ASP.NET, Menus and XML

T

tymbow

Newcomer
Joined
Dec 14, 2003
Messages
13
I'm building a little XML driven menu. I'm not that familiar with XML objects yet but the code seems to be working ok. It is, however, on the ugly side. The key complicator is that the menu is dynamic - that is it needs to be changed depending on which page you are on, and a parent link needs to be flagged if a child link is selected. I could do it with JavaScript and DHTML but it needs to stay server side.

Has anyone got any quick suggestions on a better way to do this?

Note: LoadXmlFile is a function (not shown) that loads and validates an xml document. The output of which is XmlDocument type. The menuContent object is an ASP literal.

The code is as follows:

Code: 
			Dim xmlDoc As XmlDocument = LoadXmlFile(Server.MapPath("/menu.xml"))
	                Dim element As XmlElement
	                Dim subElement As XmlElement
			Dim elements As XmlNodeList
			Dim subElements As XmlNodeList
			Dim output As New StringBuilder
			Dim temp As New StringBuilder
			Dim scriptName As String = Page.Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
			Dim elementSelected As Boolean

			elements = xmlDoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("/menu/menuItem")

			output.Append("<table>")

			For Each element In elements

				output.Append("<tr>")

				elementSelected = False

				If element.Attributes("url").Value.ToUpper = scriptName.ToUpper Then
					elementSelected = True
				End If

				subElements = element.ChildNodes

				If subElements.Count > 0 Then

					temp.Remove(0, temp.Length)
					temp.Append("<table>")
			
					For Each subElement In subElements

						temp.Append("<tr>")

						If subElement.Attributes("url").Value.ToUpper = scriptName.ToUpper Then
							elementSelected = True
							temp.Append(String.Format("<td style=""padding-left: 30px;""><a class=""dynMenuOnText"" href=""{0}"">{1}</a></td>", subElement.Attributes("url").Value, subElement.Attributes("name").Value, ControlChars.CrLf))
						Else
							temp.Append(String.Format("<td style=""padding-left: 30px;""><a class=""dynMenuOffText"" href=""{0}"">{1}</a></td>", subElement.Attributes("url").Value, subElement.Attributes("name").Value, ControlChars.CrLf))
						End If

						temp.Append("</tr>")

					Next

					temp.Append("</table>")

				End If

				If elementSelected Then

					If subElements.Count > 0 Then
						output.Append(String.Format("<td><img class=""imageToLeft"" src=""images/menu_on.png"" alt=""""><a class=""dynMenuOn"" href=""{0}"">{1}</a>", element.Attributes("url").Value, element.Attributes("name").Value, ControlChars.CrLf))
						output.Append(temp.ToString)
						output.Append("</td>")
					Else
						output.Append(String.Format("<td><img class=""imageToLeft"" src=""images/menu_on.png"" alt=""""><a class=""dynMenuOn"" href=""{0}"">{1}</a></td>", element.Attributes("url").Value, element.Attributes("name").Value, ControlChars.CrLf))
					End If

				Else

					output.Append(String.Format("<td><img class=""imageToLeft"" src=""images/menu_off.png"" alt=""""><a class=""dynMenuOff"" href=""{0}"">{1}</a></td>", element.Attributes("url").Value, element.Attributes("name").Value, ControlChars.CrLf))

				End If

				output.Append("</tr>")

			Next

			output.Append("</table>")

			menuContent.Text=output.ToString

			End If

A sample xml file is as follows:

Code: 
<menu>
	<menuItem name="Item Zero" url="/one.aspx" />
	<menuItem name="Item One" url="/one.aspx">
		<subItem name="Test" url="/test.aspx" />
		<subItem name="Sub Item One" url="/default.aspx" />
		<subItem name="Sub Item Two" url="/threetwo.aspx" />
	</menuItem>
	<menuItem name="Item Two" url="/about.aspx" />
	<menuItem name="Item Three" url="/three.aspx">
		<subItem name="Disclaimer" url="/disclaimer.aspx" />
	</menuItem>
	<menuItem name="Item Four" url="/four.aspx" />
</menu>
 
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