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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)%>
<% } %>