Hi,
This is what I do.
Make sure my custom web application project references the mojoPortal.Web project to get a reference to the base page and make any other references I may need like to mojoPortal.Business, mojoPortal.Business.WebHelpers, etc
1. Add an .aspx page to my project using VS, it creates the codebehind and the designer file.
2. Generate my starter page using the Codesmith tamplate and specifying to use the mojoBasePage
3. Paste the code behind part in first.
4. Paste in the page declaration and content templates in the .aspx part.
5. Then in order to make sure the designer updates correctly, I cut out the content templates and just leave the page declaration, then I paste the content templates back in again and then if needed switch to design view to trigger the designer to update itself.
6. Put your controls inside the <asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderID="mainContent" ID="MPContent" runat="server">
dont put stuff in other placeholders, if you need to do layout do it all inside the main one.
It should work, it works for me.
Hope it helps,
Joe