[support] menu not appearing expanded

[Sarah Adams]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re:[support] menu not appearing expanded
From: Metzler, David <metzlerd at evergreen.edu>
To: support at 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!

-- 
sarah adams
web developer & programmer
portfolio: http://sarah.designshift.com
blog: http://hardedge.ca