Getting Started with the ASP.NET MVC Menu

The ShieldUI Menu for ASP.NET MVC is a server-side wrapper component implemented in the ASP.NET MVC HTML helper pattern. Getting started with the component is a breeze. Simply add a reference to the Shield.Mvc.UI assembly in your ASP.NET MVC 3 or MVC 4 project and add the Shield.Mvc.UI namespace to the <pages> node of the <system.web.webpages.razor> section in your ~/Views/Web.config configuration file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorWebSectionGroup, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
      <section name="host" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.HostSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
      <section name="pages" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorPagesSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>

  <system.web.webPages.razor>
    <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
      <namespaces>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Optimization"/>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
        <add namespace="Shield.Mvc.UI"/>
      </namespaces>
    </pages>
  </system.web.webPages.razor>
...

Since the ShieldUI Menu for MVC is a wrapper of javascript Menu component you need to include the references to the CSS and JavaScript resources in the HEAD section of your webpage:

<head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/light/all.min.css" />
    <script src="js/jquery-1.10.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="js/shieldui-all.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>

The javascript resources for client side component you can find on the download page under ShieldUI JavaScript section.

The ShieldUI Menu code for ASP.NET MVC follows the MVC helper pattern by providing a set of chainable methods that configure the widgets. The C# helpers API is a 1:1 reflection of the JavaScript widgets configuration, so you only have to get familiar with a single set of configuration options:

// JavaScript Menu initialization
$("#menu").shieldMenu({
    dataSource: {
        data: links
    },
    cls: "topmenu",
    orientation: "horizontal",
    events: {
        click: function (e) {
            console.log(e.item.content + " clicked");
        }
    }
});
// ASP.NET MVC Menu initialization
@(Html.ShieldMenu()
    .Name("menu")
    .DataSource(dsb => dsb.Data(@links))
    .Cls("topmenu")
    .Orientation(Shield.Mvc.UI.Menu.MenuOrientationOptions.Vertical)
    .Events(eb => eb.Click(
        @<text>
            function (e) {
                console.log(e.item.content + " clicked");
            }
        </text>)
    )
)

To see the configuration options in action, please refer to our online demos.