NexusPackage

Nexus Menus

Available plugins

• Suckerfish menus: These CSS driven dropdown menus change to keep up with the various themes in use within the site.
• Formelement menus: This is a menu that resides in a dropdown box and upon selecting a given option, it takes you to that page.
• TikiWiki menus: Allows you to create collapsible menus reminiscent of tikiwiki style. The main difference is, that you can create a menu as many levels deep as you desire.

Create a horizontal menu in the top bar.

bitweaver version 1

1. Ensure that the theme you are using supports a horizontal menu in the top bar. If you don't see one already (a horizontal menu exists by default in all themes that support one), goto yoursite.com/themes/admin/admin_themes_manager.php and pick a different theme.
2. Pop inot nexus to create a new menu. Goto yoursite.com/nexus/index.php and fill out the name and description, choose suckerfish horizontal, and save.
3. Upon saving, You should be directed to yoursite.com/nexus/menu_items.php?menu_id=1 (or some small number) where you can start adding items to your menu. Use the filter if you like to sort the available content. If you select internal content, all the other required fields will be filled automatically and you can save right away. Saving reloads the page so you can add more content.
4. A list of the content added to the menu is generated at the bottom of the screen, and hopefully, the menu items are indeed appearing in the top horizontal menu, in addition to those already there. Add all the menu items you want (whether they will ultimately be collapsed under one of the other headings or not) because you can sort them after.
5. Sort the menu items at /nexus/menu_sort.php?menu_id=1&tab=organise (bug: there is no immediate link to this page from the last one, nor back again, and if you use your back button, you will probably add a page twice.)
6. The next time you go to /nexus/index.php unfortunately it seems to hit a bug:.

bitweaver version 2

1. First of all, you can create your menu as you need it. Currently there are only few menu types that lend themselves to work as a horizontal menu in the top bar:
   1. suckerfish horizontal menus.
   2. formelements menu - think this is a bit buggy.
2. Now that you have a menu, you need to go to the Adminstration --> Themes --> Manage Layouts.
   1. First make sure you have the top module area enabled in the Column Control tab.
3. You can then assign the nexus menu to the top bar.
4. The menu is now in your layout but probably lacks some basic CSS to get it the way you want.

Some sample CSS for the horizontal menu

<?php
/* use the correct #id of your module - this is 'header + the position number': e.g.: #header1 */
/* this will hide the module title */
#header1 h3    {display:none;}
?>

Nexus Features

1. Nexus supports plugins for various different menus. This means that if you would like to use a different style of menu, you can add the approppriate plugin.
2. Nexus provides you with an easy to use interface to structurise your menus. They can be any number of levels deep, giving you unlimited freedom when it comes to menu creation and content accessibility.
3. Menu look is determined exclusively through CSS. this means that changing the look of the menu only requires some knowlegde of CSS.
4. Converting wiki books to menus.

Package TODOs and feedback.

1. Would be nice to allow the usage of icons.
2. Might be good to read the structure straight from the db to ensure that the menu is updated automatically.
3. Enable the display of a given package only while a user is browsing a particular package. this would allow for large menus that only show relevant pacakge specific links when required.
4. Allow users to create their own menus. This will require some work and is currently not very high on my priority list.
5. More plugins including support for coolmenu menus.
6. Add more control for plugins. It should be possible to allow users to specify more criteria for a given plugin.