Add SPNavigation Heading without link functionality to QuickLaunch

Adding items to the Quicklaunch or TopNavigation is easy. However adding a heading to the Quicklaunch without the link functionality is not possible by using the basic SharePoint 2010 API. In this post I’ll show you how to create a navigation item, transform it into a heading without link functionality, and add it to the Quicklaunch.

The options:

1. Create a SPNavigationNode
   add it to navigation using spWeb.Navigation.AddToQuickLaunch(SPNavigationNode node, SPQuickLaunchHeading heading), where heading is an enum of some default SP2010 headings.
2. Create a SPNavigationNode
   Get SPNavigationNodeCollection from spWeb.Navigation.QuickLaunch
   Add SPNavigationNode to the SPNavigationNodeCollection using methods like AddAsFirst, or AddAsLast

As option 1 can only to add items to default SP2010 headings. So we need to go for option 2.

The problem
Option 2 can only add a heading navigation node to the quicklaunch that has a link. When you use the following code it will create a heading, however it will link to the ‘base url’ of the current SPWeb.

// Create the node.
SPNavigationNodeCollection quicklaunchNav = web.Navigation.QuickLaunch;

// Create heading
SPNavigationNode headerNode = new SPNavigationNode(headerTitle, string.Empty, true);
headerNode = quicklaunchNav.AddAsLast(headerNode);
            
// Add subnode to heading.
SPNavigationNode node = new SPNavigationNode("title", "url", true);
headerNode.Children.AddAsLast(node);

 

 The Solution
The difference between a navigation item and a heading navigation item are some value in the NavigationNode.Properties HashTable.

To create a heading use the following code.

public static class SPNavigationNodeExtensions
{
    public static void MakeHeaderNode(this SPNavigationNode node)
    {
        node.Properties["BlankUrl"] = "True";
        node.Properties["LastModifiedDate"] = DateTime.Now;
        node.Properties["Target"] = "";
        node.Properties["vti_navsequencechild"] = "true";
        node.Properties["UrlQueryString"] = "";
        node.Properties["CreatedDate"] = DateTime.Now;
        node.Properties["Description"] = "";
        node.Properties["UrlFragment"] = "";
        node.Properties["NodeType"] = "Heading";
        node.Properties["Audience"] = "";
        node.Update();
    }
}

As you can see, the “BlankUrl'” = True, and NodeType = “Heading”. Using the Update method it saves changes of the properties.

It’s now possible to transform the heading node using this extension method.

//Transform Node into Header.
headerNode.MakeHeaderNode();

The final code is:

// Create the node.
SPNavigationNodeCollection quicklaunchNav = web.Navigation.QuickLaunch;

// Create heading
SPNavigationNode headerNode = new SPNavigationNode("HeadingTitle", string.Empty, true);
headerNode = quicklaunchNav.AddAsLast(headerNode);

//Transform Node into Header.
headerNode.MakeHeaderNode();
  
// Add subnode to heading.
SPNavigationNode node = new SPNavigationNode("title", "url", true);
headerNode.Children.AddAsLast(node);

At this point you’ll have a heading with '”HeadingTitle” that doesn’t link. It has a sub navigation item “title”, that links to “url”. Also thanks to Matthijs Woolderink (@MWoolderink) for some background information.