Getting Started with ASP.NET Core Menu Control

23 Jul 20268 minutes to read

This section briefly explains how to include the ASP.NET Core Menu control in your ASP.NET Core Web App using Visual Studio.

Create ASP.NET Core Web App with Razor Pages

Create an ASP.NET Core Web App using Visual Studio via Microsoft Templates or the ASP.NET Core Extension.

Install the required ASP.NET Core packages

To add ASP.NET Core Menu control in the app, open the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio (Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution), then search and install Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Navigations and Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Themes. All Syncfusion ASP.NET Core packages are available in nuget.org. See the NuGet packages topic for more details.

Alternatively, you can install the same packages using the Package Manager Console with the following commands.

Install-Package Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Navigations -Version 34.1.29
Install-Package Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Themes -Version 34.1.29

Add ASP.NET Core tag helpers

After the packages are installed, open the ~/Pages/_ViewImports.cshtml file and import the Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Navigations and Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Base tag helpers.

@addTagHelper *, Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Navigations
@addTagHelper *, Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Base

Add stylesheet and script resources

The theme stylesheet and script can be referenced from NuGet through Static Web Assets. Include the stylesheet and script references inside the <head> of ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file.

<head>
    ...
    ...
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="_content/Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Themes/styles/fluent2.css" />
    <script src="_content/Syncfusion.AspNetCore.Navigations/scripts/sf-menu.min.js"></script>
</head>

Register the script manager

Open the ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file and register the script manager (<ejs-scripts>) at the end of the <body> element as shown below.

<body>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET Core Script Manager -->
    <ejs-scripts></ejs-scripts>
</body>

Add the ASP.NET Core Menu control

Add the ASP.NET Core Menu control in the ~/Pages/Index.cshtml file.

@{
    ...
    List<object> menuItems = new List<object>();
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "File",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Open" },
            new { text = "Save" },
            new { text = "Exit" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Edit",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Cut" },
            new { text = "Copy" },
            new { text = "Paste" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "View",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Toolbar" },
            new { text = "Sidebar" },
            new { text = "Fullscreen" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Tools",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Spelling & Grammar" },
            new { text = "Customize" },
            new { text = "Options" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Go"
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Help"
    });
}

<ejs-menu id="menu"  items="menuItems"></ejs-menu>

Press Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or ⌘+F5 (macOS) to launch the application. The ASP.NET Core Menu control will render in your default web browser.

ASP.NET Core Menu Control

NOTE

This example demonstrates the basic rendering of Menu with items support. For more information about data source support, refer to the Data Source Binding section.

Group menu items with separator

Separators are both horizontal or vertical lines that separate menu items. These are non-interactive and cannot be selected by users. To add a separator, set the separator property to true for the desired menu item.

In the following example, the Open and Save submenu options are grouped separately from the Exit option by using a separator line.

@{
    ...
    List<object> menuItems = new List<object>();
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "File",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Open" },
            new { text = "Save" }, new { separator = true},
            new { text = "Exit" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Edit",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Cut" },
            new { text = "Copy" },
            new { text = "Paste" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "View",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Toolbar" },
            new { text = "Sidebar" },
            new { text = "Fullscreen" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Tools",
        items = new List<object>()
        {
            new { text = "Spelling & Grammar" },
            new { text = "Customize" },
            new { text = "Options" }
        }
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Go"
    });
    menuItems.Add(new
    {
        text = "Help"
    });
}

<ejs-menu id="menu" items="menuItems"></ejs-menu>

ASP.NET Core Menu with Separator

NOTE

The separator property should not be given along with the other fields in the MenuItem. You can also enable the separator to group horizontal menu items.

NOTE

View Sample in GitHub.

See also

  1. Getting Started with ASP.NET Core in Visual Studio Mac
  2. Getting Started with ASP.NET Core MVC using Tag Helper