This guide provides a reference to the various options, interfaces and extensions available in DDRMenu. For a task-oriented overview, please refer to the user guide.

Menu options

See the user guide for information on how to apply these options.

MenuStyle

MenuStyle is the name of the template to use. This is the name of the folder that contains the menu manifest file menudef.xml (the name can contain '/' if the folder is in a subfolder). If not specified (see Filenames below) the search order is:

• Container (action menus only)
• Skin
• Portal root
• DesktopModules/DDRMenu
• Application root
  

NodeSelector

NodeSelector determines which part of the page hierarchy to show in the menu. Use:

• NodeSelector="RootOnly" to show only the root level menu items (alias for *,0,0)
• NodeSelector="RootChildren" to show all the children of the root menu item that is the parent of the current page (alias for +0)
• NodeSelector="CurrentChildren" to show the children of the current page (alias for .)
• NodeSelector="pageID" to show the children of a specific page
• NodeSelector="{root},{skip},{depth}"
  (where {skip} and {depth} may be omitted).
  

{root} options:

* for the root

. or 0 for the current page

-n for n levels above the current page

+n for n levels down from the root menu towards the current page.

PageID to select a particular page by ID

PageName to select a particular page by name.

{skip} if provided skips that number of levels (e.g. 0 shows the selected page, 1 shows its children).

{depth} if provided specifies the number of levels deep to go (e.g. 0 for just the current level, 1 to include immediate children).

IncludeNodes

Generally used in DNN 4 and 5 to create separate menus for Admin and Host. Use a comma separated list of page names, IDs or roles to include in the menu (top level only), e.g. IncludeNodes="Admin,Host" or IncludeNodes="321,123". Wrap roles in [], e.g. [All users] shows only those pages visible to all users.

ExcludeNodes

Works exactly as IncludeNodes with the obvious difference …

IncludeContext

If true, details of the currently logged on user will be passed to the template (a DotNetNuke.Entities.User.UserInfo object, available in Root/user for XSLT templates and Model.Source.User for Razor templates).

IncludeHidden

For DNN 6 and later, if set to true, hidden pages will be included. This can be useful for creating separate menus to show site sections that are hidden from the main menu .

NodeManipulator

If you need to adjust the menu structure before rendering (for example to add extra entries for categories in an e-commerce module), set this to an assembly and type to use to perform server-side menu structure manipulation. The type supplied must implement the INodeManipulator interface - see DDRMenu_Common/INodeManipulator.cs at http://dnnddrmenu.codeplex.com/SourceControl/BrowseLatest.

NodeXmlPath

If you want to use a menu template with your own custom page structure, you can supply an XML file to be loaded instead of using the DNN pages. If not specified (see Filenames below) the search order is:

• Menu folder
• Skin
• DesktopModules/DDRMenu
• Portal root
• Application root
  

TemplateArguments

Arguments to be passed into the template. For an XSLT template, these will be template parameters. For a Razor template, they are passed in as members of the Model object. For a token template, they are accessible by name.

ClientOptions

Client options are name/value pairs that can be passed as a JSON object to jQuery plugins and most other JavaScript menus. They are given to the template as an argument called Options that can then be passed on to the client-side code.

Manifest file

A menudef.xml manifest file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<manifest>

  <template>templateName.ext</template>

  <templateHead>templateHead.txt</templateHead>

  <scripts>    <script jsObject="jQuery" />    <script jsObject="jQuery.ui" />    <script jsObject="jsObjectToCheck">myScript.js</script>

  </scripts>

  <stylesheets>

    <stylesheet>stylesheet.css</stylesheet>

  </stylesheets>

  <defaultClientOptions>

    <clientOption name="optionName" value="Value" />

    <clientOption name="optionName" value="1" type="number" />

  </defaultClientOptions>

  <defaultTemplateArguments>

    <templateArgument name="optionName" value="Value" />

  </defaultTemplateArguments>

</manifest>

All elements apart from <template> are optional. The element usage is as follows:

<template>

The filename of the actual template. The type of template is determined by the file extension - .txt for token templates, .cshtml or .vbhtml for Razor templates, and anything else for XSLT templates.

<templateHead>

The path of a text file to insert in the <head> of the page.

<scripts>

The paths of JavaScripts file to import. If the jsObject attribute is specified, the script will only be imported if the specified JavaScript object does not exist. Also, if jsObject is either jQuery or jQuery.ui and no script path is specified then the menu will request DNN to register the appropriate library (or load Google's hosted version of jQuery or jQuery UI in earlier versions of DNN). If your menu is to be used with a specific skin, it is recommended that you do not use this element, but instead combine and minify your scripts into one file and include them in the skin.

<stylesheets>

The paths of CSS files to import. If your menu is to be used with a specific skin, it is recommended that you do not use this element, but instead combine and minify your styles into one file and include them in the skin.

<defaultClientOptions>

The default values for any client options that the template may support.

<defaultTemplateArguments>

The default values for any template arguments that the template may support.

Filenames

When specifying a filename or template name, if you don't want DDRMenu to automatically search for it, you can specify the file location as follows:

• {[MANIFEST]/filename}: In the folder containing the menu manifest (e.g. ~/Portals/0/skins/MySkin/MyTemplate/filename).
• {[SKIN]/filename}: In the current skin folder (e.g. ~/Portals/0/skins/MySkin/filename).
• {[DDRMENU]/filename}: In the DDRMenu folder (i.e. ~/DesktopModules/DDRMenu/filename).
• {[PORTAL]/filename}: In the portal root (e.g. ~/Portals/0/filename).
• {[DNN]/filename}: In the DNN application root (i.e. ~/filename).
• {~/filename}: In the DNN application root.
  

Related content

• DDRMenu user guide
• DDRMenu token templates
• DDRMenu XSLT templates
• DDRMenu Razor templates