How to visually indicate current page in ASP.NET MVC? - css

Question

As a base for discussion. Create a standard ASP.NET MVC Web project.
It will contain two menu items in the master page:
<div id="menucontainer">
<ul id="menu">
<li>
<%= Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")%></li>
<li>
<%= Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home")%></li>
</ul>
</div>
How can I set the visual CSS style indicating the current page.
For example, when in the About page/controller, I essentially would like to do this:
<%= Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home", new {class="current"})%></li>
And, of course, when on the home page:
<%= Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home", new {class="current"})%></li>
(Having a CSS style names current that visually indicates in the menu that this is the current page.)
I could break out the menu div from the master page into a content place holder, but that would mean that I must put the menu on every page.
Any ideas, is there a nice solution to this?

Answer 1

The easiest way is to get the current controller and action from the ViewContext's RouteData. Note the change in signature and use of # to escape the keyword.
<% var controller = ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"] as string ?? "Home";
var action = ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"] as string ?? "Index";
var page = (controller + ":" + action).ToLower();
%>
<%= Html.ActionLink( "About", "About", "Home", null,
new { #class = page == "home:about" ? "current" : "" ) %>
<%= Html.ActionLink( "Home", "Index", "Home", null,
new { #class = page == "home:index" ? "current" : "" ) %>
Note that you could combine this an HtmlHelper extension like #Jon's and make it cleaner.
<%= Html.MenuLink( "About", "About", "Home", null, null, "current" ) %>
Where MenuActionLink is
public static class MenuHelperExtensions
{
public static string MenuLink( this HtmlHelper helper,
string text,
string action,
string controller,
object routeValues,
object htmlAttributes,
string currentClass )
{
RouteValueDictionary attributes = new RouteValueDictionary( htmlAttributes );
string currentController = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"] as string ?? "home";
string currentAction = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"] as string ?? "index";
string page = string.Format( "{0}:{1}", currentController, currentAction ).ToLower();
string thisPage = string.Format( "{0}:{1}", controller, action ).ToLower();
attributes["class"] = (page == thisPage) ? currentClass : "";
return helper.ActionLink( text, action, controller, new RouteValueDictionary( routeValues ), attributes );
}
}

Answer 2

I recently created an HTML Helper for this that looks like:
public static string NavigationLink(this HtmlHelper helper, string path, string text)
{
string cssClass = String.Empty;
if (HttpContext.Current.Request.Path.IndexOf(path) != -1)
{
cssClass = "class = 'selected'";
}
return String.Format(#"<li><a href='{0}' {1}>{2}</a></li>", path, cssClass, text);
}
The Implementation looks like this:
<ul id="Navigation">
<%=Html.NavigationLink("/Path1", "Text1")%>
<%=Html.NavigationLink("/Path2", "Text2")%>
<%=Html.NavigationLink("/Path3", "Text3")%>
<%=Html.NavigationLink("/Path4", "Text4")%>
</ul>

Answer 3

If you are using T4MVC, you can use this:
public static HtmlString MenuLink(
this HtmlHelper helper,
string text,
IT4MVCActionResult action,
object htmlAttributes = null)
{
var currentController = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"] as string ?? "home";
var currentAction = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"] as string ?? "index";
var attributes = new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes);
var cssClass = (attributes.ContainsKey("class"))
? attributes["class"] + " "
: string.Empty;
string selectedClass;
if(action.Controller.Equals(currentController, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)
{
selectedClass = "selected-parent";
if(action.Action.Equals(currentAction, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
selectedClass = "selected";
}
cssClass += selectedClass;
attributes["class"] = cssClass;
return helper.ActionLink(text, (ActionResult)action, attributes);
}

Answer 4

It might just be that it's the 5th parameter, so slot a null before your html attribute. This post here describes it as such, though you can pass in some stuff on the 4th arguement, the 5th is specifically for HTMLattributes

Answer 5

<script type="javascript/text">
$( document ).ready( function() {
#if (Request.Url.AbsolutePath.ToLower() == "/")
{
#Html.Raw("$('.navbar-nav li').eq(0).attr('class','active');")
}
#if (Request.Url.AbsolutePath.ToLower().Contains("details"))
{
#Html.Raw("$('.navbar-nav li').eq(1).attr('class','active');")
}
#if (Request.Url.AbsolutePath.ToLower().Contains("schedule"))
{
#Html.Raw("$('.navbar-nav li').eq(2).attr('class','active');")
}
});
</script>
Chucked this together in 5mins, I could probably refactor it, but should give you the basic idea, its probably most useful for smaller sites.