How can dynamic breadcrumbs be achieved with ASP.net MVC?

Question

How can dynamic breadcrumbs be achieved with ASP.net MVC?

If you are curious about what breadcrumbs are:

What are breadcrumbs? Well, if you have ever browsed an online store or read posts in a forum, you have likely encountered breadcrumbs. They provide an easy way to see where you are on a site. Sites like Craigslist use breadcrumbs to describe the user's location. Above the listings on each page is something that looks like this:

s.f. bayarea craigslist > city of san francisco > bicycles

EDIT

I realize what is possible with the SiteMapProvider. I am also aware of the providers out there on the net that will let you map sitenodes to controllers and actions.

But, what about when you want a breadcrumb's text to match some dynamic value, like this:

Home > Products > Cars > Toyota

Home > Products > Cars > Chevy

Home > Products > Execution Equipment > Electric Chair

Home > Products > Execution Equipment > Gallows

... where the product categories and the products are records from a database. Some links should be defined statically (Home for sure).

I am trying to figure out how to do this, but I'm sure someone has already done this with ASP.net MVC.

Answer 1

There is a tool to do this on codeplex: http://mvcsitemap.codeplex.com/ [project moved to github]

Edit:

There is a way to derive a SiteMapProvider from a database: http://www.asp.net/Learn/data-access/tutorial-62-cs.aspx

You might be able to modify the mvcsitemap tool to use that to get what you want.

Answer 2

Sitemap's are definitely one way to go... alternatively, you can write one yourself! (of course as long as standard MVC rules are followed)... I just wrote one, I figured I would share here.

@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")
@if(ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString() != "Home") {
    @:> @Html.ActionLink(ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString(), "Index", ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString()) 
}
@if(ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString() != "Index"){
    @:> @Html.ActionLink(ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString(), ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString(), ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString()) 
}

Hopefully someone will find this helpful, this is exactly what I was looking for when I searched SO for MVC breadcrumbs.

Answer 3

ASP.NET 5 (aka ASP.NET Core), MVC Core Solution

In ASP.NET Core, things are further optimized as we don't need to stringify the markup in the extension method.

In ~/Extesions/HtmlExtensions.cs:

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Html;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Rendering;

namespace YourProjectNamespace.Extensions
{
    public static class HtmlExtensions
    {
        private static readonly HtmlContentBuilder _emptyBuilder = new HtmlContentBuilder();

        public static IHtmlContent BuildBreadcrumbNavigation(this IHtmlHelper helper)
        {
            if (helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString() == "Home" ||
                helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString() == "Account")
            {
                return _emptyBuilder;
            }

            string controllerName = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString();
            string actionName = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString();

            var breadcrumb = new HtmlContentBuilder()
                                .AppendHtml("<ol class='breadcrumb'><li>")
                                .AppendHtml(helper.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home"))
                                .AppendHtml("</li><li>")
                                .AppendHtml(helper.ActionLink(controllerName.Titleize(),
                                                          "Index", controllerName))
                                .AppendHtml("</li>");


            if (helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString() != "Index")
            {
                breadcrumb.AppendHtml("<li>")
                          .AppendHtml(helper.ActionLink(actionName.Titleize(), actionName, controllerName))
                          .AppendHtml("</li>");
            }

            return breadcrumb.AppendHtml("</ol>");
        }
    }
}

~/Extensions/StringExtensions.cs remains the same as below (scroll down to see the MVC5 version).

In razor view, we don't need Html.Raw, as Razor takes care of escaping when dealing with IHtmlContent:

....
....
<div class="container body-content">

    <!-- #region Breadcrumb -->
    @Html.BuildBreadcrumbNavigation()
    <!-- #endregion -->

    @RenderBody()
    <hr />
...
...

ASP.NET 4, MVC 5 Solution

=== ORIGINAL / OLD ANSWER BELOW ===

(Expanding on Sean Haddy's answer above)

If you want to make it extension-driven (keeping Views clean), you can do something like:

In ~/Extesions/HtmlExtensions.cs:

(compatible with MVC5 / bootstrap)

using System.Text;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Mvc.Html;

namespace YourProjectNamespace.Extensions
{
    public static class HtmlExtensions
    {
        public static string BuildBreadcrumbNavigation(this HtmlHelper helper)
        {
            // optional condition: I didn't wanted it to show on home and account controller
            if (helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString() == "Home" ||
                helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString() == "Account")
            {
                return string.Empty;
            }

            StringBuilder breadcrumb = new StringBuilder("<ol class='breadcrumb'><li>").Append(helper.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home").ToHtmlString()).Append("</li>");


            breadcrumb.Append("<li>");
            breadcrumb.Append(helper.ActionLink(helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString().Titleize(),
                                               "Index",
                                               helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString()));
            breadcrumb.Append("</li>");

            if (helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString() != "Index")
            {
                breadcrumb.Append("<li>");
                breadcrumb.Append(helper.ActionLink(helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString().Titleize(),
                                                    helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString(),
                                                    helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString()));
                breadcrumb.Append("</li>");
            }

            return breadcrumb.Append("</ol>").ToString();
        }
    }
}

In ~/Extensions/StringExtensions.cs:

using System.Globalization;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace YourProjectNamespace.Extensions
{
    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        public static string Titleize(this string text)
        {
            return CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ToTitleCase(text).ToSentenceCase();
        }

        public static string ToSentenceCase(this string str)
        {
            return Regex.Replace(str, "[a-z][A-Z]", m => m.Value[0] + " " + char.ToLower(m.Value[1]));
        }
    }
}

Then use it like (in _Layout.cshtml for example):

....
....
<div class="container body-content">

    <!-- #region Breadcrumb -->
    @Html.Raw(Html.BuildBreadcrumbNavigation())
    <!-- #endregion -->

    @RenderBody()
    <hr />
...
...

Answer 4

Maarten Balliauw's MvcSiteMapProvider worked pretty well for me.

I created a small mvc app to test his provider: MvcSiteMapProvider Test (404)

Answer 5

I built this nuget package to solve this problem for myself:

https://www.nuget.org/packages/MvcBreadCrumbs/

You can contribute here if you have ideas for it:

https://github.com/thelarz/MvcBreadCrumbs

Answer 6

For whoever is interested, I did an improved version of a HtmlExtension that is also considering Areas and in addition uses Reflection to check if there is a Default controller inside an Area or a Index action inside a Controller:

public static class HtmlExtensions
    {
        public static MvcHtmlString BuildBreadcrumbNavigation(this HtmlHelper helper)
        {
            string area = (helper.ViewContext.RouteData.DataTokens["area"] ?? "").ToString();
            string controller = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString();
            string action = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString();

            // add link to homepage by default
            StringBuilder breadcrumb = new StringBuilder(@"
                <ol class='breadcrumb'>
                    <li>" + helper.ActionLink("Homepage", "Index", "Home", new { Area = "" }, new { @class="first" }) + @"</li>");

            // add link to area if existing
            if (area != "")
            {
                breadcrumb.Append("<li>");
                if (ControllerExistsInArea("Default", area)) // by convention, default Area controller should be named Default
                {
                    breadcrumb.Append(helper.ActionLink(area.AddSpaceOnCaseChange(), "Index", "Default", new { Area = area }, new { @class = "" }));
                }
                else
                {
                    breadcrumb.Append(area.AddSpaceOnCaseChange());
                }
                breadcrumb.Append("</li>");
            }

            // add link to controller Index if different action
            if ((controller != "Home" && controller != "Default") && action != "Index")
            {
                if (ActionExistsInController("Index", controller, area))
                {
                    breadcrumb.Append("<li>");
                    breadcrumb.Append(helper.ActionLink(controller.AddSpaceOnCaseChange(), "Index", controller, new { Area = area }, new { @class = "" }));
                    breadcrumb.Append("</li>");
                }
            }

            // add link to action
            if ((controller != "Home" && controller != "Default") || action != "Index")
            {
                breadcrumb.Append("<li>");
                //breadcrumb.Append(helper.ActionLink((action.ToLower() == "index") ? controller.AddSpaceOnCaseChange() : action.AddSpaceOnCaseChange(), action, controller, new { Area = area }, new { @class = "" }));
                breadcrumb.Append((action.ToLower() == "index") ? controller.AddSpaceOnCaseChange() : action.AddSpaceOnCaseChange());
                breadcrumb.Append("</li>");
            }

            return MvcHtmlString.Create(breadcrumb.Append("</ol>").ToString());
        }

        public static Type GetControllerType(string controller, string area)
        {
            string currentAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Name;
            IEnumerable<Type> controllerTypes = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes().Where(o => typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(o));

            string typeFullName = String.Format("{0}.Controllers.{1}Controller", currentAssembly, controller);
            if (area != "")
            {
                typeFullName = String.Format("{0}.Areas.{1}.Controllers.{2}Controller", currentAssembly, area, controller);
            }

            return controllerTypes.Where(o => o.FullName == typeFullName).FirstOrDefault();
        }

        public static bool ActionExistsInController(string action, string controller, string area)
        {
            Type controllerType = GetControllerType(controller, area);
            return (controllerType != null && new ReflectedControllerDescriptor(controllerType).GetCanonicalActions().Any(x => x.ActionName == action));
        }

        public static bool ControllerExistsInArea(string controller, string area)
        {
            Type controllerType = GetControllerType(controller, area);
            return (controllerType != null);
        }


    public static string AddSpaceOnCaseChange(this string text)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(text))
            return "";
        StringBuilder newText = new StringBuilder(text.Length * 2);
        newText.Append(text[0]);
        for (int i = 1; i < text.Length; i++)
        {
            if (char.IsUpper(text[i]) && text[i - 1] != ' ')
                newText.Append(' ');
            newText.Append(text[i]);
        }
        return newText.ToString();
    }
}

If can definitely can be improved (probably does not cover all the possible cases), but it did not failed me until now.

Answer 7

For those using ASP.NET Core 2.0 and looking for a more decoupled approach than vulcan's HtmlHelper, I recommend having a look at using a partial view with dependency injection.

Below is a simple implementation which can easily be molded to suit your needs.

The breadcrumb service (./Services/BreadcrumbService.cs):

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Rendering;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace YourNamespace.YourProject
{  
  public class BreadcrumbService : IViewContextAware
  {
    IList<Breadcrumb> breadcrumbs;

    public void Contextualize(ViewContext viewContext)
    {
      breadcrumbs = new List<Breadcrumb>();

      string area = $"{viewContext.RouteData.Values["area"]}";
      string controller = $"{viewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"]}";
      string action = $"{viewContext.RouteData.Values["action"]}";
      object id = viewContext.RouteData.Values["id"];
      string title = $"{viewContext.ViewData["Title"]}";   

      breadcrumbs.Add(new Breadcrumb(area, controller, action, title, id));

      if(!string.Equals(action, "index", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
      {
        breadcrumbs.Insert(0, new Breadcrumb(area, controller, "index", title));
      }
    }

    public IList<Breadcrumb> GetBreadcrumbs()
    {
      return breadcrumbs;
    }
  }

  public class Breadcrumb
  {
    public Breadcrumb(string area, string controller, string action, string title, object id) : this(area, controller, action, title)
    {
      Id = id;
    }

    public Breadcrumb(string area, string controller, string action, string title)
    {
      Area = area;
      Controller = controller;
      Action = action;

      if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(title))
      {
         Title = Regex.Replace(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ToTitleCase(string.Equals(action, "Index", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) ? controller : action), "[a-z][A-Z]", m => m.Value[0] + " " + char.ToLower(m.Value[1]));
      }
      else
      {
         Title = title;
      } 
    }

    public string Area { get; set; }
    public string Controller { get; set; }
    public string Action { get; set; }
    public object Id { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; }
  }
}

Register the service in startup.cs after AddMvc():

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddMvc();

    services.AddTransient<BreadcrumbService>(); 

Create a partial to render the breadcrumbs (~/Views/Shared/Breadcrumbs.cshtml):

@using YourNamespace.YourProject.Services
@inject BreadcrumbService BreadcrumbService

@foreach(var breadcrumb in BreadcrumbService.GetBreadcrumbs())
{
    <a asp-area="@breadcrumb.Area" asp-controller="@breadcrumb.Controller" asp-action="@breadcrumb.Action" asp-route-id="@breadcrumb.Id">@breadcrumb.Title</a>
}

At this point, to render the breadcrumbs simply call Html.Partial("Breadcrumbs") or Html.PartialAsync("Breadcrumbs").