MvcSiteMapProvider MVC5 External URL Re-routing to Home Controller / Index Method

Question

I'm using MvcSiteMapProvider 4.6.18. Many of my menu items link to external sites; however, the "url" attribute of mvcSiteMapNode is not being carried over to the menu. That is, I can see the url in the source, but the link is referring to the parent mvcSiteMapNode controller and action and not the url I specified.

Here's the relevant code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<mvcSiteMap xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns="http://mvcsitemap.codeplex.com/schemas/MvcSiteMap-File-4.0"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://mvcsitemap.codeplex.com/schemas/MvcSiteMap-File-4.0 MvcSiteMapSchema.xsd">

<mvcSiteMapNode title="Home" controller="Home" action="Index">
    <mvcSiteMapNode title="About" url="http://www.amazon.com"/>
</mvcSiteMapNode>

</mvcSiteMap>

And here's what I see when viewing source:

<li>
    <a href="/"><span class="menu-text">About</span></a>
</li>

It doesn't matter what I use for the url, it always points to the root (i.e. Home).

There seems to be something simple that I'm missing. But for the life of me, I can't figure it out. For completeness, here's my RouteConfig:

public class RouteConfig
{
    public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            name: "Default",
            url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
        );
    }
}

Any help would be much appreciated.

Update

Thanks to @NightOwl888, the issue was with one of the display templates. The mvcSiteMapProvider was part of a bootstrap theme template I downloaded from wrapbootstrap and didn't think to look at the display templates as a possible issue.

Here's the offending template, modified from the original NuGet download to work with a custom side bar menu.

@model MvcSiteMapProvider.Web.Html.Models.MenuHelperModel
@using System.Web.Mvc.Html
@using MvcSiteMapProvider.Web.Html.Models

<ul class="nav sidebar-menu">
   @ShowMenu(Model.Nodes)
</ul>

@helper ShowMenu(IEnumerable<SiteMapNodeModel> menuItems)
{
   foreach (var node in menuItems)
   {
      var nodeclass = "";
      if (node.IsCurrentNode)
      {
         nodeclass = "active";
      }
      if (node.Children.Any(n => n.IsCurrentNode))
      {
         nodeclass = "active open";
      }
      else if (node.Children.Any())
      {
         foreach (var c in node.Children)
         {
            if (c.Children.Any())
            {
               if (c.Children.Any(n => n.IsCurrentNode))
               {
                  nodeclass = "active open";
               }
            }
         }
      }
      <li class="@(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(nodeclass) ? Html.Raw(nodeclass) : null)">
         @if (node.Children.Any())
         {
            @Html.Bootstrap().SidebarMenuItem(node.Title, node.Area, node.Action, node.Controller).Icon(node.ImageUrl).IsDropDown();
         }
         else
         {
            @Html.Bootstrap().SidebarMenuItem(node.Title, node.Area, node.Action, node.Controller).Icon(node.ImageUrl);
         }
         @if (node.Children.Any())
         {
            <ul class="submenu">
               @ShowMenu(node.Children)
            </ul>
         }
      </li>
   }
}

hi does it automatically creates the site or we have to do it manually? — Arijit Mukherjee
Not sure what you mean by "does it automatically create the site." The menu is created perfectly, except for the fact it seems to be ignoring the url attribute. — Buster
means when I Install it from nuget does it generate the sitemap as per all views and controller or we have to define n write them — Arijit Mukherjee
When I installed from NuGet, it created a default sitemap that I posted above. I modified the About node to test an external url. I don't have any other controllers or views yet. — Buster

NightOwl888 NightOwl888 · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-11T16:42:21

MvcSiteMapProvider is driven by HTML helpers. Since I cannot reproduce the problem with v4.6.18 and MVC5, I suspect that you have not added one to your view.

A typical case would be to add the menu HTML helper to your /Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml page, as follows.

<div class="navbar-collapse collapse">
    @*<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
        <li>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")</li>
        <li>@Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home")</li>
        <li>@Html.ActionLink("Contact", "Contact", "Home")</li>
    </ul>*@
    @* Use the MvcSiteMapProvider Menu HTML helper *@
    @Html.MvcSiteMap().Menu()
    @Html.Partial("_LoginPartial")
</div>

TIP: If you update your MvcSiteMapProvider.Web package to version 4.6.18, the Bootstrap CSS classes will be output on the Menu HTML helper, so it will blend with the default MVC 5 theme. Run the command PM> Update-Package MvcSiteMapProvider.Web -Safe from the Package Manager Console to update.

MvcSiteMapProvider MVC5 External URL Re-routing to Home Controller / Index Method

1 Answers