How to Use Twitter Bootstrap to Create Responsive Menu in ASP.NET – In this tutorial, we will create collapsing responsive navigation bar using ASP.NET menu control and Twitter Bootstrap. Let’s start with the default view of ASP.NET Menu control as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 | <asp:Menu ID="NavigationMenu" runat="server" CssClass="menu" EnableViewState="false" IncludeStyleBlock="false" Orientation="Horizontal"> <Items> <asp:MenuItem Text="Home" ToolTip="Home"> </asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Music" ToolTip="Music"> <asp:MenuItem Text="Classical" ToolTip="Classical" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Rock" ToolTip="Rock" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Jazz" ToolTip="Jazz" /> </asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Movies" ToolTip="Movies"> <asp:MenuItem Text="Action" ToolTip="Action" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Drama" ToolTip="Drama" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Musical" ToolTip="Musical" /> </asp:MenuItem> </Items> </asp:Menu> |
In the picture above, we will change the default of ASP.NET Menu into responsive using Twitter Bootstrap.
Step 1
We will update the default UI using bootstrap framework as in above image. To install Bootstrap, run the following command in the Package Manager Console:
Install-Package Twitter.Bootstrap
Step 2
Add bootstrap CSS files in the page:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <link href="Content/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="Content/bootstrap-responsive.min.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <style type="text/css"> .nav { width:100%; padding-left:15px; } </style> |
Step 3
As example, we liked to fix top navigation bar, so we assign “navbar navbar-fixed-top” to menu control css class:
CssClass=”navbar navbar-fixed-top”
Step 4
For list, use nav class to list:
StaticMenuStyle-CssClass= “nav”
Step 5
For active item, use activeclass
StaticSelectedStyle-CssClass=”active”
Step 6
To display sub-menu as dynamic dropdown, we use dropdown-menu class:
DynamicMenuStyle-CssClass=”dropdown-menu”
Now we get the layout as in the top image and the code looks as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | <asp:Menu ID="NavigationMenu" runat="server" EnableViewState="false" IncludeStyleBlock="false" Orientation="Horizontal" CssClass="navbar navbar-fixed-top" StaticMenuStyle-CssClass= "nav" StaticSelectedStyle-CssClass="active" DynamicMenuStyle-CssClass="dropdown-menu" > <Items> <!-- menu items --> </Items> </asp:Menu> |
Step 7
For background image and proper layout we put the menu in div (navbar > navbar-inner > container). To implement a collapsing responsive navbar, wrap your navbar content in a containing div, .nav-collapse.collapse, and add the navbar toggle button, .btn-navbar.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 | <div class="navbar"> <div class="navbar-inner"> <div class="container"> <!-- .btn-navbar is used as the toggle for collapsed navbar content --> <a class="btn btn-navbar" data-target=".nav-collapse" data-toggle="collapse"> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> <span class="icon-bar"></span> </a> <!-- Everything you want hidden at 940px or less, place within here --> <div class="nav-collapse collapse"> <asp:Menu ID="NavigationMenu" runat="server" EnableViewState="false" IncludeStyleBlock="false" Orientation="Horizontal" CssClass="navbar navbar-fixed-top" StaticMenuStyle-CssClass="nav" StaticSelectedStyle-CssClass="active" DynamicMenuStyle-CssClass="dropdown-menu"> <Items> <asp:MenuItem Text="Home" ToolTip="Home"></asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Music" ToolTip="Music"> <asp:MenuItem Text="Classical" ToolTip="Classical" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Rock" ToolTip="Rock" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Jazz" ToolTip="Jazz" /> </asp:MenuItem> <asp:MenuItem Text="Movies" ToolTip="Movies"> <asp:MenuItem Text="Action" ToolTip="Action" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Drama" ToolTip="Drama" /> <asp:MenuItem Text="Musical" ToolTip="Musical" /> </asp:MenuItem> </Items> </asp:Menu> </div> </div> </div> </div> |
Step 8
ASP.NET Menu creates its own styles and classes which creates problem in Bootstrap working. So, we remove some styles using jQuery:
1 | $(".nav li,.nav li a,.nav li ul").removeAttr('style'); |
To add down arrow for sub-menu indication:
1 2 | Class().addClass('dropdown'); $(".dropdown>a").removeClass().addClass('dropdown-toggle').append('<b class="caret"></b>').attr('data-toggle', 'dropdown'); |
Step 9
There is no mouseover event for mobile and onclick of ASP.NET menu causes postback. To avoid postback and remove click handler:
1 | $('.dropdown-toggle').attr('onclick', '').off('click'); |
Now on clicking parent menu item, sub menu will be displayed!
Here is the overall script structure:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.9.0.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function () { //to fix collapse mode width issue $(".nav li,.nav li a,.nav li ul").removeAttr('style'); //for dropdown menu $(".dropdown-menu").parent().removeClass().addClass('dropdown'); $(".dropdown>a").removeClass().addClass('dropdown-toggle').append('<b class="caret"></b>').attr('data-toggle', 'dropdown'); //remove default click redirect effect $('.dropdown-toggle').attr('onclick', '').off('click'); }); </script> <script src="Scripts/bootstrap.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> |
And here is the ouput:
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