How to display navigation in publishing site?

Question

I have a publishing site with multi language support. The site uses its own main menu (navigation) with custom CSS. It is currently displaying static text like Home, About Us, Contact Us e.t.c. I want to display pages that I create in SharePoint in this navigation. How do I do that?

Is there some property available for e.g. <SharePoint:Navigation> which I can than customize according to my CSS?

Please note I want this navigation in Master Page.

Answer 1

If by "multilanguage support" you mean variations - than for each variation (aka label, sub-site per language) links you update via Settings > Navigation would require translation.

Beyond that, you should be able to update the Global Navigation direclty in the master page - by default this is using a ASP:MENU control tied up to a Navigation provider (short excerpt here bellow), main CSS classes (http://erikswenson.blogspot.ch/2011/02/sharepoint-2010-navigation-drop-down.html):

<SharePoint:AspMenu
              ID="TopNavigationMenu"
              Runat="server"
             DataSourceID="topSiteMap" />

Examples of how to style it could be found:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897739(v=office.12).aspx
• http://erikswenson.blogspot.ch/2010/01/style-individual-navigation-items-for.html
• http://chrisstahl.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/customizing-sharepoint-2010-global-navigation-with-css-and-jquery-%E2%80%93-part-iii/