8.1. ASP.NET 2.0 Navigation Provider Model
Creating navigation components has traditionally been a requirement in every application. This was because each navigation component was tightly coupled to the underlying site architecture. For example, creating custom navigation components in WSS 2.0 sites was quite complicated, as developers were required to write the code that would walk through the SharePoint object model to determine the structure of the navigation.
The other component of all navigation controls was the rendering piece. This part was responsible for taking the navigation data structure and generating the HTML used to render the navigation control. Many third-party organizations were started that built navigation controls other companies could purchase to implement sophisticated navigation implementations. Unfortunately, these components were usually somewhat challenging to implement, as developers had to incorporate them into a project's code, which pulled the data part of the navigation out of the underlying site structure.
Microsoft addressed this challenge in ASP.NET 2.0, adding something called the navigation provider model to make it much easier to implement navigation in Web sites. The navigation provider model essentially divides the navigation into two pieces: the rendering piece and the piece responsible for getting the data from the underlying site architecture. Site map data sources are used to represent the hierarchical structure of a site, exposing the ...
