Php Menu Template

Manat

Hello all.
I am currently doing a re-design of our site and I want to make a menu system, like that of http://www.mattel.com/about_us/default.asp.

I really like that type of menu system, but I am unable to figure out how to code it.

You click on a link in the Level 1 menu, and then it's Level 2 menu comes about, where it defaults to the first menu item which links to an html page.

How would I code this in PHP. I know I can either hard code it or store it in MySQL, but for reasons of speed, I think hard coding it would be better.

Can someone help me on how to begin to code this solution in PHP?
I would really appreciate snippets of code since I am somewhat new to PHP.

Thank You
MK

sarahk

I'd be inclined to think that for such a simple menu that the database query wouldn't cause a performance overhead.

so, how to code.

I'm assuming you'd be happy to use stylesheets to control most of this.

first up, each link has an flag to indicate which option was selected. ie but=11 or but=21

pick your own naming convention but I'd have the first character being the menu level (1 or 2) and the second being the button number. Then...

echo "<table class='menu1'><tr>";
$butlevel = $substr($but,0,1);  //check the syntax!!!
$butbit = $substr($but,1,1);
$tablebit = ($butlevel == 1 && $butbit == 1 ? "th" : "td")
  echo "<$tablebit><a href=''>About Us</a></$tablebit>";
$tablebit = ($butlevel == 1 && $butbit == 2 ? "th" : "td")
  echo "<$tablebit><a href=''>Our Toys</a></$tablebit>";

I hope this gives you a bit of an idea.

In my stylesheet I'd have .menu1 TD looking like the off button and .menu1 TH looking like the active button. For more info on styles check out http://www.richinstyle.com

Manat

echo "<table class='menu1'><tr>";
$butlevel = $substr($but,0,1); //check the syntax!!!
$butbit = $substr($but,1,1);
$tablebit = ($butlevel == 1 && $butbit == 1 ? "th" : "td")
echo "<$tablebit><a href=''>About Us</a></$tablebit>";
$tablebit = ($butlevel == 1 && $butbit == 2 ? "th" : "td")
echo "<$tablebit><a href=''>Our Toys</a></$tablebit>";

Ok, I understand that $butlevel is level1, but what is $substr for?
I know that it returns a part of a string, but where is $but declared and how is it declared?

$butbit is Level2 right?
I still don't get how do I relate one level2 menu to a level1 menu.

I mean, All Toys is under the Products Level1 Menu, how to code so that 'All Toys' is related to it and not to another Level1 Menu like About us?

Thanks, sorry for the newbie questions...