AdRotator is a control in asp.net which is concerned with advertisements, it basically displays a sequence of ad images. This control uses an XML file to store the ad information. The XML file must begin and end with an <Advertisements> tag. Inside the <Advertisements> tag there may be several <Ad> tags which defines each ad (we will see a sample XML in this article).
In this article i will tell you how to use AdRotator in your page. First step, create a “ASP.NET Empty Web Application“.
As we have started with an Empty Web Application we need to add a page now. Goto Project>Add New Item (Ctrl+Shift+A), a screen will popup add a web form from it name it ‘AdRotator.aspx’.
We should also add an XML file which will contain ad information. Goto Project>Add New Item (Ctrl+Shift+A), select ‘Data’ from left and add a XML file, name it ‘AdRotator.xml’.
Now we will write our XML file, it begins and ends with an <Advertisements> tag. Inside the <Advertisements> tag there may be several <Ad> tags which defines each ad. The predefined elements inside the <Ad> tag are listed below:
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| <ImageUrl> | Optional. The path to the image file |
| <NavigateUrl> | Optional. The URL to link to if the user clicks the ad |
| <AlternateText> | Optional. An alternate text for the image |
| <Keyword> | Optional. A category for the ad |
| <Impressions> | Optional. The display rates in percent of the hits |
But before we add content to our XML file we need to have ad images, so create a new folder in solution explorer and name it ‘Images’ and drag your ad images to it. Code Snippet for XML file is shown below.
Now, from the solution explorer open AdRotator.aspx page it will contain some default code, we will add the AdRotator control now either by dragging it from Toolbox or writing its code, we will also use some attributes for it like AdvertisementFile (Specifies the path to the XML file that contains ad information )and Target (Specifies where to open the URL ).
This was all, Debug your project and see it working. I have just added 3 images so many a times you may see the same image add more images and see it rolling, other than advertisement this can also be used as an banner for your website and many more.