The Microsoft guide to building an ASP.NET menu server control

This article contains information about the Microsoft guide Building an ASP.NET Menu Server Control. This guide describes how to build a Microsoft ASP.NET menu server control. The guide also describes how to use an ASP.NET menu server control in ASP.NET Web applications.

The MenuControlSample.msi sample file is an illustrative example that includes the skmMenu menu server control. The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Download the MenuControlSample.msi package now.

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Building an ASP.NET Menu Server Control contains the following eight sections:

• Introduction
  This section introduces the fundamental concepts of a menu, the functionality of a Web-based menu interface, and some sample screens of the skmMenu control.
• Dynamically Displaying Submenus
  This section discusses how you can use HTML, cascading style sheets, and client-side JavaScript to make menus appear and disappear when a user needs this behavior.
• Examining the Plumbing of the skmMenu Control
  This section describes the classes that are used to represent a menu, a menu item, and a collection of menu items. The underlying object model to explicitly add or access menu items from a menu is an XML file.
• Using skmMenu in an ASP.NET Web Page
  This section explains how to add the skmMenu.dll assembly file to an ASP.NET Web project in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. You can add the skmMenu.dll assembly to the Toolbox, and then you can drag a skmMenu control to the project in Design view. The skmMenu.dll assembly is bound to an XML file that contains the information for the menu hierarchy.
• Customizing the Appearance of skmMenu
  This section describes the following four properties of the skmMenu class, and how you can use these properties to customize the appearance of a skmMenu control:
  • MenuStyle
  • UnselectedMenuItemStyle
  • SelectedMenuItemStyle
  • Layout
• Responding to the MenuItemClick Event
  This section describes the behavior of the Click event of each menu item. The Click event either directs you to a URL or raises a PostBack event.
• Current Known Limitations
  This section explains that the development of the skmMenu control is still in progress.
• Conclusion
  This section summarizes the guide. This section also mentions that the development of the skmMenu control is open-source.

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