Razor Migration Notes 1: Moving a SitemapPath Control to ASP.NET Web Pages

Article
08/07/2011

After many years I decided that it is time to rewrite my Web site using Razor. A bit of history, I started it around 2003 using ASP.NET 1.1. When .NET 2.0 came around in 2005 I migrated to it and it was great being able to leverage features like MasterPages, Themes, Sitemaps, and many other features. Honestly it is a pretty simple Web site, with mostly content, so very few controls, Sitemap, my own custom Menu control, and a couple more. Last week it was moved to use .NET 4.0 and it feels its about time to go back and update it a bit, both in look and features. So this (if time permits) will be the first of a series of migration notes that I discover as I move it to use ASP.NET Razor (aka WebPages). Do note that this is not meant to be a best practice in anyway, I would never claim I can make such a thing, these will be only my personal notes as I discover more details in ASP.NET WebPages features and as I move my own implementation to use them.

So with that, one of the first things I faced during this migration, was the use of a Sitemap control (asp:SiteMapPath) in my MasterPage (future post about moving from MasterPages coming). I knew about Sitemap API, so I just decided to write a simple Sitemap helper that I can now use anywhere in Razor. The code is pretty simple, it basically generates an unordered list of links using <ul> and <li> with <a> inside, and used CSS to layout them in a way that I liked.

SitemapPath Control in WebForms

The original code I was using in my MasterPage looked like the following:

<asp:SiteMapPath CssClass="HeaderText" runat="server" ID="siteMap" ShowToolTips="true" NodeStyle-ForeColor="White" CurrentNodeStyle-Font-Bold="true" />

And generated the following markup:

<span id="siteMap" class="HeaderText"><a href="#siteMap_SkipLink"><img alt="Skip Navigation Links" height="0" width="0" src="https://blogs.msdn.com/WebResource.axd?d=S2jbW9E-HYlS0UQoRCcsm94KUJelFI6yS-CQIkFvzT6fyMF-zCI4oIF9bSrGjIv4IvVLF9liJbz7Om3voRpNZ8yQbW3z1KfqYr4e-0YYpXE1&t=634219272564138624" style='border-width:0px;' /></a><span><a title='Home' href='/' style='color:White;'>Home</a></span><span> > </span><span><a title='Free tools for download' href='/Tools/' style='color:White;'>Tools</a></span><span> > </span><span style='color:White;font-weight:bold;'>Code Translator</span><a id='siteMap_SkipLink'></a></span>

Which looks like the following in the browser:

I used some CSS to set the color, and background and other stuff, but still to set the last item to bold required me to use a property in the Sitemap to get it to look the way I wanted.

My Sitemap Helper in Razor

Since I was familiar with the Sitemap API and my goal was to change as “little” as possible as part of this first migration, I decided to write a Sitemap helper that I can use in my Layout pages. The code in the Page is as simple as it gets, you just call @Helpers.Sitemap() and that’s it (added the Div below to get some context in the markup, but that was already there with the SitemapPath control anyway):

<div class="bannerPath">
@Helpers.Sitemap()
</div>

This new helper version generates the markup below. I don’t know about you, but I can sure make more sense of what it says, and I imagine Search Engines will as well, I decided to use more semantically correct markup using a <nav> to signal navigational section and use a list of links.

<nav>
<ul class="siteMap">
<li><a href="https://blogs.msdn.com/" title="Home">Home</a> > </li>
<li><a href="https://blogs.msdn.com/Tools/" title="Free tools for download">Tools</a> > </li>
<li><span>Code Translator</span></li>
</ul>
</nav>

And it looks like the following in the browser (I decided to remove the underlining, and have more padding, and a new font, but all of that is CSS):

The Sitemap helper code

The code to do the Sitemap was pretty simple, just use the SiteMap API to get the current node. Since I’m picky and I wanted to generate the markup in the “right” order (note you could use CSS to float them to the right instead), I used a Stack to push the nodes while traversing them up. Finally just generate the <li>.

@helper Sitemap()
{
    SiteMapNode currentNode = SiteMap.CurrentNode;
    <nav>
    <ul class="siteMap">
    @if (currentNode != null)
    {
        // Push into a stack to reverse them
        var node = currentNode;
        var nodes = new Stack<SiteMapNode>();
        while (node.ParentNode != null)
        {
            nodes.Push(node.ParentNode);
            node = node.ParentNode;
        }

        while(nodes.Count != 0)
        {
            SiteMapNode n = nodes.Pop();
            <li><a href="@n.Url" title="@n.Description">@n.Title</a> > </li>
        }
        <li><span>@currentNode.Title</span></li>
    }
    else
    {
        <li><span>@Page.Title</span></li>
    }
    </ul>
    </nav>
}

To make it look the way I wanted I used the following CSS:

 .siteMap

{ float:right; font-size:11px; color:White; display:inline; margin-top:3px; margin-bottom:3px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:10px; } .siteMap li,span { float:left; list-style-type:none; padding-left:5px; border-width:0px;} .siteMap span { font-weight:bold; } .siteMap a,a.Visited { color:White; text-decoration:none; }

Conclusion

SitemapPath control gives you a really easy way to put together a navigation control based on the Sitemap APIs (and the Web.Sitemap file in my case). Creating a simple ASP.NET Razor helper is actually pretty easy since all the functionality needed is there in the base API’s and although it required some code (20 lines of code) now I feel like I have more control over my markup, can style it in anyway I want using CSS and have cleaner markup rendered.

I’m sure there are better ways to do this, but as I said, the goal of this first pass is to push my site soon with as little changes possible while keeping the same functionality first.

Comments

Anonymous
January 10, 2012
Where is the bannerPath css?
Anonymous
January 11, 2012
Here are the css classes I have:.bannerPath{ height:23px; background: url( "bar2.bmp" ); display:block;}.siteMap{ float:right; font-size:11px; color:White; display:inline; margin-top:3px; margin-bottom:3px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:10px;}.siteMap li, .siteMap span{ float:left; list-style-type:none; padding-left:5px; border-width:0px;}.siteMap span { font-weight:bold; }.siteMap a, .siteMap a:Visited {border:1px solid transparent; padding:2px; color:White; text-decoration:none; }.siteMap a:Hover { border:1px solid #6A6761; padding:2px; background-color:#A1A39E; border-radius:3px; }

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