On 9/6/06, Stefan Nagtegaal <Drupal-Devel@istyledthis.nl> wrote:

I'm not sure I posted this to the right list, but you guys should forgive me when I'm on the wrong track..

Ccing this to theme list.

As you (probably) know, I'm designing/coding a new theme. I am using PHPTemplate for the first time in my life to create a full theme (please don't ask why).

Now, on my road to get this darn theme working I noticed that the following code is used inside coore themes to place the primary/ secondary navigation:

<?php if (isset($secondary_links)) { ?><?php print theme ('links', $secondary_links, array('class' =>'links', 'id' => 'subnavlist')) ?><?php } ?> and: <?php if (isset($primary_links)) { ?><?php print theme ('links', $primary_links, array('class' =>'links', 'id' => 'navlist')) ?><?php } ?>

Now, my question is why do we do this?

There is a block generated for every new 'menu list' which can be positioned into every region a theme supports. This is imo very weird..

Even weirder is the way before you get the links to display into the defined place using the method above. (Goto 'admin/build/menu/settings', set the 'Menu containing (primary| secondary) links'). I thought we had the blocks generated for that?

I was totally confused.. it took me 2 hours to spit through PHPTemplate to find a bug, another hour to fid some settings which would popup this idea on my mind, and 2 minutes in #drupal to get the solution..

I hope you guys don't mind me saying this, but as someone who has been using drupal for 4 years now, this does not make any sense to me at all.. is this only me?

Is there anyone who could think of a way on how we can improve this? Or am I all wrong, and is this usable "as is"?

You don't need to use the block to display the primary and secondary links. You can use something as simple as: <ul id="primary"> <?php foreach (array_reverse($primary_links) as $link): ?> <li><?php print $link; ?></li> <?php endforeach; ?> </ul> Or <div id="secondary"> <?php print is_array($secondary_links) ? theme('links', $secondary_links) : "" ?> </div> Or for a more complex way, see: http://2bits.com/articles/adding-unique-styles-to-primary-and-secondary-link... More than one way to do things, and I like it this way ...