asp.net mvc - C# mvc get active menu item with menu items from partial controller -

i'm building new website in mvc4 , i'm retrieving menu dynamic database. prevent doing same actions on , on again in every controller , view create menu i'm using partialcontroller partial view build menu. i've done this article.

the next thing want achieve determine current active menu item based on current controller , action, i've created html helper this. code based on this article.

my code looks this;

partialcontroller.cs

[childactiononly]         public actionresult mainmenu()         {             var viewmodel = new menumodel();              try             {                 ilist<menuitem> menuitems = menuservice.first(x => x.name == "mainmenu").menuitems;                  //get menuitems collection somewhere                 if (menuitems != null && menuitems.count > 0)                 {                     viewmodel.menuitems = menuitems;                     return view(viewmodel);                 }             }             catch (exception exception)             {                 //todo: exception handling , logging             }              return view(viewmodel);         } 

mainmenu.cshtml

this partial view included in layout, , among others contains piece of code;

<nav class="nav-collapse collapse">     <ul class="row-fluid nav">         @foreach (var item in model.menuitems)         {             <li class="span2">                 @html.menuitem(item.name, item.actionname, item.controllername)             </li>         }      </ul> </nav> 

htmlhelper.cs

the htmlhelper method i'm using in partial view build menu items. 1 problem is.

public static mvchtmlstring menuitem(this htmlhelper htmlhelper, string linktext, string actionname, string controllername)         {             string currentaction = htmlhelper.viewcontext.routedata.getrequiredstring("action");             string currentcontroller = htmlhelper.viewcontext.routedata.getrequiredstring("controller");             if (actionname == currentaction && controllername == currentcontroller)             {                 return htmlhelper.actionlink(                     linktext,                     actionname,                     controllername,                     null,                     new                     {                         @class = "active"                     });             }              //var link = htmlhelper.actionlink("<span>{linktext}<span>", actionname, controllername).tohtmlstring();             //return new mvchtmlstring(link.replace("{linktext}", linktext));              return htmlhelper.actionlink(linktext, actionname, controllername);         } 

when debugging see variable 'currentcontroller' contains value 'partial' , variable 'currentaction' contains 'mainmenu'. seems quite logic me since controller action used build menu. however, issue. 2 variables contain values 'partial' , 'mainmenu' because menuitem helper called in view instantiated partialcontroller. way i'm never able match actual controller making request.

all want is, example click contact-button in menu , see active menu item. action menu-item index action of contactcontroller, if controller , action match controller , action mapped menu-item, additional css-class should added.

what can solve this? prefer in code instead of dirty javascript functions, don't know if it's possible or how it?

i think can access parent controller using parentactionviewcontext property on htmlhelper.viewcontext

string currentcontroller = htmlhelper.viewcontext.parentactionviewcontext.routedata.getrequiredstring("controller");