newbie ASP.NET questions

i just recently picked up some ASP.NET for fun, and have some questions for those of you who are alot more experienced than I am....

- if i want a default.aspx page on the root directory of my web server, how can i use visual studio .NET to create it? by default when you create a ASP.NET application it puts it in its own subdir. But if I don't create a project, VS .NET doesnt seem to want to compile the stuff....and can't get to the design view either.

- VS .NET is great for coding, but after doing up an aspx page I wanted to open it in dreamweaver to add some static content. But all the asp.net server controls are represented in weird little icons and moving their location doesnt actually do anything when the page is rendered. Only changing their coordinates in the code does....which makes using dreamweaver mx essentuially uselss :-(. Am i missing something really obvious?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on this!

1. You should just develop your project in the subdir that VS creates. Then when your ready to deploy to the web server's root, either copy over all necessary files to the root or make the root a virtual directory that actually points to the project directory

2. I've had problems with Dreamweaver and ASPX pages, too. I've found it easiest to design first in DW, then open it up in VS for the programmin part.
The reason you're not able to relocate the asp.net controls in DW may be because you originally designed in grid layout mode in VS.

Hope that helps,
Nathan

that does help nathan, thank you.

I can't help but to think that its weird that things don't look right in dreamweaver mx, after all they have asp.net support. Even if you try to put in server controls in dreamweaver, it looks funny. There is always a funny red bar on top, and then the server controls are these icons (whose location bears no resemblance to where the actual controls are rendered when the aspx page runs). I have not tried Frontpage yet but does anyone know if it provides slightly better integration?

just heard about an app called WebMatrix which is supposed to supported WYSIWYG ASP.NET development......and its free from Microsoft. URL

Dreamweaver's support for ASP.NET is really pretty poor, however, I've heard the next update will be much better.

That Web Matrix Tool is very nice. I've actually used it quite a bit. One of the main differences between it and VS is that it does not do the code-behind files as VS does. You just put your server side code in-line.