By DrupalBone on

Regarding Menus

I recently started a site and I linked every node into a menu structure. I haven't used taxonomy(tagging) on any of these items. Now, these menus go very deep and have many items in them.

So I would like to call up a part of the menu for a specific page.

Ex. (Not my site, just an idea)

Animals

  • Cats
    • Small
      • Orange
        • 1
        • 2
        • 3
      • White
        • 1
        • 2
        • 3
      • Ugly
    • Medium
      • Lynx
      • Scary
      • Fox
    • Big
      • Lions
        • 1
        • 2
        • 3
      • Tigers
      • Cheatahs
  • Dogs
  • Fish

My questions... Can I call up a part of this menu and present it as a standalone menu on a page that will be dynamically updated whenever I add new menus?

Continuing from the first example:

Small Cats Navigation

  • Orange
  • White
  • Ugly

Notice this doesn't include the:

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

that was under Orange in the original menu. So, in essence, it is only recognizing one part of the list from the menu.

Is it possible to call up part of a menu like this without children?

Regarding Taxonomy

Or am I essentially forced to use taxonomy with views to make this happen? I'm hoping not because I'm basically thinking of Menus as a way to define a directory of exact locations, and taxonomy(tagging) as a way to define relationships. I would much rather have a partial list of a directory for this project, than a list of relationships.

Regarding Views

In my test creating a general views block (just my first run of it), I could get the block to show up on all pages easily, but when I configured the block on the block administration page, if I chose "Show on only the listed pages", and I entered a path there, the view would not show up when I went to that page.

I don't have that problem with any of the other blocks I've made, just with this views block.

Possibly I'm confused about the whole thing

Let me know. Thanks for your time.

Comments

DrupalBone’s picture

DrupalBone commented

This question:

My questions... Can I call up a part of this menu and present it as a standalone menu on a page that will be dynamically updated whenever I add new menus?

Should have read:

My questions... Can I call up a list of this menu and present it as a standalone menu in a block that will be dynamically updated whenever I add new menu items that belong to that list?

and this:

that was under Orange in the original menu. So, in essence, it is only recognizing one part of the list from the menu.

should more correctly say:

that was under Orange in the original menu. So, in essence, it is only recognizing one descendent list from the menu, without showing its own children.

Hopefully that removes any barriers to understanding my question.. thanks again.

cog.rusty’s picture

cog.rusty commented

See what you can do with http://drupal.org/project/slicedmenu

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

For example there is the Menu trim module which trims off parents.

In your case what you want is possible, you just need to define the rules, what shows when. Given the rules it would not to be hard to code a block to do what you are after. In general terms we have some part menu that is the "root" of the menu. Given a page, it may have a active menu item that reflects the page being displayed, from there we can walk back up the menu to it's root. If it is not the menu we are interested in we are done. If it is we implement the "rules" and only display the approriate part of the menu

DrupalBone’s picture

DrupalBone commented

Generally, I consider the fact that the native breadcrumb trail at the top of the page provides a good deal of information for upper-level navigation. I've got primary links at the top as well that will take them to the top of the directory. Having alternate branch Parent menu items kind of disorganizes the focus of the user for the research they'd be doing, and the titles of my items in the breadcrumb trail are very descriptive of what they lead to.

I don't know how to code a lick of PHP, but I'm going to go waste deep into the menu module and see what I can hack out of it.

If that doesn't work, then I'll check out these other modules, and if that fails, fall on my sword in the name of taxonomy.

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

It sounds close to what you want, if nothing else go visit the demo link. A little time invested with the module could save uou a lot of time. It would also provide a hint on the functions you would want to use from the menu system (they are not all in the menu module).

Also, no need to hack the menu module, there are some functions you can call that do the heavy lifting and only code the parts that give you the behaviour you want.

And personally I suggest falling on a pillow, they are softer :)

DrupalBone’s picture

DrupalBone commented

...as I didn't get a full night's rest, and I don't really have a sword (only a butter-knife), so maybe I will take a step back from my previous statement.

I think you're right, I'll check out the Trimmer and work on it from that angle. I did the same with the excellent copyright module, so why not? And like you said, menu trim is very close to what I want.

Thanks for your time.

By the way, are all these functions well documented somewhere? I'm finding myself to be like a kid lost in the woods on this site.

DrupalBone’s picture

DrupalBone commented

needs to run to the module page and check out submenutree.

http://drupal.org/project/submenutree

This module does exactly what I described using the menu system, and has loads of configurability to boot.

Probably the most essential menu enhancement module I've seen, and probably deserves to be in core.

dynv’s picture

dynv commented

Use Menu Restricter and have the dept to 1 in the settings.