SharePoint hierarchical Quick Launch replacement using jQuery ajax

(See here for a screencast of the in-development version)
(Solution (wsp) download available here)

The navigation control features (among other things):

• Collapsible tree-view of the entire site collection
  
• Lazy-loaded (jQuery ajax + json) sub-site structure
  
• Node title editing, hiding and reordering (also ajax)
  
• Customizable UI
  

Unlike many other ajax based controls, this doesn't post-back to the page itself, but rather to a standalone web service which is deployed with the feature. Consequently, this control will *not* cause a heap of server-side overhead (instantiation of many unnecessary controls, and so forth) caused by the slight horror that is e.g. plain ASP.NET Ajax.


The resulting Grep.SharePoint.Navigation control solution can be downloaded here, and taken for a test drive. At some point, I'll make a CodePlex site for it.

The setup is pretty easy. You need to activate two features, and the control will automatically replace the default quick launch navigation.

Once you've installed the solution, and deployed it to a site, head over to the web application features:


Make sure you select the right web application (use the drop-down in the top-right corner of the feature page to change this), and not e.g. your central admin web app. Nothing will be harmed if you happen to activate it for the wrong application - the navigation control simply won't work.

Once you've selected the correct web app, enable the extension feature:


Next, head over to the site you want to test it on, navigate to the site features (not site collection features), and enable the Navigation injection feature:


You can undo the navigation replacement at any time, by deactivating this very feature.

To edit the navigation, you can - as a site collection administrator - press the link above the navigation control, seen here:

When node editing is activated, unchecking the check box will hide the node from display, changing the name will rename the node (but not actually rename the underlying web / list). To restore default settings for the node, press the arrow button next to it.


Also, a style sheet is shipped along with the control, in your 12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\Grep.SharePoint.Navigation folder - feel free to play around with that.