Adding “active” tag to navigation list in an asp.net mvc master page

Question

In the default asp.net mvc project, in the Site.Master file, there is a menu navigation list:

Answer 1

Using MVC3 with a Razor View offers another option:

_Layout.cshtml:

@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")
@Html.ActionLink("Disclaimer", "About", "Home")

HomeController:

public ActionResult Index() {
    ViewBag.NavClassHome = "active";
    return View();
} 

public ActionResult About() {
    ViewBag.NavClassAbout = "active";
    return View();
}

If you want to preserve this for a postback as well, you have to assign the ViewBag value here as well:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index() {
    ViewBag.NavClassHome = "active";
    return View();
}

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult About() {
    ViewBag.NavClassAbout = "active";
    return View();
}

Tested and working fine for me, but you will have a css class name in your server side code.