Child menus not showing up unless I force Always Expand on Parent menu

Child items DO show up when I force navigate to a child page via content manager.

But they don't pop down from the parent menu, nor do they appear when in the parent page. Of course I can force them to be there with "show expanded" but that wrecks the popdown menu.

I tried cleaning the menu of conflicting and misordered items as evo said (thanks evo - that helped me understand the Way of Drupal). I even tried linking to the nodes directly in the menu (rather than aliases) but still no joy.

Is this true for anyone else?

This isn't quite the same issue, but I also found that the drupal menu's system of opening the page of a parent item (default collapsed) in order to see the children item was unintuitive- the average user expects the menu to expand, not to go to a new page and then expand. I tried nice_menus for a while, but it didn't work as well as I expected, and the way that it disappeared without delay when your mouse moved off the menu created usability issues. So, I created a new module, called fieldset menus in order to simply expand parent items- not change the page. I suggest that, if you're having trouble with drupal's default menu system, you try this module.

-cwgordon7

Hi Nick,

Here is the code I used to get around the problem. It specifically builds child menus dynamically by inserting records directly into the menu table. A bit hackish, but what can you do when the API is malfunctioning?

function birgitmod_perm() {
    return array('rebuild birgit menus');
}

function birgitmod_menu($may_cache) {
    if ($may_cache) {
        $items[] = array( 
            'title' => t('Rebuild Birgit Menus'),
            'path' => 'admin/build/menu/rebuild',
            'callback' => 'birgitmod_rebuild',
            'access' => user_access('rebuild birgit menus'), 
        );
        return $items;
    }

}


function birgitmod_nodeapi(&$node, $op) {
    //If something that affects the dynamic menus has been changed,
    //correct the dynamic menus.  Check for insert/delete/update actions 
    //first as that should happen much less often than viewing of 
    //homecollection/womenswear items
    if (($op == 'insert' || $op == 'delete' || $op == 'update')) {
        if ($node->type == 'homecollection_item' 
         || $node->type == 'homecollection_designer'
         || $node->type == 'homecollection_category') {
                
            $collectionMenus = new Homecollection();             
        
        } else if ($node->type == 'womenswear_item'
         || $node->type == 'womenswear_designer'
         || $node->type == 'womenswear_category') {
        
            $collectionMenus = new Womenswear();
        }    
       
        $collectionMenus->purge();
        $collectionMenus->build_all();
        drupal_set_message('Menus rebuilt.');
    } 
}

    function birgitmod_rebuild() {
    
        $menu_items[] = new Homecollection();
        $menu_items[] = new Womenswear(); 
            
        foreach ($menu_items as $menu_item) {
            
            //Delete all menu items which begin with womenswear/ or homecollection/
            $menu_item->purge();
            $menu_item->build_all();
        }
        
        drupal_set_message('Dynamic menus have been rebuilt.');
        return '';
    }
    
    abstract class Collection {
        protected $name; //name of the collection used in paths, tables, e.g. 'womenswear'
        protected $mid; //The menu id of the top level collection menu
        protected $categoryRef; //The name of the nodereference field for the category in this collection 
        protected $designerRef; //as above, but for the designer
        private $menutree; //An array of objects, active designers within Categories for this collection
        
        public function purge() 
        //Deletes all the existing menu items for this collection
        {
            $delete_sql = 'DELETE FROM `menu` WHERE `path` LIKE "'.$this->name.'/%"';
            $delete_result = db_query($delete_sql); 
            drupal_set_message('Deleted '.db_affected_rows($delete_result).' menu items.');
        }
        
        public function build_all() {
            //Get list of all the active categories for this collection 
            //For each active category, get list of all the active designers
            
            $this->menutree = $this->getMenuTree();
            $this->insert($this->menutree);
                    
            //Clear menu cache
            db_query('TRUNCATE TABLE cache_menu');
        }
        
         private function getMenuTree() 
        //Returns an array of active Categories, with active Designers nested within
        {
            //Get list of the categories that appear under this collection,
            //duplicates removed
            
            $sql = 'SELECT node.nid, node.title, content_field_weight.field_weight_value '.
                    'FROM node, content_type_'.$this->name.'_item, content_field_weight '.
                    'WHERE content_type_'.$this->name.'_item.'.$this->categoryRef.' = node.nid '.
                    'AND node.nid = content_field_weight.nid '.
                    'GROUP BY node.title ';
            
            $result = db_query($sql);
            
            //Initialise return array
            $menuTree = array();
            $output = 'Looking at categories...';
            while ($category = db_fetch_object($result)) {

                $menuTree[] = $category; 
                
                //Now find out which designers have products
                //for this particular category.  Get the weight too.
                $designer_sql = 'SELECT node.title, node.nid , content_field_weight.field_weight_value '.
                    'FROM node, content_type_'.$this->name.'_item, content_field_weight '.
                    'WHERE node.nid = content_type_'.$this->name.'_item.'.$this->designerRef.' '. 
                    'AND node.nid = content_field_weight.nid '.
                'AND content_type_'.$this->name.'_item.'.$this->categoryRef.' = "'.$category->nid.'" '. 
                'GROUP BY content_type_'.$this->name.'_item.'.$this->designerRef;
            
                $designer_result = db_query($designer_sql);
                while ($designer = db_fetch_object($designer_result)) { 
                    //Add the designers onto the just-created array as a subsection of the
                    //category item
            
                    $menuTree[count($menuTree)-1]->designers[] = $designer; 
                }
    
            }

            return $menuTree;        
        }
        
        private function insert($tree)
        //Puts the array created by getMenuTree into the db 
        {
            foreach($tree as $category) {
                $insert_cat_sql = 'INSERT INTO `menu` '.
                    '(`pid`, `type`, `path`, `weight`, `title`) '.
                    'VALUES ("'.$this->mid.'", "118", '. 
                    '"'.$this->name.'/browse/'.$category->nid.'", "'.
                    $category->field_weight_value.'", "'.
                    $category->title.'")'; 
                    
                $result = db_query($insert_cat_sql);
                
                //Find out the mid of the record just inserted
                //(There must be a better way?)
                $mid_sql = 'SELECT mid FROM menu '.
                    'WHERE `path` LIKE "'.$this->name.'/browse/%"';
                $result = db_query($mid_sql);
                if ($mid_attempt = db_fetch_object($result)) { 
                    $category->mid = $mid_attempt->mid;

                } else {
                    drupal_set_message('Runtime Error: could not find recently added category.');
                } 
                
                //insert the menus for the designers
                foreach ($category->designers as $designer) {
                    $insert_des_sql = 'INSERT INTO `menu` '.
                        '(`pid`, `type`, `path`, `weight`, `title`) '. 
                        'VALUES ("'.$category->mid.'", "118", '.
                        '"'.$this->name.'/browse/'.$category->nid.'/designer/'.$designer->nid.'", "'. 
                        $designer->field_weight_value.'", "'.
                        $designer->title.'")';
                    
                    $result = db_query($insert_des_sql); 
                        
                }
            }
        
        }
    }
    
    class Homecollection extends Collection {
        function __construct() {
            $this->name = 'homecollection'; 
            $this->mid = 47;
            $this->categoryRef = 'field_item_type_nid';
            $this->designerRef = 'field_homecollection_designerli_nid';
        }
    }
    
    class Womenswear extends Collection {
        function __construct() {
            $this->name = 'womenswear';
            $this->mid = 48;
            $this->categoryRef = 'field_womenswear_item_type_nid'; 
            $this->designerRef = 'field_womenswear_designerlink_nid';
        }
    }