How to apply web site navigation control in ASP.NET with example.

Web Site Navigation

Maintaining the menu of a large web site is difficult and time consuming.

In ASP.NET the menu can be stored in a file to make it easier to maintain. This file is normally called web.sitemap, and is stored in the root directory of the web.

In addition, ASP.NET has three new navigation controls:

• Dynamic menus
• TreeViews
• Site Map Path

·         The following sitemap file is used in this tutorial:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>

<siteMap>
  <siteMapNode title="Home" url="/aspnet/w3home.aspx">
    <siteMapNode title="Services" url="/aspnet/w3services.aspx">
      <siteMapNode title="Training" url="/aspnet/w3training.aspx"/>
      <siteMapNode title="Support" url="/aspnet/w3support.aspx"/>
    </siteMapNode>
  </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>

Rules for creating a sitemap file:

• The XML file must contain a <siteMap> tag surrounding the content
• The <siteMap> tag can only have one <siteMapNode> child node (the "home" page)
• Each <siteMapNode> can have several child nodes (web pages)
• Each <siteMapNode> has attributes defining page title and URL 

Dynamic Menu

The <asp:Menu> control displays a standard site navigation menu.

TreeView

The <asp:TreeView> control displays a multi level navigation menu.
The menu looks like a tree with branches that can be opened or closed with + or - symbol.

SiteMapPath

 

The SiteMapPath control displays the trail (navigation path) to the current page. The path acts as clickable links to previous pages.
Unlike the TreeView and Menu control the SiteMapPath control does NOT use a SiteMapDataSource. The SiteMapPath control uses the web.sitemap file by default.

Example: SiteMapPath
default.aspx source file show:

Design file look like:

Default5.aspx source file

 

 Output: