= menu_helper

menu_helper adds a helper method for generating a menubar.

== Resources

API

* http://api.pluginaweek.org/menu_helper

Wiki

* http://wiki.pluginaweek.org/Menu_helper

Announcement

* http://www.pluginaweek.org/

Source

* http://svn.pluginaweek.org/trunk/plugins/action_pack/menu_helper

Development

* http://dev.pluginaweek.org/browser/trunk/plugins/action_pack/menu_helper

== Description

The generation of a menubar's structure can often be a repetitive and unDRY
process.  A standard using unordered lists is generally followed when creating
a menubar.  menu_helper attempts to following this standard in addition to
automatically adding ids, classes for selected menus, and default urls each
menu is linked to (base on various information, such as the name of the menu).

== Example

routes.rb:
  ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
    map.with_options(:controller => 'site') do |site|
      site.home '', :action => 'index'
    end
    
    map.with_options(:controller => 'about_us') do |about_us|
      about_us.about_us     'about_us',             :action => 'index'
      about_us.contact      'about_us/contact',     :action => 'contact'
      about_us.who_we_are   'about_us/who_we_are',  :action => 'who_we_are'
    end
    
    map.with_options(:controller => 'products') do |products|
      products.products 'products', :action => 'index'
    end
    
    map.with_options(:controller => 'services') do |services|
      services.services 'services', :action => 'index'
    end
  end

_menubar.rhtml:
  <%=
    menu_bar do |main|
      main.menu :home
      main.menu :products
      main.menu :services
      main.menu :about_us do |about_us|
        about_us.menu :overview, 'Overview', about_us_url
        about_us.menu :who_we_are
        about_us.menu :contact, 'Contact Us'
      end
      main.menu :search, 'Search!', 'http://www.google.com', :class => 'ir'
    end
  %>

Output (formatted for sanity):
  <ul id="menubar">
    <li id="home"><a href="http://example.com/">Home</a></li>
    <li id="products"><a href="http://example.com/products">Products</a></li>
    <li id="services"><a href="http://example.com/services">Services</a></li>
    <li class="selected" id="about_us"><a href="http://example.com/about_us">About Us</a>
      <ul id="about_us_menubar">
        <li id="overview"><a href="http://example.com/about_us">Overview</a></li>
        <li class="selected" id="who_we_are"><a href="http://example.com/about_us/who_we_are">Who We Are</a></li>
        <li class="last" id="contact"><a href="http://example.com/about_us/contact">Contact Us</a></li>
      </ul>
    <li class="search ir" id="search"><a href="http://www.google.com">Search!</a></li>
  </ul>

== Using this plugin

Remember one of the basic principles of programming: KISS.  There's no need to
use this plugin if you're writing a very, very simple menubar.  The advantages
of this helper are consistency, DRYness, and decreased complexity if you have
lots of submenus.

I wrote this plugin half as an experiment and half to actually use in a
production application.  I recommend trying it out and seeing if it actually
fits the needs of your application before committing to using it.

== Testing

This plugin requires that the plugin_test_helper gem be installed in order to
run the unit tests.  To install this gem:

  gem install plugin_test_helper

== Dependencies

This plugin depends on the presence of the following plugins:
# set_or_append - http://wiki.pluginaweek.org/Set_or_append