Thank you all. Ok. Please stay with me, cause I still have some doubts. Not only do I need to display the subitems on click but also, when the user clicks on one menu item, I need to change the URI as well. Why? Because, each time the user clicks on a menu item (whateaver that item as childs or not), I want to display a list of products related to the clicked item. So, I was trying to avoid js, because, I don’t know that much about js. However, I’d like to do it properly, so, the only way I was allowing the use of js, was by do not disabling the back button functionality and by allowing a add to favorites option as well, allowing the URI changing… O.o Anyway, let’s face it: Js is my only option, could this be a nice workflow, for an unobtrusive solution? 1) Generate the multidimensional array from query. 2) Generate the ul / li menu (echo + foreach) displaying all child elements as well. 3) Apply the anchor to the list items. 4) Apply some js to that ul / li that: 4.1) will be responsible for show/hide elements. 4.2) Will be responsible to show/hide elements only when some DOM node(?) as children. 4.3) Change the URI on click, so that some information can be showed based on uri segment. Can I have your help to fill the blanks here, or, if there are to many, just an orientation reference, in order to get started… Thanks a lot once again, Márcio From: Ashley Sheridan [mailto:a...@ashleysheridan.co.uk] Sent: segunda-feira, 26 de Outubro de 2009 14:38 To: MEM Cc: php-general@lists.php.net Subject: Re: [PHP] dynamic menu with show hide capabilities - understanding possible workflow On Mon, 2009-10-26 at 13:28 +0000, MEM wrote: Hello all, I'm on my way to build my first dynamic menu using php. However, each time I say this, people start jumping at me crying out loud: "Jquery" . I don't need js for this. Really. (At least, this is what I believe). So I was wondering if It's possible to accomplish it, by using css and php only. If so, I'm wondering if something like this it's a good way for doing this: 1) Generate a multidimensional array from database table containing categories and subcategories. 2) Create a css file with two classes one that shows, another that hides. 3) Grab that array and: 3.1) print it recursively (no idea how to accomplish this) 3.2) print it with some sort of class="showThis" inside the generated html element. 3.3) make a conditional somewhere (I really don't know where, and this may be related with the recursion doubt), in order to display the children elements, only when we click the parent element. And here resides my main doubt: Is the point 3.3 feasible without the use of js? I just need some directions please, Regards, Márcio
Everything there is feasible without Javascript except for the clicking part, which is pretty essential to what you want. Pure CSS-only menus are still unavailable because of IE, so using some Javascript is your only option really. Is there a particular reason you are shying away from Javascript in this case? There are ways you can construct drop-down menus in a way that if Javascript is unavailable, then they fall back to becoming a bog-standard navigation bar. Also, before anyone mentions them, <select> lists are not the same thing as a drop-down menu, and navigating to different parts of a document upon changing the selected option is actually breaking their default behavior, and can become confusing to people who expect them to work as select lists. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
