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

Based on the previous answers, here is what my current solution is for the same issue:

In the master page I give each li an id that corresponds to the controller and the action, since this should be known from the ActionLink. I was previously doing this with the page title but this helps with organization.

Site.Master:

    
<%= Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home") %>
    
<%= Html.ActionLink("About Us", "About", "Home") %>

Site.Master.cs:

// This is called in Page_Load
private void SetActiveLink()
{
    string action = "" + ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"] + ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"];
    var activeMenu = (HtmlGenericControl)Page.Master.FindControl("menu" + action);

    if (activeMenu != null)
    {
        activeMenu.Attributes.Add("class", "selected");
    }
}

It's more work than the inline code but I think it's cleaner and also lets you have actions with the same name in different controllers. So if you add more menu items with different controllers, not all actions named Index will be highlighted in the menu.

If anyone sees issues with this approach please let me know.