Getting Started with ASP.NET Core Menu Control

16 Jan 20248 minutes to read

This section briefly explains about how to include ASP.NET Core Menu control in your ASP.NET Core application using Visual Studio.

Prerequisites

System requirements for ASP.NET Core controls

Create ASP.NET Core web application with Razor pages

Install ASP.NET Core package in the application

To add ASP.NET Core controls in the application, open the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio (Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution), search for Syncfusion.EJ2.AspNet.Core and then install it. Alternatively, you can utilize the following package manager command to achieve the same.

Install-Package Syncfusion.EJ2.AspNet.Core -Version 25.1.35

NOTE

Syncfusion ASP.NET Core controls are available in nuget.org. Refer to NuGet packages topic to learn more about installing NuGet packages in various OS environments. The Syncfusion.EJ2.AspNet.Core NuGet package has dependencies, Newtonsoft.Json for JSON serialization and Syncfusion.Licensing for validating Syncfusion license key.

Add Syncfusion ASP.NET Core Tag Helper

Open ~/Pages/_ViewImports.cshtml file and import the Syncfusion.EJ2 TagHelper.

@addTagHelper *, Syncfusion.EJ2

Add stylesheet and script resources

Here, the theme and script is referred using CDN inside the <head> of ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows,

<head>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET Core controls styles -->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/25.1.35/fluent.css" />
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET Core controls scripts -->
    <script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/25.1.35/dist/ej2.min.js"></script>
</head>

NOTE

Checkout the Themes topic to learn different ways (CDN, NPM package, and CRG) to refer styles in ASP.NET Core application, and to have the expected appearance for Syncfusion ASP.NET Core controls.

NOTE

Checkout the Adding Script Reference topic to learn different approaches for adding script references in your ASP.NET Core application.

Register Syncfusion Script Manager

Also, register the script manager <ejs-script> at the end of <body> in the ASP.NET Core application as follows.

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

Add ASP.NET Core Menu control

Now, add the Syncfusion ASP.NET Core Menu tag helper in ~/Pages/Index.cshtml page.

@{
    ...
    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 run the app. Then, the Syncfusion ASP.NET Core Menu control will be rendered in the 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

The separators are both horizontal and vertical lines used to separate the menu items. You cannot select the separators, but you can enable separators to group the menu items using the separator property. The Open and Save sub menu items are grouped using the separator property in the following sample.

@{
    ...
    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