Array
(
    [menu-1-1-2] => Array
        (
            [title] => Photo Gallery
            [href] => node/2
            [attributes] => Array
                (
                )
        )

    [menu-1-2-2] => Array
        (
            [title] => Floor Plans
            [href] => node/5
            [attributes] => Array
                (
                )
        )
)
1

<ul class="menu">
<li class="expanded"><a href="/?q=photoGallery">Photo Gallery</a>
<ul class="menu">
<li class="leaf"><a href="/?q=photoGallery/residential">Residential Photos</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="leaf"><a href="/?q=floorplans">Floor Plans</a></li>
</ul>

Forgot to to add that you will have to get intimate with the 
$primary_links array, but its not difficult. 
Throw in a print_r($links) and you have all you need.

Eric Mckenna wrote:
  

You can use theme_menu_tree and theme_menu_item, but you will theme 
every menu that passes through the menu system that way.
What I like to do is do my own theme for the menu items
on your page.tpl.php
<?php print theme('my_menu_themeing', $primary_links); ?>

inside your template.tpl.php
function THEME_NAME_my_menu_themeing($links) {
   $output;
  .. custom html with my menu ...
  return $output;
}

see it that works for you.
Eric.

sander-martijn wrote:
    

Making some progress here.  I've realized that to some extent what I 
want to do is override theme_menu_tree and theme_menu_item.  That 
gives me some of the control I need BUT the default menu system still 
has extra junk I don't want (such as a Primary links header) AND I 
need two types of menu trees that display different things - one 
horizontal in the top (primary links) and one vertical down the left 
(current section and its children).
so far i think menus are a pain in the ass in drupal.  a tradeoff for 
the power but I think the multiple meanings that the word "menu" has 
in drupal just adds to the confusion of it all.  What I need is 
really not that complicated, but it's becoming incredibly complicated 
fast.

sander-martijn wrote:
      

I want to customize my menus, but since I want it to work with the 
html/css/javascript code I've already written and tested I want to 
get the system to output the menu in html as I want it.  Actually 
what I need is quite simple.  I don't really want to try to 
customize someone else's module and I'd rather not build one.  After 
some digging around I figured out that I could override the 
theme_menu_links method in my template.php file.  Now that's exactly 
what I need... I got really excited but I must have some things 
missing/misunderstood.


what I have in the menu system under primary links:
primary links
  - menu item 1
     - menu 1 subitem 1
     - menu 1 subitem 2
  - menu item 2
     - menu 2 subitem 1

etc - fairly standard

What I need to output is the following:

<ul id="nav1" class="nav">
  <li><a href="#">menu item 1</a>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#">menu 1 subitem 1</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">menu 1 subitem 2</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>
<ul id="nav2" class="nav">
  <li>menu item 2
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#">menu 2 subitem 1</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

etc. - also pretty straight forward.

SO - I put in page.tpl.php the following:
<?php print theme('menu_links', $primary_links); ?>

and put in template.php the following:
function tpg_menu_links($links){
  if (!count($links)) {
    return '';
  }
  $level_tmp = explode('-', key($links));
  $level = $level_tmp[0];
  $output = "<ul id=\"nav\" class=\"nav\">\n";
  foreach ($links as $index => $link) {
    $output .= "<li>". l($link['title'], $link['href'], 
$link['attributes'], $link['query'], $link['fragment']) ."</li>\n";
  }
  $output .= '</ul>';

  return $output;
}
?>

Which is basically a modified version of theme_menu_links in menu.inc

It works as a start, but there are a couple of issues. 1. even 
though my class attribute in $output is hard coded, it's still being 
replaced by class="active" when you're on the page.  Not a disaster, 
i can always modify my css to do the same thing for class="active" 
as class="nav".
2. this is the bigger issue.  It's not outputting the subitems.  I'd 
be happy to add in the proper call in the foreach loop to either 
call another function that i also override or to load them directly 
in here if anyone can point me in the direction of what i need to 
call in order to load them.


  
        

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

sander-martijn <mailto:sander@sander-martijn.com>
interface developer | architect
sander@sander-martijn.com <mailto:sander@sander-martijn.com>
www.sander-martijn.com <http://www.sander-martijn.com>

------------------------------------------------------------------------