One big issue regarding web.sitemap as a source for ASP.NET navigation controls is the lack of dynamic updating. This means you need to manually add the new ASP.NET pages to your web.sitemap so that your navigation menu (which is using ASP.NET navigation controls such as SiteMapPath and TreeView) will include the newly added pages.

But manually updating web.sitemap can be a daunting task taking into consideration if you have a lot of new pages to be added to your site or you are managing an ASP.NET website with lots of pages.

This is where solutions to dynamically/automatically update your website navigation are important. In this tutorial, you will be using the ScionSitemapProvider as a tool to dynamic update your ASP.NET website navigation without the need to update the web.sitemap manually.

Demo Website Project using Basic Navigational Controls

In this tutorial you will be using a sample website project that you can use to illustrate the entire process of integrating the ScionSiteMapProvider to your own project. Follow the steps below:

1. Download the sample website project here:

http://www.dotnetdevelopment.net/tutorials/dynamicnavigationdemo.zip

This website project does not yet use ScionSitemapProvider to automatically update the website navigation menu when new pages are added. This is still using the web.sitemap as a source of navigational controls.

2. Right click on the zip file and click “Extract here”.

3. Copy the extracted folder named as “dynamicnavigationdemo” to your ASP.NET local project folders (where you will normally save all your ASP.NET projects).

4. Launch Visual Web Developer Express and go to File – Open Website -- look for dynamicnavigationdemo project, select it and click Open.

5. Go to Default.aspx source code then go to File – View in Browser. You should see the sample website as follows:



There are actually 4 ASP.NET pages in the root directory: Default.aspx (Homepage), Contact.aspx (Contact), Privacy.aspx (Privacy) and Terms.aspx (Terms). There is one directory named “About” with 3 child pages under it Default.aspx (About), John.aspx (John) and Peter.aspx (Peter)

If you are going to add new pages to either the root directory or inside the “About” directory, you will need to manually update the web.sitemap so that new pages will be reflected in the website navigation menu.

Integrate ScionSitemapProvider to your Website Project

The first step in dynamically updating your website navigation menu is to integrate ScionSitemapProvider. Follow the steps below:

1. Go to this page: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/ScionSiteMapProvider.aspx

2. Click the link that says “Download compiled assembly and GAC installer (v.1.1.0.0) - 14.7 KB”. You will need to login before you can download. Registration process is very quick.

3. After downloading, go to your Downloads folder and find the package “Tek4WebScionSiteMapProvider.zip”.

4. Right click on Tek4WebScionSiteMapProvider.zip then click "Extract to Tek4WebScionSiteMapProvider"

The folder is then extracted and inside the Tek4WebScionSiteMapProvider; you should see two files namely: Tek4.Web.ScionSiteMapProvider.dll and Tek4.Web.ScionSiteMapProvider.msi. In this tutorial you will be only using Tek4.Web.ScionSiteMapProvider.dll.

5. Go back to the dynamicnavigationdemo project in Visual Web Developer Express. Go to “Website” -- then click “Add Reference”. Click “Browse” tab. Browse where you have extracted the Tek4WebScionSiteMapProvider folder.

6. Once you see the Tek4WebScionSiteMapProvider folder, select Tek4.Web.ScionSiteMapProvider.dll and then click OK. This dll file will then be added to the Bin folder of your website project. You can see it in Solution Explorer.

7. You also need to update your web.config file to add ScionSitemapProvider as your sitemap provider. Double click web.config in Solution Explorer.

8. Copy and paste the code below just before </system.web> in web.config:

<siteMap defaultProvider="Tek4ScionSiteMapProvider">       
<providers>
<add siteMapFile="web.sitemap" name="Tek4ScionSiteMapProvider" inherit="true" scionTitle="Path" titleSeparator=" > "  type="Tek4.Web.ScionSiteMapProvider,Tek4.Web.ScionSiteMapProvider, Version=1.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=26c804c56bafc725" defaultDocuments="default.aspx" description="Extends XmlSiteMapProvider to provide mapping for URLs that do not have a sitemap file entry by inheriting information from a parent entry." />  
</providers>

9. Go to File – Save all. You have successfully integrated ScionSitemapProvider.

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