Custom GlobalNavigation in SharePoint

It’s a very common requirement to apply nested nodes to the top level global navigations for most of the SharePoint developers. But, by default SharePoint limits up to one level only. Don’t worry I have done it. You can implement the nested nodes to the top navigation by following the below steps.

Step1: Create a sitemap file and place that file in “app_bin” folder.

Note:

·         <siteMapNode title="Home" url="/site/subsite/default.aspx" target="_new" />

·         To customize menu items to new popup window as target than default “_top” window.

The file _app_bin/Web.sitemap required by XmlSiteMapProvider does not exist

Even I also got this exception; I have checked the sitemap file that I am using exists in “80/app_bin” folder or not? Yes it is available then why I am getting this error? I don’t have any idea on it so I thought it’s better to search in Google. I understood why it is happing by referring the below post.

http://sharepoint12hive.blogspot.in/2010/03/file-appbinwebsitemap-required-by.html

 

Let me briefly explain what the post says, the users should have permissions to access if you place the sitemap files in web applications “app_bin” folder. By default, SharePoint administrators have permissions to access it. I then added read permissions to domain users group on file Web.sitemap to access domain users also. Then - problem disappeared! :=) 

Now, I got one more question? If you want to use the same sitemap file in multiple web applications, then what will we do? Is this better approach to give permissions to the sitemap file explicitly for each deployment?