Specifying the Sitemap Provider

A sitemap file is created for each menu control in your application, and a reference for each sitemap file is added to the Providers section located within the siteMap section in the System.web section of your application’s Web.config file.

The ASP.NET menu control uses the SiteMapDataSource control to bind to menu items.  SiteMapDataSource in turn refers to providers defined in your application’s Web.config file to load menu items into memory.  The Providers section in your application’s Web.config file has these attributes:

• Name, which specifies the provider name.

• Type, which specifies the provider class that loads the menu items.

• SiteMapFile, which specifies the location of the sitemap file from which the menu items are read.

• SecurityTimmingEnabled, which specifies whether menu items should be displayed based on your application security configuration.