Trying to make Primary Menu a Drop Down Menu

Posted by executex on June 3, 2009 at 2:38am

So what I was trying to do was, make the primary links menu a drop-down menu. This is not difficult, but Drupal makes it incredibly difficult, by not printing out the "sub-items", instead it saves it for when you click a primary link, then on THAT page, it puts the "expanded sub-items" in "secondary-links" div.

I don't understand why it doesn't just print it on the page, so that I can wrap a div around it or something to make it a drop down or whatever.

What's the easiest way to do this? I tried using modules like dynamic persistent menu, but not only is it not maintained but it only makes menus as blocks, which I do not want. YUI menu looks the same everywhere. Any suggestions?

Comments

Go to

Posted by matt_harrold on June 3, 2009 at 2:48am

Go to admin/build/menu-customize/primary-links, check that the top level menu items you want to drop down are "expanded". Drupal will then behave the way you are expecting.

$0.02 with no refunds.

I decided to just implement a

Posted by executex on June 3, 2009 at 4:10am

I decided to just implement a theme() function instead of primary links theming inside the page.tpl file. Seems to be mostly working, I just got to get the styles right so that it looks good.

-
CE - VT

why don't you try superfish

Posted by rightchoice2c_me on June 3, 2009 at 7:39am

why don't you try superfish menus.

Work Hard to understand what you have to do b4 U start, You may not be able to develop every detail but the more U know the less risk you take.
http://drupal.coolpage.biz

You can use

Posted by kuldip zala on June 3, 2009 at 3:37am

You can use http://drupal.org/project/nice_menus .

Problem with nice menus...

Posted by PepeMty on June 3, 2009 at 7:37am

is that it isn't for primary menus, and nice primary menus isn't available for Drupal6...

Warm regards from sunny México!
:-)
Pepe

Warm regards from sunny México!
Pepe
:-)

I struggled with the same thing, but managed to get it working

Posted by TwiiK on June 15, 2009 at 8:38am

We were depending on printing the $primary_links variable i a theme because we were overriding it programatically in a module on a per virtual site basis (100+ virtual sites) so using menu blocks instead wasn't an option.

What baffled me was the fact that $primary_links is hardcoded to be only 1 level. Like the original poster I fail to see the point of this. After trying combinations of every menu function in the drupal api I managed to find something that did the same as just printing <?php theme('links', $primary_links); ?> except it included the entire menu tree.

This was my solution:

<?php 
    # Gets the name of the menu used as primary-links
    $proper_primary_links = variable_get('menu_primary_links_source', 'primary-links');

        # Builds the menu tree
    $menu_tree_data = menu_tree_page_data($proper_primary_links);

        # Renders the menu tree
    print menu_tree_output($menu_tree_data); 
?>

This gave me a menu containing the sub menus as well which I could print wherever I wanted in my theme. Seems to be working perfectly.

I overrided the menu_tree_output() function as well as made my own theme_menu_tree() function to add some extra id's and classes to my menu and links.

I'm very happy because this was harder than it had to be. :)

Posting it here in case anybody needs the same thing.

Øyvind Strømsvik
oyvind@nymedia.no
Ny Media AS - www.nymedia.no

Same problem, need more help

Posted by jsp_drupal on June 16, 2009 at 6:56am

Hello,
My problem is the same , I read your post , but unable to understand.

I am using drupal from last 2 weeks.
I want to show horizontal menu bar for end user which consist of three sublevels of child menus .
I have dynamic persistent menu module . With this I want to show my primary links in horizontal way , but instead it is showing the admin navigation in horizontal way .
I am using Bluemarine theme.

From your post what the 2 new functions are used for and where to write.
How I can use it for my purpose.
Same problem with simplemenu module.

Appreciate your help.

Thanks

Ok simple and

Posted by executex on June 17, 2009 at 12:24am

Ok simple and effective.

Requirements:
1) Dynamic Persistent Menu

Edit Page.tpl.php:
1) find primary links in the html, comment out what was there before...:

<?php if (!empty($primary_links)): ?>
          <div id="primary" class="clear-block">
            <?php print $DPM;
            //theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'links primary-links')); 
            ?>
          </div>
        <?php endif; ?>

2) Add the $DPM variable.

Edit (or create) template.php in your theme folder::

<?php
function TYPEyourTHEMEnameHERE_preprocess(&$vars){
    $params = explode(':','primary-links:0');
    $vars['DPM'] = theme('dynamic_persistent_menu', $params[0], $params[1], variable_get('dynamic_persistent_menu_sub_menu_timeout', 2000));
}
?>

---------
It should work, sometimes cache can take some time, so it may work later on...

-
CE - VT

White screen of death

Posted by Lordras on July 20, 2009 at 11:51am

HI!

I have follow your instruction step by step but now i receive a White screen of death!!! I backuped original files but return always my White screen of death.

I disable the module Dynamic Persistent Menu directed from Db but i don't resolve the problem.
Hope is temporary problem.

Regards

Thanks for the contribution!

Posted by ollu on June 29, 2009 at 7:59pm

@ Twiik: Just what I was lookin' for!

Thanks!

I also go the white screen of

Posted by Jmcpherson on October 2, 2009 at 3:57am

I also go the white screen of death luckily for me a saved a good copy of page.tpl.php so when i got the white screen i just went to my ftp client and dragged the good version of my page.tpl.php to the corrupted one. Then i let it overwrite the the bad copy and my screen went back to normal. I still don't get how to get my primary links children to be visible. Hopefully they come up with a patch or fix real soon.