DDRMenu Reference Guide

DNN Version: 09.02.00
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This guide provides a reference to the various options, interfaces and extensions available in DDRMenu. For a task-oriented overview, please refer to the DDR Menu user guide.

Please see the DDR Menu user guide for information on how to apply these options.

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, in legacy versions of DNN)
  • Skin
  • Portal root
  • DesktopModules/DDRMenu
  • Application root

NodeSelector

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

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

Options for {root} include:

  • * 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

Historically, this was used in DNN 4 and 5 to create separate menus for administrators and superusers. Use a comma separated list of page names, IDs or roles to include in the menu (top level only). For example, IncludeNodes="Admin,Host" or IncludeNodes="321,123".

You can also wrap roles in []. For example, [All users] shows only those pages visible to which are visible all users.

ExcludeNodes

Works exactly the same as IncludeNodes, but with the obvious difference...

IncludeContext

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

IncludeHidden

Included as a feature since DNN 6 and newer, 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. Please see the DDRMenu_Common/INodeManipulator.cs class on GitHub.

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 can 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.

Client Options

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 the example below.

<?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 further described below.

<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). Alternatively, a name attribute can be used to request an installed JavaScript library (and version and specificVersion attributes can determine the version range of the library). If your menu is to be used with a specific theme, 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 theme.

<stylesheets>

The paths of CSS files to import. If your menu is to be used with a specific theme, 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 theme.

<defaultClientOptions>

The default values for any client options 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.

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