ASP.NET and JQuery MVC Menu Part 3 (AJAX)

July 26, 2010 · 3 minute read

Other posts in this series:

• Part 1
• Part 2

Aaron has very kindly sent me an extension to the original code for creating a simple menu for ASP.NET MVC sites. His version employs the Microsoft AJAX library to “ajaxify” the links on the menu.

The main part of his code handles getting a List Item containing an AJAX link.

public static class Extention
    {
        public static TagBuilder GetNavItem(this AjaxHelper ajax, MolineSoftware.SLAudit.Navigation navItem)
        {
            MvcHtmlString htmlTemplate = null;
            if (navItem.Route == null)
            {
                htmlTemplate =
                    ajax.ActionLink(navItem.LinkText, navItem.ActionName, navItem.Controller,
                                    new AjaxOptions
                                        {
                                            UpdateTargetId = navItem.UpdateTargetId,
                                            OnSuccess = navItem.OnSuccess,
                                            OnBegin = navItem.OnBegin
                                        });
            }
            else
            {
                htmlTemplate =
                    ajax.ActionLink(navItem.LinkText, navItem.ActionName, navItem.Controller, navItem.Route,
                                    new AjaxOptions
                                        {
                                            UpdateTargetId = navItem.UpdateTargetId,
                                            OnSuccess = navItem.OnSuccess,
                                            OnBegin = navItem.OnBegin
                                        });
            }
            var builder = new TagBuilder("li");
            if (IsCurrentAction(ajax, navItem.ActionName, navItem.Controller))
                builder.MergeAttribute("class", "current");
            builder.InnerHtml = htmlTemplate.ToHtmlString();
            return builder;
        }
        static bool IsCurrentAction(AjaxHelper ajax, string actionName, string controllerName)
        {
            string currentControllerName = (string) ajax.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"];
            string currentActionName = (string) ajax.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"];
            if (currentControllerName.Equals(controllerName, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) &&
                currentActionName.Equals(actionName, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase))
            {
                return true;
            }
            return false;
        }
    }
}

You will notice the use of a class called Navigation (to build the actual link).

public class Navigation
{
    #region | Public Properties |
    /// 

    /// Gets or Sets the ID
    /// 
    public virtual Int32 Id { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or Sets the Display for the link
    /// 
    public virtual String LinkText { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or Sets the ActionName.
    /// 
    public virtual String ActionName { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or Sets the Controller
    /// 
    public virtual String Controller { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or sets the Active flag.
    /// 
    public virtual Boolean Active { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or sets the JavaScript function to call after the page is successfully updated.
    /// 
    public virtual String OnSuccess { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or sets the name of the JavaScript function to call immediately before the page is updated.
    /// 
    public virtual String OnBegin { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or sets the ID of the DOM element to update by using the response from the server.
    /// 
    public virtual String UpdateTargetId { get; set; }
    /// 

    /// Gets or Sets the 
    /// 
    public virtual object Route { get; set; }
    #endregion
}

We can then create a collection of these navigation items…

namespace MolineSoftware.SLAudit
{
    public class NavigationList : List
    {
        #region | Constructor |
        #endregion
        ///Returns a NavigationList of items ** TESTING ONLY
        public NavigationList GetTestList()
        {
            NavigationList list = new NavigationList();
            list.Add(new Navigation
                         {
                             Active = true,
                             Controller = “Home”,
                             OnBegin = “SetLoading”,
                             OnSuccess = “handleUpdate”,
                             Id = 1,
                             LinkText = “Home”,
                             ActionName = “Index”,
                             UpdateTargetId = “output-data”,
                             Route = new {serverName = “MyServer”} //Example setting the route object
                         });
            list.Add(new Navigation
                         {
                             Active = true,
                             Controller = “Home”,
                             OnBegin = “SetLoading”,
                             OnSuccess = “handleUpdate”,
                             Id = 2,
                             LinkText = “About”,
                             ActionName = “About”,
                             UpdateTargetId = “output-data”
                         });
            return list;
        }
    }

Finally we can use this code (assuming model is an instance of our NavigationList class) to render the menu.

<% foreach (var menu in Model as MolineSoftware.SLAudit.NavigationList) { %>
    <%= Ajax.GetNavItem(menu)%>
<% } %>