I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Is this just on one menu, or on all menus? For example, does the admin menu expand properly?
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Adams Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 12:00 PM To: support@drupal.org Subject: [support] menu not appearing expanded
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
-- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Is this just on one menu, or on all menus? For example, does the admin menu expand properly?
This is just in the primary links menu, the admin menu is expanding properly. I double-checked to make sure it wasn't just my theme screwing things up by setting the site back to the garland theme, and still had the same problem.
Hmmm... Haven't run into this.
I've double checked this on my own 5.1 install and it works.
Can I double-check to make sure that you've not made the same simple mistake that I'm always making? When you edit the sub-page directly, you see the parent menu item correctly AND there's a non-blank title field under the menu section, yes? (I'm always forgetting to fill in menu titles when adding an item to a sub-menu.)
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Adams Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 12:48 PM To: support@drupal.org Subject: Re: [support] menu not appearing expanded
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Is this just on one menu, or on all menus? For example, does the admin
menu expand properly?
This is just in the primary links menu, the admin menu is expanding properly. I double-checked to make sure it wasn't just my theme screwing things up by setting the site back to the garland theme, and still had the same problem.
-- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Does the child item appear somewhere else, or not at all? Where are the secondary menu links set? Don't they also have to be set to primary links in order to have it expand?
On 8/13/07, Metzler, David metzlerd@evergreen.edu wrote:
Hmmm... Haven't run into this.
I've double checked this on my own 5.1 install and it works.
Can I double-check to make sure that you've not made the same simple mistake that I'm always making? When you edit the sub-page directly, you see the parent menu item correctly AND there's a non-blank title field under the menu section, yes? (I'm always forgetting to fill in menu titles when adding an item to a sub-menu.)
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Adams Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 12:48 PM To: support@drupal.org Subject: Re: [support] menu not appearing expanded
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Is this just on one menu, or on all menus? For example, does the admin
menu expand properly?
This is just in the primary links menu, the admin menu is expanding properly. I double-checked to make sure it wasn't just my theme screwing things up by setting the site back to the garland theme, and still had the same problem.
-- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ] -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Does the child item appear somewhere else, or not at all?
No, the child item doesn't appear anywhere.
Where are the secondary menu links set?
The secondary links appears in the site footer. My understanding is this is not necessarily related to the primary links at all - am I wrong?
Don't they also have to be set to primary links in order to have it expand?
Not sure what you mean by this. Both links (the parent and the child) are primary links in the primary links menu.
Based on the Navigation menu, it seems that I've got this set up correctly, and shouldn't even have to check the "expanded" box for the parent, if I only want it expanded when actually viewing the parent page.
Does the problem still occur if you change the theme?
On 8/14/07, Sarah Adams mr.sanders@geekjock.ca wrote:
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Does the child item appear somewhere else, or not at all?
No, the child item doesn't appear anywhere.
Where are the secondary menu links set?
The secondary links appears in the site footer. My understanding is this is not necessarily related to the primary links at all - am I wrong?
Don't they also have to be set to primary links in order to have it expand?
Not sure what you mean by this. Both links (the parent and the child) are primary links in the primary links menu.
Based on the Navigation menu, it seems that I've got this set up correctly, and shouldn't even have to check the "expanded" box for the parent, if I only want it expanded when actually viewing the parent page.
-- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>> I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link >> to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu >> item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click >> on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent >> item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears. >> >> I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've >> misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated! > > Does the child item appear somewhere else, or not at all? No, the child item doesn't appear anywhere. > Where are the secondary menu links set? The secondary links appears in the site footer. My understanding is this is not necessarily related to the primary links at all - am I wrong? > Don't they also have to be set to primary links in order to have it > expand? Not sure what you mean by this. Both links (the parent and the child) are primary links in the primary links menu. Based on the Navigation menu, it seems that I've got this set up correctly, and shouldn't even have to check the "expanded" box for the parent, if I only want it expanded when actually viewing the parentDoes the problem still occur if you change the theme?
Unfortunately, yes, I tried changing back to the garland theme with no luck. I also tried deleting the menu entirely and recreating it from scratch - no joy.
Actually I'd try this in a non-primary links menu. Some themes go to the trouble of treating primary links differently, and Intentionally making them not expand. Try performing the same tasks with either a newly created menu, or in the navigation menu. Do they work there? If so, make a new menu and enable the block in your theme rather than using them as primary links.
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Adams Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 7:37 AM To: support@drupal.org Subject: Re: [support] menu not appearing expanded
>> I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to
link
>> to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added
menu
>> item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I
click
>> on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the
parent
>> item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears. >> >> I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've >> misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips
appreciated!
> > Does the child item appear somewhere else, or not at all? No, the child item doesn't appear anywhere. > Where are the secondary menu links set? The secondary links appears in the site footer. My understanding
is this
is not necessarily related to the primary links at all - am I
wrong?
> Don't they also have to be set to primary links in order to
have it
> expand? Not sure what you mean by this. Both links (the parent and the
child)
are primary links in the primary links menu. Based on the Navigation menu, it seems that I've got this set up correctly, and shouldn't even have to check the "expanded" box
for the
parent, if I only want it expanded when actually viewing theparent
Does the problem still occur if you change the theme?
Unfortunately, yes, I tried changing back to the garland theme with no luck. I also tried deleting the menu entirely and recreating it from scratch - no joy.
-- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Actually I'd try this in a non-primary links menu. Some themes go to the trouble of treating primary links differently, and Intentionally making them not expand. Try performing the same tasks with either a newly created menu, or in the navigation menu. Do they work there? If so, make a new menu and enable the block in your theme rather than using them as primary links.
AHA! I finally got this to work. I just removed the following from my theme: print theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' =>'links', 'id' => 'navlist')) and instead added the menu to the appropriate block.
Your reply set me on the right track. Thanks!
I also decided to do a little experiment to see if maybe I was not quite understanding the concept of primary/secondary links. I went to www.opensourcecms.com and used their demo of drupal. My understanding was that the primary links and secondary links were not related, that I could just place whichever menu items I wanted in each of those menus. But my experiment in the drupal demo showed me that if I added a menu item to the primary links, then added a child item also to the primary links, the child item would in fact appear under the secondary links. So I guess in reality, I should never explicitly add items to the secondary links menu - am I understanding this correctly now?
Yes and no.
Your initial assumption is correct. Primary links and secondary links are completely unrelated structures. Not all themes support the concept of secondary links. Frankly not all themes support the concept of primary links either. The only difference between the a primary link and a normal menu block comes at the theme layer. Most themes disable the expanding/collapsing behaviour of primary links because they want to display it inline (across the page). The expand/collapse model doesn't really hold up because the default css/javascript for this just behavior just doesn't work in a horizontal layout (especially in I.E.).
Primary links and Secondary links when they are supported by a theme, most often only work properly if they are a single simple list (i.e. non-hierarchical). That being said, there are some themes that may be designed to display hierarchical list primary links in a nice fashion. That is completely up to the theme designer.
So if you find a theme that supports secondary links, you'll be able to add a simple list of secondary lists that will probably appear in the site header, in a smaller font than the primary links, perhaps with text decorations turned on. That's just a theme developers choice.
Depending on your theme, you may be able to alter it to actually allow the expanding collapsing behaviour, but if you'd like different expand collapse behaviour, my recommendation would be to create a new region in your theme for the menu item, and add the css that you want to display that region differently. You'll problably end up fighting the base css less by using this strategy, but you'll need to learn enough theming to add the new region.
I hope that clarifies things for you.... Or maybe I've just confused you more :).
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Adams Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 8:40 AM To: support@drupal.org Subject: Re: [support] menu not appearing expanded
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the
sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Actually I'd try this in a non-primary links menu. Some themes go to the trouble of treating primary links differently, and Intentionally making them not expand. Try performing the same tasks with either a newly created menu, or in the navigation menu. Do they work there? If so, make a new menu and enable the block in your theme rather than using them as primary links.
AHA! I finally got this to work. I just removed the following from my theme: print theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' =>'links', 'id' => 'navlist')) and instead added the menu to the appropriate block.
Your reply set me on the right track. Thanks!
I also decided to do a little experiment to see if maybe I was not quite understanding the concept of primary/secondary links. I went to www.opensourcecms.com and used their demo of drupal. My understanding was that the primary links and secondary links were not related, that I could just place whichever menu items I wanted in each of those menus. But my experiment in the drupal demo showed me that if I added a menu item to the primary links, then added a child item also to the primary links, the child item would in fact appear under the secondary links. So I guess in reality, I should never explicitly add items to the secondary links menu - am I understanding this correctly now?
-- sarah adams web developer & programmer portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com blog: http://hardedge.ca -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re:[support] menu not appearing expanded From: Metzler, David metzlerd@evergreen.edu To: support@drupal.org Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 1:07:56 PM
Yes and no.
Your initial assumption is correct. Primary links and secondary links are completely unrelated structures. Not all themes support the concept of secondary links. Frankly not all themes support the concept of primary links either. The only difference between the a primary link and a normal menu block comes at the theme layer. Most themes disable the expanding/collapsing behaviour of primary links because they want to display it inline (across the page). The expand/collapse model doesn't really hold up because the default css/javascript for this just behavior just doesn't work in a horizontal layout (especially in I.E.).
Primary links and Secondary links when they are supported by a theme, most often only work properly if they are a single simple list (i.e. non-hierarchical). That being said, there are some themes that may be designed to display hierarchical list primary links in a nice fashion. That is completely up to the theme designer.
So if you find a theme that supports secondary links, you'll be able to add a simple list of secondary lists that will probably appear in the site header, in a smaller font than the primary links, perhaps with text decorations turned on. That's just a theme developers choice.
Depending on your theme, you may be able to alter it to actually allow the expanding collapsing behaviour, but if you'd like different expand collapse behaviour, my recommendation would be to create a new region in your theme for the menu item, and add the css that you want to display that region differently. You'll problably end up fighting the base css less by using this strategy, but you'll need to learn enough theming to add the new region.
I hope that clarifies things for you.... Or maybe I've just confused you more :).
Dave
Had I not already figured out how to add blocks (and menus) to custom regions, this might have confused me, but as it is, it makes perfect sense - thanks so much for taking the time to explain it!
How hard is it for a non-programmer to learn just enough PHP to do theming, or is that in itself a stupid question? Compared to say, learning CSS. (I mean not learning PHP instead of CSS, but I have been learning CSS so it is a reasonable benchmark.)
Jean
On 8/15/07, Metzler, David metzlerd@evergreen.edu wrote:
You'll problably end up fighting the base css
less by using this strategy, but you'll need to learn enough theming to add the new region.
Well I can give you an answer from someone who knows css html and php quite well and has been doing all of them for a decade, give or take. Theming in and of itself is not that difficult. However it will certainly seem so from the online documentation. I beat my head on the wall yesterday for hours while reading through page after page of documentation and not even understanding where to start - The html, css and javascript being done and a solid knowledge of php, all i had to know was what I needed to add to the code, how and where and I could handle the rest. The documentation seems to be bent on the idea that everyone wants to modify an existing theme (and a browse through the theme repository shows that that's exactly what many do) rather than implement a custom design delivered by a designer. Furthermore most of it speaks in drupal. Lastly, a lot of things are simply not documented or missing important details.
I finally gave up on the documentation and went to b&n and picked up a copy of Pro Drupal Development. Within an hour I had a theme working that somewhat resembles the site and have a good idea of what I need to do for the rest. I'm now hacking through the menu structure to get my css dropdown menus working.
In short, it's not theming that's difficult, it's finding good information on it that is.
.sander
Jean Gazis wrote:
How hard is it for a non-programmer to learn just enough PHP to do theming, or is that in itself a stupid question? Compared to say, learning CSS. (I mean not learning PHP instead of CSS, but I have been learning CSS so it is a reasonable benchmark.)
Jean
Maybe I will get that book, then. Everyone recommends it, but I had the impression that it was only for people who want to really develop stuff, like actual modules.
And I have to say, having read just a couple of tech how-to books, I don't know how people can stand it - good writers seem to be in very short supply in the tech handbook genre.
Jean
On 8/15/07, sander-martijn sander@sander-martijn.com wrote:
Well I can give you an answer from someone who knows css html and php quite well and has been doing all of them for a decade, give or take. Theming in and of itself is not that difficult. However it will certainly seem so from the online documentation. I beat my head on the wall yesterday for hours while reading through page after page of documentation and not even understanding where to start - The html, css and javascript being done and a solid knowledge of php, all i had to know was what I needed to add to the code, how and where and I could handle the rest. The documentation seems to be bent on the idea that everyone wants to modify an existing theme (and a browse through the theme repository shows that that's exactly what many do) rather than implement a custom design delivered by a designer. Furthermore most of it speaks in drupal. Lastly, a lot of things are simply not documented or missing important details.
I finally gave up on the documentation and went to b&n and picked up a copy of Pro Drupal Development. Within an hour I had a theme working that somewhat resembles the site and have a good idea of what I need to do for the rest. I'm now hacking through the menu structure to get my css dropdown menus working.
In short, it's not theming that's difficult, it's finding good information on it that is.
.sander
Jean Gazis wrote:
How hard is it for a non-programmer to learn just enough PHP to do theming, or is that in itself a stupid question? Compared to say, learning CSS. (I mean not learning PHP instead of CSS, but I have been learning CSS so it is a reasonable benchmark.)
Jean
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Well yes - much of the book is for advanced development and chapter 2 delves right into module development. But chapter one gives a good overview of the system and chapter 8 deals with themes in an incredibly straight forward way. I wish they spent more time on theme development than they do or that there was a book devoted to that level of development but the book was worth the money for me for that chapter alone because it starts out with "take your html page, add in these few bits of php code just like this and bam it works" before going into things in a bit more detail. Also seems to handle working with blocks in a pretty good way but i haven't dealt much with that yet.
For myself I'll also be happy to have it when i get to the inevitable developing of my own module - I need something that will find the closest representative to a zipcode and i'm pretty sure no one has built that yet. There are open source databases available to deal with it but i'll have to build the glue. probably something others will find useful when i'm done too.
but yes - although a lot of the book will probably go over your head for now from what you've said about your skill level, it's probably worth the money spent just to get you going with theme development, and the block work you'll likely have to do once your themes start advancing. I'm quite certain I would have been able to get my theme going with this book even without php knowledge.
Jean Gazis wrote:
Maybe I will get that book, then. Everyone recommends it, but I had the impression that it was only for people who want to really develop stuff, like actual modules.
And I have to say, having read just a couple of tech how-to books, I don't know how people can stand it - good writers seem to be in very short supply in the tech handbook genre.
Jean
On 8/15/07, *sander-martijn* <sander@sander-martijn.com mailto:sander@sander-martijn.com> wrote:
Well I can give you an answer from someone who knows css html and php quite well and has been doing all of them for a decade, give or take. Theming in and of itself is not that difficult. However it will certainly seem so from the online documentation. I beat my head on the wall yesterday for hours while reading through page after page of documentation and not even understanding where to start - The html, css and javascript being done and a solid knowledge of php, all i had to know was what I needed to add to the code, how and where and I could handle the rest. The documentation seems to be bent on the idea that everyone wants to modify an existing theme (and a browse through the theme repository shows that that's exactly what many do) rather than implement a custom design delivered by a designer. Furthermore most of it speaks in drupal. Lastly, a lot of things are simply not documented or missing important details. I finally gave up on the documentation and went to b&n and picked up a copy of Pro Drupal Development. Within an hour I had a theme working that somewhat resembles the site and have a good idea of what I need to do for the rest. I'm now hacking through the menu structure to get my css dropdown menus working. In short, it's not theming that's difficult, it's finding good information on it that is. .sander Jean Gazis wrote: > How hard is it for a non-programmer to learn just enough PHP to do > theming, or is that in itself a stupid question? Compared to say, > learning CSS. (I mean not learning PHP instead of CSS, but I have been > learning CSS so it is a reasonable benchmark.) > > Jean -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]-- Jean Gazis www.jeangazis.com http://www.jeangazis.com www.boxofrain.us http://www.boxofrain.us
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it." - André Gide
I just created a new page on my site, and added a menu item to link to it. I set the menu item as the child of a previously added menu item, but the new item does not appear below the parent when I click on the parent. I thought maybe this means I need to force the parent item to be expanded, but even then the sub-item never appears.
I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if I've misunderstood how menu items should behave. Any tips appreciated!
Is this just on one menu, or on all menus? For example, does the admin menu expand properly?
This is just in the primary links menu, the admin menu is expanding properly. I double-checked to make sure it wasn't just my theme screwing things up by setting the site back to the garland theme, and still had the same problem.
Hmmm... Haven't run into this.
I've double checked this on my own 5.1 install and it works.
Can I double-check to make sure that you've not made the same simple mistake that I'm always making? When you edit the sub-page directly, you see the parent menu item correctly AND there's a non-blank title field under the menu section, yes? (I'm always forgetting to fill in menu titles when adding an item to a sub-menu.)
Yes, the parent menu item appears correctly, and the child item has a non-blank title.
-
Jean Gazis -
Metzler, David -
sander-martijn -
Sarah Adams