By codemann on

A long time ago I made a website for a friend with a primary menu on top (primary links) and a custom menu in the content block: each primary menu item showed another menu at the left of the content block.

I fixed this with adding a bit of php code on the correct pages :

$mid = <<correct menu id>>;
print theme('menu_tree', $mid);

This works perfectly, the rest of the page html code and text just went under that php code, and everybody was happy.
Until that friend wanted to edit his pages. Because of the custom php code I didn't enable a TinyMCE editor, because off course that would mess up that php code.

Now I was looking for another method to fix this, preferably outside the pages where I just put the php code in now.
So I tried adding a new block of php code where I check the $_REQUEST["q"] and I print the menu_tree on the right pages.

if ($_REQUEST["q"] == "node/2") {
  $mid = 2;
  print theme('menu_tree', $mid);
}
elseif ($_REQUEST["q"] == "node/3") {
  $mid = 74;
  print theme('menu_tree', $mid);
}
elseif ($_REQUEST["q"] == "node/13") {
  $mid = 70;
  print theme('menu_tree', $mid);
}

This php block was added to the content block, but he showed it at the bottom while it should have been on top with a left float. I tried setting the weight to -10, but that didn't change anything.

I hope my explanation is clear enough, feel free to ask if you need more info.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Why not just place it directly in page.tp.php. Also if you use the built in primary/secondary feature you can make each of those menus children of the primary menu items and then simply display the secondary menu.

codemann’s picture

codemann
Primary language Dutch
commented

"Also if you use the built in primary/secondary feature you can make each of those menus children of the primary menu items and then simply display the secondary menu."

Can someone explain me how I do that?

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Under "Administer" › "Site building" > "Menus" click "Settings" (tab). Make sure both "Menu containing primary links" and "Menu containing secondary links" point to the same menu (typically called "Primary links").

Now build your primary menu at "Administer" › "Site building" > "Menus" adding items to your primary menu. All the items you add will belong to the primary menu. Some will be parent items (there parent is "Primary menu"), they represent the primary menu, others will be children of these parent items, they will be secondary menu items and will display as the the seconday menu . The secondary menu will show the children of the active primary menu item (because of the first step above). So locally you have a menu that looks something like

  • Parent A
    • Child A-1
    • Child A-2
  • Parent B
    • Child B-1
    • Child B-2

So your primary menu will show Parent A | Parent B and if Parent A is the active primary menu the secondary menu will show Child A-1 | Child A-2.

In page.tpl.php you will need something like

        <?php if (isset($primary_links)) : ?>
          <?php print theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'links primary-links')) ?>
        <?php endif; ?>

to display the primary links (menu) and something like 

        <?php if (isset($secondary_links)) : ?>
          <?php print theme('links', $secondary_links, array('class' => 'links secondary-links')) ?>
        <?php endif; ?>

to display the secondary links (menu).

codemann’s picture

codemann
Primary language Dutch
commented

Thanks a lot man! A very clear explanation, you made me a bit drupal wiser now.

arh1’s picture

arh1 commented

fwiw, if you want to print an entire region to a template file other than page.tpl.php (so that you could e.g. expose menus and any other blocks you want to the UI for printing in a node's "content" div, but still keep them hidden from the node editing screen), you can use the "Inline regions" technique mentioned on the theme developer's guide Regions in PHPTemplate page.

and a question for nevets...

Also if you use the built in primary/secondary feature you can make each of those menus children of the primary menu items and then simply display the secondary menu.

you can easily pick a "child" menu and only display that menu, but is there a way to turn off display of the children in the parent menu? (e.g., in your example above, if the primary menu is printed the menu items would always be expandable to show their child menu items, correct?)

i've been working under this assumption for some time, but would love to find some UI option or function argument i'm missing to disable display of children altogether, so you could have one hierarchical menu with submenus, but display them separately.

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

Primary menu always shows just one level if using something like theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'nav'));

arh1’s picture

arh1 commented

hot damn. thanks, nevets. i will give it a shot.

tubangs’s picture

tubangs commented

hello.. this has gotten my attention. you said that Primary menu always shows just one level if using something like theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'nav')); ...... what if i want to show the child of my primary links without using the secondary links (which was explained to codemann right)..since i have a secondary links separated, i want to display the childs of the primary by hovering it. i already configured my menus in the administer section but childs dont come out.. im using d6.. i would appreciate if you can explain in simple terms or show the codes.. thank you very much guys...actually this is really my first time to post comment in such a forum.. ,"

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

If I understand your question correctly given a menu like

  • Item 1
    • Item 1-a
    • Item 1-b
    • Item 1-c
  • Item 2
    • Item 2-a
  • Item 3
    • Item 3-a
    • Item 3-b

when hovering over 'item 1' you want to see 'item 1-a', 'item 1-b', 'item 1-c' and when hovering over 'item 2' you want to see 'item 2-a', etc. If this is the case a start point is all the items need be in the primary menu to establish the relations between parent and child. The next part, support for the hovering over the links is not part of Drupal core and I am not aware of a module that does that. It would require both a theme function (to output approriate html) and js code to support the hovering.

wimvb’s picture

wimvb commented

The module "nice_menus" 6.x-1.1 does just the right thing! It drops second-level items to the left or to the right when hoovered over primary-level items. Can be personalized for color etc.