How do I create a custom menu navigation in ASP.NET?

Question

UPDATE

Here is my final working version:

<%              
Dim theUrl As String = Request.Url.Segments(Request.Url.Segments.Count - 1).ToLower
Dim oList As New List(Of String()), openTag As String = ""
oList.AddRange(sqlStuff.getNavPages())
For Each oItem As String() In oList
    If oItem(1) = theUrl Then
        openTag = String.Format("<li id={0}>", functions.addQuotes("current"))
    Else
        openTag = "<li>"
    End If
    Response.Write(String.Format("{0}<a href={1}>{2}</a></li>{3}", _
                                  openTag, _
                                  functions.addQuotes(oItem(1)), _
                                  oItem(0), _
                                  ControlChars.NewLine))
Next
%>

sqlStuff.getNavPages() is a function that queries my navigation database for pages and returns a list item with information about the page (URL, title, etc.)

Answer 1

Check out Site Maps.

Answer 2

Your CSS will be something like this:

ul
{
margin:0;
padding:0;
background:silver;
}

li
{
float:left;
}

a
{
display:block;
padding:5px;
color:gray;
}

li#current a
{
color:blue;
}

Obviously you'll want to either give your menu ul an id/class or wrap it in a container div so that you can target just that, rather than targeting all uls on the page. For example

<ul id="MyMenu">...</ul>

and

ul#MyMenu
{
...
}

ul#MyMenu li
{
...
}

etc.

Answer 3

SiteMaps will do the trick, if you take a look at CSSFriendly you can see how to alter the output to suit something a bit more "standard" that can be skinned easily using CSS.

Answer 4

Definitely take a look at the CSSFriendly Control Adapters that @Beepcake mentions. These will alter the rendering of the built-in ASP.NET Menu control (among others) to produce plain-old unordered lists. THen you can use your CSS to style them like you want.