Loading Items from XML

You can easily load the items of a panel bar from an XML source, as long as the source conforms to the following structure:

• The top level consists of a single node, called <PanelBar>. This node can include attributes for the RadPanelBar properties:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<PanelBar Skin="Outlook">
   ...
</PanelBar>

• Immediately below the <PanelBar> node is a set of <Item> nodes, which represent the root items in the panel bar. The attributes of the <Item> node correspond to the properties and custom attributes of the panel item. Any child items are represented by <Item> nodes nested within the parent <Item> node:

<Item Text="Products" Expanded="True" >
    <Item Text="RadEditor" />
    <Item Text="RadPanelBar" />
    <Item Text="RadMenu" />
    <Item Text="RadTabStrip" />
</Item>
<Item Text="Support" >
    <Item Text="Knowledge Base" />
    <Item Text="Forums" />
    <Item Text="Articles" />
    <Item Text="FAQ" />
</Item> 

To discover the way to represent a specific RadPanelBar feature in XML, create a RadPanelBar with the feature and use the RadPanelBar.GetXml method to get the corresponding XML string.

Once you have an XML file of the proper format, or an XML string in the proper format, you can use it to populate a RadPanelBar object (for example, in a Page_Load event handler).

Loading from an XML file

Create an XML file with content that complies with the rules described above and call the LoadContentFile method to load the items, passing in the path to the file:

RadMenu1.LoadContentFile("~/App_Data/panelBar.xml");

RadMenu1.LoadContentFile("~/App_Data/panelBar.xml")

Loading from an XML string

Create a string with valid XML content (or fetch it from a database, for example) and use the LoadXML method to populate the panel bar from the string:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.Append("<PanelBar>");
sb.Append(" <Item Text='Root1'>");
sb.Append("   <Item Text='Child11'/>");
sb.Append(" </Item>");
sb.Append("</PanelBar>");
string xmlString = sb.ToString();
RadPanelBar1.LoadXml(xmlString);

Dim sb As New StringBuilder()
sb.Append("<PanelBar>")
sb.Append(" <Item Text='Root1'>")
sb.Append(" <Item Text='Child11'/>")
sb.Append(" </Item>")
sb.Append("</PanelBar>")
Dim xmlString As String = sb.ToString()
RadPanelBar1.LoadXml(xmlString)

You can also populate RadPanelBar from an XML file or string using an XmlDataSource component. When using XmlDataSource , the XML file does not have to follow the format shown in this topic. See Binding to Hierarchical DataSource Components for details.

You can use the GetXml method to get the XML content of a panel bar and then create a new panel bar that copies the first panel bar's structure:

RadPanelBar2.LoadXml(RadPanelBar1.GetXml());

RadPanelBar2.LoadXml(RadPanelBar1.GetXml())