Creating a main menu

This topic describes how to create a basic menu list of top level pages using the EPiServer:MenuList control. A top-level navigational menu enables the user to navigate around the website easily.

Creating a main menu with EPiServer:MenuList

Create a main menu with EPiServer:MenuList as follows:

1. In edit view, add some pages under the website’s start page, such as: News, Documents, Examples and Events. When the menu is complete, you can navigate to and from these pages.
2. In web.config, set the variable pageStartId to the website’s start page ID. In the menu list, display each page’s name as a link to that page; use the built-in PageLink property of the current page.
3. Add a new Episerver web control to the project; MainMenu in this example.
4. In the MainMenu.ascx user control file, add the control with closing tags and give the control the ID value Menu.
5. The PageLink attribute is set in the control’s code-behind file. Set the PageLink attribute and the control ID, and see the code example in this topic.
6. Add an item template <ItemTemplate> around the Episerver PageLink property. These recur for every page item that exists in the list. A page link is displayed for all the pages in the page hierarchy under the start page.
7. Pass in the correct CSS class to get the right look and feel (CssClass="NormalLink), by setting the CssClass attribute on the Property control.
8. The PageLink attribute of the EPiServer:MenuList control should be made dynamic instead of using a hardcoded ID to the start page of the website. A reference to the start page of the website is automatically available through the static StartPage property in the EPiServer.Core.PageReference class. This provides a context to the menu control, indicating which pages it will display. In the code-behind file set the control attribute Menu.PageLink to the PageReference.StartPage property. See the code example in this topic.
9. Use data binding to access the property and use the retrieved information as part of the loading of a control. (Data binding is a .NET concept and is documented in the Microsoft .NET help files.) You must explicitly data vind the menu list control by calling its DataBind() method, by placing the example code (in this topic) in the Page_Load event in the code-behind file (where menu is the ID of your MenuList web control).
   The menu should be functional now. 
10. Browse to the website’s start page and verify that the top menu accurately displays the names of the pages in the top-level of the website structure. Click the links in the menu to verify that the navigation is working.

<EPiServer:MenuList runat="server" id="Menu">
    <HeaderTemplate>
        <ul id="MainMenu">
    </HeaderTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
            <li class="unselected"><EPiServer:Property PropertyName="PageLink" runat="server" /></li>
    </ItemTemplate>
    <SelectedTemplate>
            <li class="selected"><EPiServer:Property runat="server" PropertyName="PageLink" /></li>
    </SelectedTemplate>
    <FooterTemplate>
        </ul>
    </FooterTemplate>
</EPiServer:MenuList>

public partial class MainMenu : UserControlBase
{
    protected override void OnLoad(System.EventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnLoad(e);
        Menu.PageLink = PageReference.StartPage;
        Menu.DataBind();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets the MenuList for this control
    /// </summary>
    public MenuList MenuList
    {
        get { return Menu; }
        set { Menu = value; }
    }
}

Related topic

This Main Menu control menu is used by the SubMenu control. See Creating a submenu.