another frustrated menu question

Hi - I tend to agree, the menu system is a bit puzzling. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but the material I found on the menu didn't seem to tell me how to pull it apart, so that I could write my own menu block. Well, I did just that, and what I found is documented below (Drupal version 4.7). Apologies if there are proper accessor functions for this stuff - but the below stuff should get you started.

Create a new block, and add in the opening and closing php tags. Declare $_menu as global. Then you can dissect this value and do what you will with it. At the topmost level, it is an associative array containing a number of keys. The one you will be most interested in is called 'items'.

$_menu['items'] then reveals the whole of your menu structure, with each 'mid' (ie menu primary key) as a key, and with a menu item as the value. Each menu item is an associative array containing the following keys: path, title, description, pid, weight, type, children, access, callback.

'pid' is the 'parent id', which can be looked up in $_menu['items'] in the same way; weight is the relative position value, and it should be noted that this array does NOT come pre-sorted; children is an array of child mids, I believe; title and description are self-explanatory. The 'type' is an integer and comes from the menu table, I think it describes whether a menu appears as a standard menu, or a tab etc.

Hope that helps. You will need to implement a sort to ensure items are listed in the right order, and obviously you'll have to work out how to show only the hierarchies you want. You may find menu_get_active_nontask_item() useful, which (I believe) returns the mid of the currently active menu.

I am working on a custom menu myself, so if any experienced Drupal users know of a better approach, or an API, then please post here!

The following taxonomy_context code has been modified so as to return a menu tree based on a term id. The first two tiers of the menu have been removed.

Eg if you have a menu/category structure like this:
Item 1
-- item 1.1
----item 1.1.1
------item 1.1.1.1
------item 1.1.1.2
----item 1.1.2

then item 1 and item 1.1 will not be generated in the tree.

<?php

/**
 * Builds a tree from the current term 'upwards'
 *
 * @param int $tid
 * @return array
 */
function _context_build_tree_no_parents($tid)
  {
  // First, get path from root and own children
  $parents = taxonomy_get_parents_all($tid);
  for ($i = 1; $i < sizeof($parents) - (sizeof($parents) -3); $i++) {
    // We don't display the first two parents in our menu
    array_pop ($parents);
  }
  $tree = taxonomy_get_children($tid);
  foreach ($parents as $parent) 
    {
  	$newtree = array ($parent->tid => $parent) ;
  	$newtree[$parent->tid]->children = $tree;
  	$tree = $newtree;
    }

    
  if (sizeof ($tree) > 0) {
    // Then decorate with brethren along the path, we only do this if the term has children
    $current = &$tree;
    do {
      $base_term = current($current);
      foreach (_taxonomy_context_term_get_phratry($base_term->tid) as $current_tid => $current_term)
        {
        if ($current_tid != $base_term->tid)
          {
          $current[$current_tid] = $current_term;
          }
        }
      $current = &$current[$base_term->tid]->children;
      } while (count($current) > 0);
  }
  // sort according to weight
  sort_by_weight($tree);
  return $tree ;
}

/**
 * Recursively sorts the menu tree according to weight
 *
 * @param unknown_type $tree
 */
function sort_by_weight (&$tree) {
  foreach ($tree as $t) {
    if (is_array($t->children) && sizeof ($t->children) > 0 ){
      sort_by_weight($t->children);
    }
  }
  usort($tree, 'phpsnippet_menu_sort'); 
}
  
/**
 * Comparator routine for use in sorting menu items.
 */
function phpsnippet_menu_sort($a, $b) {
  $menu = menu_get_menu();

  $a = $a->weight;
  $b = $b->weight;

  if ($a < $b) {
    return -1;
  }
  elseif ($a > $b) {
    return 1;
  }
  elseif (isset($a['title']) && isset($b['title'])) {
    return strnatcasecmp($a['title'], $b['title']);
  }
  else {
    return 1;
  }
}
?>

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