ASPxNavBar.GroupContentTemplate Property

Gets or sets a common template used for displaying the client region’s content of all groups within the navbar control.

Namespace: DevExpress.Web

Assembly: DevExpress.Web.v19.1.dll

Declaration

C#

[DefaultValue(null)]
public virtual ITemplate GroupContentTemplate { get; set; }

VB.NET

<DefaultValue(Nothing)>
Public Overridable Property GroupContentTemplate As ITemplate

Property Value

Type	Default	Description
ITemplate	*null*	An object supporting the System.Web.UI.ITemplate interface which contains the template used for displaying the client regions of all groups within the navbar.

Remarks

Use the GroupContentTemplate property to define a common content for the client regions of all groups within the current navbar control. A group’s client region is considered as an area where group items are displayed - it doesn’t involve the group’s header. The template created using the GroupContentTemplate property fills the entire client region of each group within the navbar.

The GroupContentTemplate property is useful when it is required to display a specific control within navbar groups. Placing a control onto the template container causes the control to be displayed within a group when the group is expanded.

Note that any style settings defined for the client regions of the groups via specific properties (such as the ASPxNavBar.GroupContentStyle or NavBarGroup.ContentStyle) are still in effect for the groups whose contents are specified using the GroupContentTemplate property.

The content of a particular group’s client region can be defined using the group’s NavBarGroup.ContentTemplate property.

Note

Once a template defined via the GroupContentTemplate property is created within a control, it is instantiated within a container object of the NavBarGroupTemplateContainer type. This container object exposes a set of specific properties to which the template’s child controls can be bound.

Example

When the ASPxNavBar is bound to XmlDataSource, the latter should suit the following structure:

XML

<Root>
     <Group Text ="Reports">
          <Item Text =" ... " NavigateUrl="..." ImageUrl="..." />
     </Group>
</Root>

In this case, XmlDataSource can retrieve and synchronize the Text, NavigateUrl and ImageUrl XML attributes with ASPxNavBar properties. However, in real applications, data seldom suits this structure. Most often, an XML schema contains several sub- nodes that describe some element. For instance:

XML

<Menus> 
     <Menu text="abc1"> 
          <ProductID>193</ProductID> 
          <ProductName>090 - Introduction</ProductName>
          <PTName>Video</PTName>
     </Menu>
</Menus>

XmlDataSource cannot parse such a schema. However, XmlDataSource allows specifying an XSLT file where you can define a transformation that will be applied to the specified DataFile. In this case, it is necessary to utilize the GroupContentTemplate. For example:

XML

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
     <xsl:template match="/">
          <Menus>
               <xsl:for-each select="//Menus/*">
                    <Menu Text="{ProductName}" ProductID="{ProductID}"> 
                    </Menu>
               </xsl:for-each>
          </Menus>
     </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet> 

<GroupContentTemplate>
   ProductID: 
     <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "ProductID") %>'></asp:Label>     
</GroupContentTemplate>

You can learn more about XML transformation files from the following sources:

Using XSLT files with the new XMLDataSource control

XSLT - Transformation

Note

A complete sample project is available at https://github.com/DevExpress-Examples/aspxnavbar-how-to-bind-a-control-to-an-xml-file-by-using-an-xslt-file-e3518

Lessons.xsl (C#)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <Menus>
            <xsl:for-each select="//Menus/*">
                <Menu Text="{ProductName}" ProductID="{ProductID}" DateAdded="{DateAdded}" PCName="{PCName}">                    
                </Menu>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </Menus>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Default.aspx (C#)

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>

<%@ Register Assembly="DevExpress.Web.v11.1, Version=11.1.7.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b88d1754d700e49a"
    Namespace="DevExpress.Web.ASPxNavBar" TagPrefix="dx" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <asp:XmlDataSource ID="XmlDataSource1" runat="server" DataFile="~/App_Data/Lessons.xml"
            XPath="//Menus/*" TransformFile="~/App_Data/Lessons.xsl"></asp:XmlDataSource>
        <dx:ASPxNavBar ID="ASPxNavBar1" runat="server" ClientIDMode="AutoID" DataSourceID="XmlDataSource1">
            <GroupContentTemplate>
                ProductID:
                <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "ProductID") %>'></asp:Label><br />
                DateAdded:
                <asp:Label ID="Label2" runat="server" Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "DateAdded") %>'></asp:Label><br />
                PCName:
                <asp:Label ID="Label3" runat="server" Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "PCName") %>'></asp:Label><br />
            </GroupContentTemplate>
            <GroupDataFields TextField="Text" />
        </dx:ASPxNavBar>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Default.aspx.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page 
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {

    }
}

Lessons.xml (C#)

<Menus>
  <Menu text="abc1">
    <ProductID>193</ProductID>
    <PLID>3</PLID>
    <ProductName>090 - Introduction</ProductName>
    <Description />
    <DateAdded>2010-07-05T00:00:00-04:00</DateAdded>
    <Scheduled>No</Scheduled>
    <PTName>Video</PTName>
    <PDName>On-Demand</PDName>
    <PLName>lvl 1</PLName>
    <LevelNumber>1</LevelNumber>
    <PCName>Education</PCName>
  </Menu>
  <Menu text="abc2">
    <ProductID>200</ProductID>
    <PLID>3</PLID>
    <ProductName>101 - Introduction to Investment Income</ProductName>
    <Description />
    <DateAdded>2010-07-21T00:00:00-04:00</DateAdded>
    <Scheduled>No</Scheduled>
    <PTName>Video</PTName>
    <PDName>On-Demand</PDName>
    <PLName>lvl 1</PLName>
    <LevelNumber>1</LevelNumber>
    <PCName>Education</PCName>
  </Menu>
</Menus>

Lessons.xml (VB.NET)

<Menus>
  <Menu text="abc1">
    <ProductID>193</ProductID>
    <PLID>3</PLID>
    <ProductName>090 - Introduction</ProductName>
    <Description />
    <DateAdded>2010-07-05T00:00:00-04:00</DateAdded>
    <Scheduled>No</Scheduled>
    <PTName>Video</PTName>
    <PDName>On-Demand</PDName>
    <PLName>lvl 1</PLName>
    <LevelNumber>1</LevelNumber>
    <PCName>Education</PCName>
  </Menu>
  <Menu text="abc2">
    <ProductID>200</ProductID>
    <PLID>3</PLID>
    <ProductName>101 - Introduction to Investment Income</ProductName>
    <Description />
    <DateAdded>2010-07-21T00:00:00-04:00</DateAdded>
    <Scheduled>No</Scheduled>
    <PTName>Video</PTName>
    <PDName>On-Demand</PDName>
    <PLName>lvl 1</PLName>
    <LevelNumber>1</LevelNumber>
    <PCName>Education</PCName>
  </Menu>
</Menus>

Default.aspx (VB.NET)

<%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.vb" Inherits="_Default" %>

<%@ Register Assembly="DevExpress.Web.v11.1, Version=11.1.7.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b88d1754d700e49a"
    Namespace="DevExpress.Web.ASPxNavBar" TagPrefix="dx" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <asp:XmlDataSource ID="XmlDataSource1" runat="server" DataFile="~/App_Data/Lessons.xml"
            XPath="//Menus/*" TransformFile="~/App_Data/Lessons.xsl"></asp:XmlDataSource>
        <dx:ASPxNavBar ID="ASPxNavBar1" runat="server" ClientIDMode="AutoID" DataSourceID="XmlDataSource1">
            <GroupContentTemplate>
                ProductID:
                <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "ProductID")%>'></asp:Label><br />
                DateAdded:
                <asp:Label ID="Label2" runat="server" Text='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "DateAdded")%>'></asp:Label><br />
                PCName:
                <asp:Label ID="Label3" runat="server" Text='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.Group.DataItem, "PCName")%>'></asp:Label><br />
            </GroupContentTemplate>
            <GroupDataFields TextField="Text" />
        </dx:ASPxNavBar>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Default.aspx.vb

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Linq
Imports System.Web
Imports System.Web.UI
Imports System.Web.UI.WebControls

Partial Public Class _Default
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

    End Sub
End Class

Lessons.xsl (VB.NET)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:template match="/">
        <Menus>
            <xsl:for-each select="//Menus/*">
                <Menu Text="{ProductName}" ProductID="{ProductID}" DateAdded="{DateAdded}" PCName="{PCName}">                    
                </Menu>
            </xsl:for-each>
        </Menus>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>