Create a main menu with EPiServer:MenuList
Describes how to create a basic menu list of top level pages using the EPiServer:MenuList control.
Important
This topic applies to Web Forms.
A top-level navigational menu enables the user to navigate around the website easily.
Create a main menu with EPiServer:MenuList
as follows:
- 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.
- 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-inPageLink
property of the current page. - Add a new Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) web control to the project;
MainMenu
in this example. - In the MainMenu.ascx user control file, add the control with closing tags and give the control the ID value Menu.
- 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. - Add an item template <ItemTemplate> around the CMS
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. - Pass in the correct CSS class to get the right look and feel (
CssClass="NormalLink"
), by setting theCssClass
attribute on theProperty
control. - The
PageLink
attribute of theEPiServer: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 staticStartPage
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 attributeMenu.PageLink
to thePageReference.StartPage
property. See the code example in this topic. - 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 thePage\_Load
event in the code-behind file (where menu is the ID of yourMenuList
 web control).
The menu should be functional now. - 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.
MenuList code example markup
<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>
MenuList code example code behind
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; }
}
}
Updated 5 months ago