SiteMapData Control

In order to use the all RadNavigatoin controls like

Simple Menu (RadMenu)
Tabs (RadTabStrip
Tree (RadTreeView)
Panels (RadPanelBar)

It would be good to have a predefined SitfenitySiteMapData Control

The SitfenitySiteMapData  Control should have the following options

Starting nodes
- current node
- current node parent
- current node top parent
- all top nodes

Include nodes
- all nodes
- all nodes without first level (first as in selected not top nodes - offset 1 or include top node false)
- all sibling nodes

Node depth
- 1-n levels

What it should do by default

- exclude unpublished pages
- exclude scheduled pages in future and past
- exclude nodes by permission
- exclude pagegroups without children
- redirect pagegroups to first child of group including URL chagne
- open menus when item is selected (tree, panel9
- set selected css for selected menu item

With such an menu one could acutally make use of the sitemap without programming and user more controls.

Markus

Hello Markus Berchtold,

Thanks for the suggestions. I think such control will be valuable, but there are some things that should be taken in mind:

- Performance - if you have this control bound to our original sitemap, and you bind third control to your control, I guess you will suffer from performance problems;

- Ease of use - If you need to customize the navigation, will you change the way the control bind itself to the Sitefinity sitemap, or you will change the Menu which binds to your control?

Don't get me wrong, I definitely see the point of having such control. Rather to code your Menu for all kinds of things as permissions and node visibility, you can just bind it. We'll have to think about it, but I definitely see the value of this.

Let me know if you have any further thoughts.

Dear Geori

- Performance - if you have this control bound to our original sitemap, and you bind third control to your control, I guess you will suffer from performance problems;

Isnt't SF doing the same stuff somehow? So I would assume performance can not be any worse then it is now. It would just be at a different level)

- Ease of use - If you need to customize the navigation, will you change the way the control bind itself to the Sitefinity sitemap, or you will change the Menu which binds to your control?

What customization could you be thinking about?

Markus

Hello Markus,

Update - we are working on refactoring the Sitemap, and will provide such control, or alternative to which you can bind your navigation controls and get the behavior you wrote about in this thread. We'll push to include it in the 4.2 release.

Dear Georgi

That's great news and I am looking very much forward (I assume others as well) to such a functionality/control.

It would be nice if at some point later we would know if including it in the 4.2 will actually be possible or not. Just to know if we still have to programme a work-around ourself or if we can wait for 4.2.

Once again - Thanks for listening to your customers and I am looking forward to many more improvements coming in 4.2

Markus

Hi Markus,

Yes, we will deliver it with the 4.2 release.