Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC Menu Control

8 Nov 202311 minutes to read

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

Prerequisites

System requirements for ASP.NET MVC controls

Create ASP.NET MVC application with HTML helper

Install ASP.NET MVC package in the application

To add ASP.NET MVC 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.MVC5 and then install it.

Package Manager
Install-Package Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 -Version 27.2.2

NOTE

Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC 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.MVC5 NuGet package has dependencies, Newtonsoft.Json for JSON serialization and Syncfusion.Licensing for validating Syncfusion license key.

NOTE

If you create ASP.NET MVC application with MVC4 package, search for Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC4 and then install it.

Add namespace

Add Syncfusion.EJ2 namespace reference in Web.config under Views folder.

<namespaces>
    <add namespace="Syncfusion.EJ2"/>
</namespaces>

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,

~/_Layout.cshtml
<head>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls styles -->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/27.2.2/fluent.css" />
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls scripts -->
    <script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/27.2.2/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 MVC application, and to have the expected appearance for Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls. Checkout the Adding Script Reference topic to learn different approaches for adding script references in your ASP.NET MVC application.

Register Syncfusion script manager

Also, register the script manager EJS().ScriptManager() at the end of <body> in the ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows.

~/_Layout.cshtml
<body>
...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Script Manager -->
    @Html.EJS().ScriptManager()
</body>

Now, add the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Menu control in ~/Views/Home/Index.cshtml page.

CSHTML
HomeController.cs
@model List<object>

@Html.EJS().Menu("menu").Items(Model).Render()
public ActionResult Index()
{
    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"
    });
    return View(menuItems);
}

Press Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or ⌘+F5 (macOS) to run the app. Then, the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Menu control will be rendered in the default web browser.

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.

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.

CSHTML
HomeController.cs
@model List<object>

@Html.EJS().Menu("menu").Items(Model).Render()
public ActionResult Index()
{
    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"
    });
    return View(menuItems);
}

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.