How to add “active” class to Html.ActionLink in AS

Question

I'm trying to add an"active" class to my bootstrap navbar in MVC, but the following doesn't show the active class when written like this:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
  <li>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home", null, new {@class="active"})</li>
  <li>@Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home")</li>
  <li>@Html.ActionLink("Contact", "Contact", "Home")</li>
</ul>

This resolves to what looks like a correctly formatted class, but doesn't work:

<a class="active" href="/">Home</a>

In the Bootstrap documentation it states that 'a' tags shouldn't be used in the navbar, but the above is how I believe is the correct way of adding a class to an Html.ActionLink. Is there another (tidy) way I can do this?

Answer 1

My Solution to this problem is

<li class="@(Context.Request.Path.Value.ToLower().Contains("about") ? "active " : "" ) nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" asp-area="" asp-controller="Home" asp-action="About">About</a>
            </li>

A better way may be adding an Html extension method to return the current path to be compared with link

Answer 2

the answer by @dombenoit works. Though it introduces some code to maintain. Check this syntax out:

using (var nav = Html.Bootstrap().Begin(new Nav().Style(NavType.NavBar).SetLinksActiveByControllerAndAction()))
{
    @nav.ActionLink("Link 1", "action1")
    @nav.ActionLink("Link 2", "action2")
    @nav.Link("External Link", "#")
}

Notice the use of .SetLinksActiveByControllerAndAction() method.

If you wonder what makes this syntax possible, check out TwitterBootstrapMVC

Answer 3

if is it is not showing at all, the reason is that you need two @ sign:

@@class

BUT, I believe you might need to have the active class on the "li" tag not on the "a" tag. according too bootstrap docs (http://getbootstrap.com/components/#navbar-default):

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
  <li class="active"><a href="#">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Profile</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Messages</a></li>
</ul>

therefore your code will be:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
  <li class="active">@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home", null)</li>
  <li>@Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home")</li>
  <li>@Html.ActionLink("Contact", "Contact", "Home")</li>
</ul>

Answer 4

Hope this helps, below is how your menu can be:

 <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
   <li><a href="@Url.Action("Index", "Home")" class="@IsMenuSelected("Index","Home", "active")">Home</a></li>
   <li><a href="@Url.Action("About", "Home")" class="@IsMenuSelected("About", "Home", "active")">About</a></li>
   <li><a href="@Url.Action("Contact", "Home")" class="@IsMenuSelected("Contact", "Home", "active")">Contact</a></li>
 </ul>

And add below MVC helper function below the html tag.

 @helper IsMenuSelected(string actionName, string controllerName, string className)
    {
            var conname = ViewContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString().ToLower();
            var actname = ViewContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString().ToLower();

            if (conname == controllerName.ToLower() && actname == actionName.ToLower())
        {
            @className;
        }
    }

I referred the answer from http://questionbox.in/add-active-class-menu-link-html-actionlink-asp-net-mvc/

Answer 5

I believe here is a cleaner and smalller code to do get the selected menu being "active":

 <ul class="navbar-nav mr-auto">
                <li class="nav-item @Html.IfSelected("Index")">
                    <a class="nav-link" href="@Url.Action("Index", "Home")">Home</a>
                </li>
                <li class="nav-item @Html.IfSelected("Controls")">
                    <a class="nav-link" href="@Url.Action("Controls", "Home")">MVC Controls</a>
                </li>
                <li class="nav-item @Html.IfSelected("About")">
                    <a class="nav-link" href="@Url.Action("About", "Home")">About</a>
                </li>
</ul>

---

 public static string IfSelected(this HtmlHelper html, string action)
        {
            return html
                       .ViewContext
                       .RouteData
                       .Values["action"]
                       .ToString() == action
                            ? " active"
                            : "";
        }

Answer 6

We also can create UrlHelper from RequestContext which we can get from MvcHandler itself. Therefore I beleive for someone who wants to keep this logic in Razor templates following way would be helpful:

1. In project root create a folder named AppCode.
2. Create a file there named HtmlHelpers.cshtml

3. Create a helper in there:

   @helper MenuItem(string action, string controller)
   {
        var mvcHandler = Context.CurrentHandler as MvcHandler;
        if (mvcHandler != null)
        {
            var url = new UrlHelper(mvcHandler.RequestContext);
            var routeData = mvcHandler.RequestContext.RouteData;
            var currentAction = routeData.Values["action"].ToString();
            var currentController = routeData.Values["controller"].ToString();
            var isCurrent = string.Equals(currentAction, action, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) &&
                            string.Equals(currentController, controller, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase);
   
           <div class="@(isCurrent ? "active" : "")">
               <div>@url.Action(action, controller)</div>
           </div>
        }   
   }
   

4. Then we can use on our views like this:

   @HtmlHelpers.MenuItem("Default", "Home")
   

Hope that it helps to someone.