Question

I have been asked to update the menu on a website we maintain. The website uses Castle Windors Monorail and NVelocity as the template. The menu is currently rendered using custom made subclasses of ViewComponent, which render li elements. At the moment there is only one (horizontal) level, so the current mechanism is fine.

I have been asked to add drop down menus to some of the existing menus. As this is the first time I have seen Monorail and NVelocity, I’m a little lost.

What currently exists:

<ul>
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Home" "hover=autoselect" "link=/")
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Videos" "hover=autoselect")
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=VPS" "hover=autoselect" "link=/vps")                                   
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Add-Ons" "hover=autoselect" "link=/addons")                    
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Hosting" "hover=autoselect" "link=/hosting")                           
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Support" "hover=autoselect" "link=/support")                           
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=News" "hover=autoselect" "link=/news")
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Contact Us" "hover=autoselect" "link=/contact-us") 
</ul>

Is it possible to have nested MenuComponents (or a new SubMenuComponent) something like:

<ul>
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Home" "hover=autoselect" "link=/")
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Videos" "hover=autoselect")
    #blockcomponent(MenuComponent with "title=VPS" "hover=autoselect" "link=/vps")                                  
        #component(SubMenuComponent with "title="Plans" "hover=autoselect" "link=/vps/plans")
        #component(SubMenuComponent with "title="Operating Systems" "hover=autoselect" "link=/vps/os")
        #component(SubMenuComponent with "title="Supported Applications" "hover=autoselect" "link=/vps/apps")
    #end
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Add-Ons" "hover=autoselect" "link=/addons")                    
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Hosting" "hover=autoselect" "link=/hosting")                           
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Support" "hover=autoselect" "link=/support")                           
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=News" "hover=autoselect" "link=/news")
    #component(MenuComponent with "title=Contact Us" "hover=autoselect" "link=/contact-us") 
</ul>

I need to draw the sub menu (ul and li elements) inside the overridden Render method on MenuComponent, so using nested ViewComponent derivatives may not work. I would like a method keep the basically declarative method for creating menus, if at all possible.

edit: I can use Context.RenderBody() to render the nested ViewComponent derivitives, but they’re being rendered before the parent. I guess the rending of the sub menus need to somehow hook into the same output as the parent?

Answer 1

My original render method looked like

public override void Render()
{
    var buffer = new StringBuilder();           
    var extraClass = _hoverState == MenuHoverState.Selected ? "class=\"Selected\"" : "";

    // Menu Item Start
    buffer.Append("<li><a href=\"" + ComponentParams["link"] + "\"" + extraClass + ">");

    // Menu Text
    buffer.Append(ComponentParams["title"]);

    // Menu Item End
    buffer.Append("</a></li>");                     
    RenderText(buffer.ToString());
}

I needed to hook into the Context.Writer:

public override void Render()
{
    var buffer = new StringBuilder();           
    var extraClass = _hoverState == MenuHoverState.Selected ? "class=\"Selected\"" : "";

    // Menu Item Start
    buffer.Append("<li><a href=\"" + ComponentParams["link"] + "\"" + extraClass + ">");

    // Menu Text
    buffer.Append(ComponentParams["title"]);

    // Menu Item End
    buffer.Append("</a><ul class=\"subMenu\" style=\"display:none;\">");                        
    Context.Writer(buffer.ToString());
    Context.RenderBody(Context.Writer);
    Contet.Writer("</ul></li>");    
}