Menu System

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Menu System
Presented by Bill Baxter Date July 31,
2008 References Drupal 6.3 documentation Thank
s to Anish Krishnamurthy and Zhuo Ming Liu for
not reporting me to the police for stealing their
custom Drupal presentation format!
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Table of Contents

• What is a menu?
• Menu module
• Default menus
• How do we use them?
• How do they work?
• How is the menu information organized in the
  database?

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What is a Menu?

• A menu is a link used to navigate within the
  website.
• Menus are a hierarchical collection of links
  (menu items) used to navigate a website and are
  positioned and displayed using Drupal's flexable
  block system
• New, customized menus can be made by writing a
  module

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Menu Module

• The menu module provides an interface to control
  and customize Drupal's powerful menu system.
• Each menu automatically creates a block of the
  same name. By default, new menu items are placed
  inside a built-in menu labeled Navigation, but
  administrators can also create custom menus.
• New, customized menus can be made by writing a
  module

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Menus - Default

• Navigation menu - contains most links necessary
  for working with and navigating your site and is
  often displayed in either the left or right
  sidebar.
• Primary links and Secondary links contain no menu
  items but may be configured to contain custom
  menu items specific to your site. Most Drupal
  themes also provide support for Primary links and
  Secondary links, by displaying them in either the
  header or footer of each page.

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Menus Default (cont...)?

• Control the site's navigation menu, primary links
  and secondary links, as well as rename and
  reorganize menu items.
• Derived from the base menu, by adding its own
  data attributes.

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How to use them?
Click on Administer, Site building, Menus
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How to use them?

• The menus page displays all menus currently
  available on your site. Select a menu from this
  list to add or edit a menu item, or to rearrange
  items within the menu.
• Create new menus using the add menu page (the
  block containing a new menu must also be enabled
  on the blocks administration page).

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How to use them- Add menu
Creating a new menu Once a new menu is added,
select save (not ahown in this image).
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How to use them- Menu created
Message to confirm that the menu item has been
created.
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How to use them - Settings
Configuring the new menu item.
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How to use them - Settings
Editing for the default setting of menu.
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How to use them - Works!

• Enable the menu by adding it to a block.
• The block presentation will explain that process

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How do they work?

• A menu is an object composed of multiple parts

• menu_custom stores the menu_name, title and
  description.
• menu_links stores the destination (link) of the
  menu.
• block each menu item has a block of the same
  name.

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How is the menu database organized?
Schema
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How is the menu database organized?
Table menu_links
Table menu_custom
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Conclusion

• Menus are necessary to provide navigation within
  and outside of the web site.
• Menus are totally configurable and customizable.
• To fully understand the menu system you will need
  to also undderstand blocks and how they relate to
  the overall system within Drupal.