<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0">
<siteMapNode title="Home" description="Login Page" url="Home.aspx">
<siteMapNode title="Admin" description="Administration Functionalities" url="Admin/AdminHome.aspx">
<siteMapNode title="Create User" description="Create User" url="Admin/CreateUser.aspx"/>
<siteMapNode title="Manage Roles" description="Create/Delete Roles" url="Admin/CreateRoles.aspx"/>
<siteMapNode title="Assign Roles" description="Re-Assign Roles" url="Admin/ManageRoles.aspx"/>
</siteMapNode>
<siteMapNode roles="" title="Search" description="Search Employee" url="Personal/Search.aspx"/>
</siteMapNode>
</siteMap>

Only one <sitemap> element can be there in the site map file and there can be multiple <siteMapNode >  element within the root node i.e. <sitemap>

Within the <siteMapNode> element, we have following attributes->

• Title -> This is actual description which appears as a hyperlink.
• Description -> Tool Tip which comes up when we hover over that particular siteMapNode.
• url -> this is the file located within the solution. It can be located within the root folder or within a sub-folder created within the solution.
• Role -> the roles to which the links should be accessible.

"Security trimming" refers to SiteMapDataSource's ability to hide nodes from users who lack proper authorization. Authorization is role-based and is enacted by including roles attributes in <siteMapNode> elements. Of course, you can use ASP.NET 2.0 Role Management service to define roles and map users to roles. Security trimming is disabled by default in XmlSiteMapProvider. You can enable it by including these statements in Web.config.

<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <siteMap>
      <providers>
        <remove name="AspNetXmlSiteMapProvider" />
        <add name="AspNetXmlSiteMapProvider"
          type="System.Web.XmlSiteMapProvider, System.Web, ..."
          securityTrimmingEnabled="true"
          siteMapFile="web.sitemap" />
      </providers>
    </siteMap>
  </system.web>
</configuration>

Tree View Server control

This is a new server control that has been added to ASP.Net 2.0. It can be used to display the hierarchy of the links contained within the site map file. Once, the Web.sitemap is created, drag and drop a SiteMapDataSource control on the form. It automatically binds it self to web.sitemap file. Then, drop a treeView control on the form and set the DataSource id to SiteMapDataSource1 as shown in the figure below ->



As soon as you specify the data source id, the structure gets populated in the tree view control. One can go about changing the look and the feel of the tree view control using Auto Format and from the property window of the control.

Every element that appears as a part of tree view control is called as a node. The top-most element or node is called as the root node and any nodes that appear under the root node as referred to as child nodes. The node that does not have any elements under it is called as the leaf node.



XMLDataSource Control

It is also possible to bind a Tree View control to an XML file. For this, you need to create an XML file and populate the tree view control from the XML file.

As an example, let's create an XML file having a structure something below:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Controls>
      <Item Category="Server Controls">
            <Option Choice="Tree view"/>
            <Option Choice="Menu Control"/>
      </Item>
</Controls>

Then, drag and drop an XmlDataSource control on the form and set the data source to the xml file you just created. Click on Ok once done.



Then, drag and drop a tree view control on the form and specify the data source id to be the XmlDataSource1 that you have placed on the form configured to use xml file.
If you notice, the tree view control gets populated and renders something below:-



If you look at the above results, nodes display names of the actual XML elements from the file itself. You need to specify how to bind to the XML file with the use of the <DataBindings> element within the tree view control.

The < DataBindings>, element encapsulates one or more TreeNodeBinding objects. DataMember and TextField are two important properties available within the TreeNodeBinding object. The DataMember refers to the name of the XML element that control should look for and the TextField specifies the XML attribute within the particular XML element. So it should be ->

<asp:TreeView ID="TreeView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="XmlDataSource1" ShowLines="True">
<DataBindings>
 <asp:TreeNodeBinding DataMember="Controls" Text="New Controls"/>
 <asp:TreeNodeBinding DataMember="Item" TextField="Category" />
 <asp:TreeNodeBinding DataMember="Option"    TextField="Choice" />                  
 </DataBindings> </asp:TreeView>

By default, when you run the above application the tree view controls renders the data elements as expanded. If you wish that they should appear collapsed on the page load event, and should be expanded on user action, then add the DataBound event wired up with the Tree View control as



       protected void TreeView1_DataBound(object sender, EventArgs e)
         {
             TreeView1.CollapseAll();
         }


Once collapsed, you can expand it back on the click of the button having the following code:-

 protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
   {
       TreeView1.ExpandAll();
   }

It is also liley possible that you might not only be using the TreeView control for navigation, but also for making certain user selection. For this, the TreeView control provides a functionality where-in the check boxes can be put up against the items. All you need to do for this, is to go to the properties of the tree View control and set the ShowCheckBoxes property to leaf. By default, it is set to none



This could also be done programmatically by simple code of line ->


TreeView1.ShowCheckBoxes = TreeNodeTypes.Leaf;

Once done, you can loop through the TreeView to return the items that have been selected by the user as stated below:-

foreach (TreeNode node in TreeView1.CheckedNodes)
            {
                Label1.Text += node.Text ;
            }

Site Map API

The SiteMap and SiteMapNode classes provide the API used by SiteMapPath controls. If desired, you can use this API yourself to manually read site maps or even to build site map path controls of your own. System.Web.SiteMap represents site maps ->

• RootNode property identifies root node
• CurrentNode property identifies current node
• SiteMapNode represents nodes

  // Write the title of the current node to a Label control
        Label1.Text = SiteMap.CurrentNode.Title;
        // Write the path to the current node to a Label control
        SiteMapNode node = SiteMap.CurrentNode;
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(node.Title);
        while (node.ParentNode != null)
        {
            node = node.ParentNode;
            builder.Insert(0, " > ");
            builder.Insert(0, node.Title);
        }