Help understanding MenuList

David Larsson

Vote:

Could some one please help me and explain how the MenuList in Alloy MVC templates works. As a junior developer i find it very complex.

The most confusing part is the Func<MenuItem, HelperResult> itemTemplate = null part. I cant get my head around what this parameter is when the method is called. Please help.

@Html.MenuList(ContentReference.StartPage,
                                                   @<li class="@(item.Selected ? "active" : null)">
                                                        @Html.PageLink(item.Page, null, new { @class = string.Join(" ", item.Page.GetThemeCssClassNames())})
                                                    </li>)

public static IHtmlString MenuList(
            this HtmlHelper helper,
            ContentReference rootLink,
            Func<MenuItem, HelperResult> itemTemplate = null,
            bool includeRoot = false,
            bool requireVisibleInMenu = true,
            bool requirePageTemplate = true)
        {}

#80766

Jan 31, 2014 13:11

valdis

Vote:

You are not alone who finds this too over engineering :)

Anyway this is more related to C# and Mvc idioms and so much about EPiServer. In this particular case Func<TArg,TResult> is a function this may be passed in as argument to MenuList method. This function represents "some code block" that may be called later while generating menu.

In AlloyTech Func<> is actually generated by view engine - in this case Razor. In this case you are declare this helper method inline while calling to MenuList method. Is it more clear if you look at following code?

@helper RenderItem(HtmlHelpers.MenuItem item)
{
    <li class="@(item.Selected ? "active" : null)">
        @Html.PageLink(item.Page, null, new { @class = string.Join(" ", item.Page.GetThemeCssClassNames()) })
    </li>
}

and then:

@Html.MenuList(ContentReference.StartPage, RenderItem)

#80785

Feb 01, 2014 23:05

David Larsson

Vote:

Thank you Valdis!

You made it some what more clear but i still feel quite confused. :)

I'm not the person to say if this code is over engineerd or not but i think it's hard to understand and i need to practise more!

I found this link if there is any one else out there also confused: http://vibrantcode.com/blog/2010/8/2/inside-razor-part-3-templates.html

Please feel free to post links that explains this way of programming :)

Regards

David

#80810

Feb 03, 2014 11:20