Access Navigation Nodes in SharePoint XSLT

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

SharePoint relies on ASP.NET Site Map Providers for generating navigation links on its default pages. Specifically, the default Web.config file registers a (big!) number of providers, which control different aspects of its navigation:

<siteMap defaultProvider="CurrentNavigation" enabled="true">

  <providers>

    <add name="SPNavigationProvider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPNavigationProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="SPSiteMapProvider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="SPContentMapProvider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPContentMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="SPXmlContentMapProvider" siteMapFile="_app_bin/layouts.sitemap" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPXmlContentMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="AdministrationQuickLaunchProvider" description="QuickLaunch navigation provider for the central administration site" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Web.AdministrationQuickLaunchProvider, Microsoft.Office.Server.UI, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="SharedServicesQuickLaunchProvider" description="QuickLaunch navigation provider for shared services administration sites" type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Web.SharedServicesQuickLaunchProvider, Microsoft.Office.Server.UI, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="GlobalNavSiteMapProvider" description="CMS provider for Global navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Global" EncodeOutput="true" />

    <add name="CombinedNavSiteMapProvider" description="CMS provider for Combined navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Combined" EncodeOutput="true" />

    <add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProvider" description="CMS provider for Current navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Current" EncodeOutput="true" />

    <add name="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode" description="CMS provider for Current navigation, no encoding of output" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Current" EncodeOutput="false" />

    <add name="GlobalNavigation" description="Provider for MOSS Global Navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Combined" Version="14" />

    <add name="CurrentNavigation" description="Provider for MOSS Current Navigation" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.PortalSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" NavigationType="Current" Version="14" />

    <add name="SiteDirectoryCategoryProvider" description="Site Directory category provider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.WebControls.SiteDirectoryCategoryProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySitePersonalQuickLaunchProvider" description="MySite personal quick launch provider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySitePersonalQuickLaunchProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySiteHostTopNavigationProvider" description="MySite host top navigation provider" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteHostTopNavigationProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="GlobalNavigationSwitchableProvider" description="Provider for MOSS Global Navigation, which maps to GlobalNavigation or GlobalNavigationTaxonomyProvider according to Navigation Settings" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.SwitchableSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" DefaultTargetProviderName="GlobalNavigation" Version="15" />

    <add name="CurrentNavigationSwitchableProvider" description="Provider for MOSS Current Navigation, which maps to GlobalNavigation or CurrentNavigationTaxonomyProvider according to Navigation Settings" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.SwitchableSiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" Version="15" DefaultTargetProviderName="CurrentNavigation" />

    <add name="GlobalNavigationTaxonomyProvider" description="Provider for MOSS Global Navigation, driven by the Taxonomy feature" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.TaxonomySiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" Version="15" />

    <add name="CurrentNavigationTaxonomyProvider" description="Provider for MOSS Global Navigation, driven by the Taxonomy feature" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.Navigation.TaxonomySiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" Version="15" />

    <add name="MySiteMapProvider" description="MySite provider that returns areas and based on the current user context" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteMapProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySiteLeftNavProvider" description="MySite Left Nav provider that returns areas and based on the current user context" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteLeftNavProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySiteDocumentStaticProvider" description="MySite Document library provider that returns static links to lists in the site" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteDocumentStaticProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySiteSitesPageStaticProvider" description="MySite Document library provider that returns static links to lists on the Sites page" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteSitesPageStaticProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySiteSubNavProvider" description="MySite Sub Nav provider that returns areas and based on the current user context" type="Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.MySiteSubNavProvider, Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="EduTopNavProvider" description="Top Nav Site Map Provider for Education My Site Host" type="Microsoft.Office.Education.WebUI.EduTopNavProvider, Microsoft.Office.Education.WebUI, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

    <add name="MySiteHostQuickLaunchProvider" description="Quick Launch Site Map Provider for Education My Site Host" type="Microsoft.Office.Education.WebUI.EduQuickLaunchProvider, Microsoft.Office.Education.WebUI, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" />

  </providers>

</siteMap>

It is possible to use a Site Map Data Source (SiteMapDataSource) to feed a DataFormWebPart with navigation information, so that you can play with it using XSLT.

For example, let’s pick one of the providers, SPNavigationProvider, which is registered, appropriately, as SPNavigationProvider. This one is capable of returning the global navigation (Global Navigation) and the quick links (Current Navigation). In order to select one or the other, we supply a special key to its StartingNodeUrl property:

sid:1000: Home Page;
sid:1002: Global Navigation;
sid:1025: Current Navigation;
sid:1040: Search.

In case you are wondering, these values are defined in the public properties of the SPNavigation class.

This example will list all attributes of all the nodes:

<WebPartPages:DataFormWebPart runat="server">

    <DataSources>   

        <asp:SiteMapDataSource SiteMapProvider="SPNavigationProvider" ShowStartingNode="false" StartingNodeUrl="sid:1002" runat="server" />   

    </DataSources>

    <Xsl>

        <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/dsp" version="1.0" exclude-result-prefixes="xsl msxsl ddwrt" xmlns:ddwrt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/runtime" xmlns:asp="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ASPNET/20" xmlns:__designer="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebParts/v2/DataView/designer" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:SharePoint="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">

            <xsl:output method="html"/>

  

            <xsl:template match="/">

                <xsl:for-each select="dataRoot">                    

                    <xsl:for-each select="NavigateUIData">

                        <p>

                            Name: <xsl:value-of select="@Name"/>

                            Value: <xsl:value-of select="@Value"/>

                            NavigateUrl: <xsl:value-of select="@NavigateUrl"/>

                            Description: <xsl:value-of select="@Description"/>

                            <xsl:if test="substring(@NavigateUrl, string-length(@NavigateUrl) - string-length('.aspx') + 1) = '.aspx'">

                                (ASPX)

                            </xsl:if>

                            <xsl:if test="substring(@NavigateUrl, string-length(@NavigateUrl) - string-length('/') + 1) = '/'">

                                (Subsite)

                            </xsl:if>

                        </p>                                                            

                    </xsl:for-each>

                </xsl:for-each>

            </xsl:template>                                

        </xsl:stylesheet>

    </Xsl>

</WebPartPages:DataFormWebPart>

You can see that the SiteMapDataSource returns XML in the form:

<dataRoot>

    <NavigateUIData Name="Some Name" Value="Some Value" NavigateUrl="Some Url" Description="Some Description" />

</dataRoot>

Attributes are mostly self-explanatory, but Name and Value have the same content and Description always appears to be empty. For subsites, the NavigateUrl attribute will end in a /. Depending on the provider, it is possible to have nested NavigateUIData nodes.

If you set the ShowStartingNode property to true, you will also get a root node containing the name (for sid:1000 it is Home, for sid:1002 it is SharePoint Top Navigation Bar, for sid:1025 it is Quick Launch and for sid:1040 it is Search) and URL of the current site

Unfortunately, there isn’t much documentation (read: none) about these providers, except, of course, their methods and properties, so you have to figure out yourself. One thing that can be useful is this XSLT that will give you all the nodes and their attributes:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl asp" xmlns:asp="System.Web.UI.WebControls" xmlns:ddwrt2="urn:frontpage:internal">    <xsl:output method="html" />

    <xsl:template match="*">

        <xsl:param name="path" select="''" />

        <xsl:variable name="previous" select="count(preceding-sibling::*[name()=name(current())])" />

        <xsl:variable name="countprevious" select="count(following-sibling::*[name()=name(current())])" />

        <xsl:variable name="fullpath" select="concat($path, '/', name(), substring(concat('[', $previous + 1, ']'), 1 div ($countprevious or $previous)))" />

        <p><xsl:value-of select="$fullpath" /></p>

        <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|*">

            <xsl:with-param name="path" select="$fullpath" />

        </xsl:apply-templates>

    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="@*">

        <xsl:param name="path" select="''" />        

        <xsl:value-of select="concat($path, '/@', name())" />: <xsl:value-of select="." />

        <br/>

    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>