I'm developing a website with .aspx files located in a large folder structure i.e. www.domain.com/group1/type1/somefile.aspx, the root folder contains a "styles" (for css), "images" and "js" (for javascripts) folder. I've read a lot about base tag, absolute and relative path today. Finally I realized "absolute path" is the best choice for me.

The main problem is that when I preview (locally) my site in browser the absolute links for image, css, and js are not working, I'm using src="/js/gl.jquery.js" which I believe is correct and will work online.

The source code of the page for the javascript says http://localhost:61700/js/gl.jquery.js, when I switch to relative path script src="../../../js/gl.jquery.js" and preview the website, it works fine, and the source code for the javascript path says http://localhost:61700/ProjectName/js/gl.jquery.js (Notice Visual Studio added the ProjectName in the path) So I'm taking my guess that when the project goes online (on a main domain) it will work correctly, but right now I need to keep developing locally without this issue. Is there a way to fix this in Visual Web Developer? maybe some tag for the web.config file that I can remove when goes online, or some website property?

I know a quick solution will be develop with the relative path, and modify the code when goes online to absolute path, but I'm looking for some cleaner method, as aditional information I didn't choose base tag because I read cause troubles with anchors links (href=xx.html#question3) and I need to use them at some big files. And avoid the relative path because it's possible that the company ask me to move some files in the future and I don't wanna be updating relative paths.

Thanks a Lot!

Answer 1

Problem solved! This is the solution I found Thanks to ScottGu's Blog.

I quote the main thing: when opened a web-site and run the project, VWD launch and run the built-in web-server using a virtual app path that equals the project’s root directory name. For example: if you have a project named “Foo”, it will launch and run in the built-in web-server as http://localhost:1234/Foo/Default.aspx. One downside to this is that it makes it hard to fully qualify things like static CSS and image files within your site (for example: using root qualified paths like /images/myphoto.jpg or /css/mycss.css). Note that you can use the “~” app path trick for dynamic resources – but static resources still end up being a pain (js, css, images files.) (This was my issue)

Here is the guy entire post: Click Here

Here is the main solution:

1) Using the solution explorer within Visual Studio, select the web-site project node, (the one with the World icon)

2) There is a properties named "Virtual path" at the bottom. Change the "virtual path" setting it to / to run as a root web-site.

And that's it, setting up the / I can manage my files easily.