NAME HTML::Widgets::Menu - Builds an HTML menu SYNOPSIS use HTML::Widgets::Menu; my $main=HTML::Widgets::Menu->new( home => "/users/frankie/", format => { default=>{ # default format options # }, 0=>{ #level 0 format options# } # more levels }, menu=> [ item1=>{ url=>"url for item 1", menu=>[ item1_1=>'url for item 1_1' ] }, item2=>"url for item 2" # more items ], # this is experimental. allowed => sub { my ($url)=shift; my $user=$ENV{REMOTE_USER}; return 1 unless defined $user; return ($user eq "frankie" && $url =~/^intranet/); } ); print "$menu->title", print "

$menu->path

", print $menu->html; DESCRIPTION This module will help you build a menu for your HTML site. You can use with CGI or any mod_perl module. I use it from HTML::Mason. Every time you request to show a menu it will return the HTML tags. It's smart enough it will highlight the current active items. You can see an example of this here: http://www.etsetb.upc.es/~frankie This software is more mature that latest version. It works fine for me and is used in production sites. The very first version was almost unusable if you didn't had very strict rules for creating the menu, now it's much improved and useful. Tell me if you like it or not. You can send me patches, bugs or suggestions. This software is provided as is and you're using it at your own risk. You agree to use it with the same license of perl itself. Drawing a menu is a matter of : the items of the menu the format you want it to have You also must supply the home directory for all the web you want to add this menu. ITEMS The items is a list. For example, a simple menu could be: my @menu=( homepage =>'.', "my links" =>"links.html" ); You can add depth to the menu: my @menu=( homepage => '.', "my links" => { url=>"links/", menu=>[ perl =>"perl_link.html", "movies I like"=>'movies.html' ], about=>"about.html" ); For every level you add instead of the url you must supply a reference to a hash with the url and the submenu. Now you can get this menu printed in html easily and get the list of active items. my $main=HTML::Widgets::Menu->new(menu=>\@menu,home=>"/users/frankie/"); print $main->html(); # this renders the html my @active_items= @{$main->active}; # list of active items If the url of the item is only the name of a directory (the final / is not necessary), the path is added to the submenu. For the example above you must write the files: index.html links/index.html links/perl_link.thml links/movies.html about.html The format is the way you tell how to show the items of the menu It's a hash where you define the options. There should be a default entry and numbered entries for every level, starting with 0. Options available (with defaults): max_depth => 1, # max number of depth shown if items are not active start => '', #html to put at the start of the level end => '', #html to add at the end of the level font=>'', active_item_start => '', # '' active_item_end => '', # '' inactive_item_start => '', inactive_item_end => '', text_placeholder => '', # example : <text> # ------ ------ active_text_placeholder => '' # same use as text_placeholder but for active items link_args=>'', # put javascript options here or other args # for the 8, # pixels for the indentation auto_br => 1, # Adds a
at the end of every line [default 1] Example: my %format={ default=>{ max_depth=>2, font=>"\n", active_item_start=>"", active_item_end=>"\n", indent=>20 }, 0=>{ inactive_item_start=>"", inactive_item_end=>"", text_placeholder=>".gif\".gif>", active_text_placeholder=>"", link_args=>"onmouseover='javascript thingie'", }, 1=>{ indent=>10 } }; Try it like this: my $main=HTML::Widgets::Menu->new(format=>\%format menu=>\@menu, home=>"/users/frankie"); When you want to request the html that shows the menu you must call the html method. It will build it using home, format and menu. The final links will always be related to the current URL. The pixel indentation is done using the url /img/point.gif. If you define an active format with an image like this: active_item_start=> ' ' this WIDTH is added to the indentation so it looks pretty cool in the screen: not active another url => this is the active another one The other items have been indented the width of the image, in addition to the indent tag in the format. The activation of the items work automagically reading the environment variable provided by the web server: $ENV{REQUEST_URI} CONSTRUCTORS new Read the beggining of this doc. new_dbi This constructor lets you read the menu data from a table. Experimental, poorly tested and incredibly bad documented. *Example:* my $menu = HTML::Widgets::Menu -> new_dbi ( dbh => $dbh, table => menu, field_id => 'id', field_id_parent => 'id_parent', field_item => 'item', field_url => 'url' ); Read test.pl in the sources if you want to see more. METHODS title Returns a string suitable as title of the page. It uses the active items of the menu for creating it. Products - Hardware - Mother Boards *arguments* You can pass an optional separator for the items. (default = '-') path It returns a string with the path to the current items. Every item is wrapped around its link. products / hardware / motherboards *arguments* You an pass an optional separator. Default '/' html Renders the menu as html. Active Items The active method returns a usefull thing: the active items of the menu. In the former example if the user is in the url: "movies.html" it will return a reference to a list like this: "my_links"=>"links" "movies I like "=>"links/movies.html" What can I do with the active items ? once the menu is built you can retrieve its active items this way: $menu->active; This method returns an array with the items and links this way: item1 , link1 , item2, link2 You can use it to build a title or path like this: print $menu->html; # that builds the menu my $title="Main Title"; my $path=""; my $item; foreach (@{$menu->active}) { $item=$_ and next unless defined $item; $title.=" - $item"; $path.="/" if length $path; $path.="$item"; undef $item; } # now I have a title and path variables COOL USAGE You can add tags to the format options that can be replaced when the html is rendered. I'll say some examples: Display an image near the item You must have an image called like the item url. Say you have two main options, make a gif for each one. /img/icons/products.gif /img/icons/services.gif The path and extension are not mandatory. Then in the format options type: active_item_start =>'' The url tag will be replaced by the url of the item. It works also for inactive_item_start, so you can have different images if it's inactive or active. active_item_start => '', inactive_item_start => '', EXPERIMENTAL OPTIONS The experimental options won't make your site crash but may produce heavy load. Feedback wellcome. Menus from databases is experimental, it hasn't been fully tested and should be used at your own risk. Authorisation is an expensive feature and should be used in low load sites. PLEASE Please send documentation improvements, examples of sites using it are wellcome. Please, tell me you're using it. I'll accept requests, comments, suggestions, bug patches. AUTHOR Francesc Guasch-Ortiz frankie@etsetb.upc.es SEE ALSO perl(1). mod_perl