= menu_helper

+menu_helper+ adds a helper method for generating a menubar.

== Resources

Wiki

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

API

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

Development

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

Source

* http://svn.pluginaweek.org/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).

== Usage

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>

=== Caveat Emptor

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 mostly as an educational/experimental piece, so I don't using
this in a production application, but rather a prototype.

== Testing

To test this plugin, the following gems must be installed:
* plugin_test_helper[http://wiki.pluginaweek.org/Plugin_test_helper]

To run against a specific version of Rails:

  rake test RAILS_FRAMEWORK_ROOT=/path/to/rails

== Dependencies

* Rails 2.0 or later