Display sub-sections within main section menu?

[Archer]

While working with Actinic, I've so far always used one of two ways to create the left menu - either hard coding it into the Dreamweaver template, in order to control the exact look and feel of the menu, or otherwise using the TopLevelSectionList Fixed Layouts that can be inserted into Dreamweaver - meaning that the list is updated automatically as I change the catalog structure and it's contents.

However, I now want to do something with a left menu that can't be done either way, and I'm a little stuck on how to do it.

Basically, I want all of the left menu options to be shown at all times, however, when you go to a section, I would like to have the sub-section links displayed directly underneath the section heading on the menu.

For instance, if you had the menu

Hats
Gloves
Scarves

and clicked the "Hats" link, you would then be taken to the Hats section and the menu would now look like this:

Hats
- Leather
- Wool
Gloves
Scarves

I know that I could use blockifs to insert a menu underneath the section list, coding each of the different sub-section lists and using a variable to display it only on the corresponding page, but I can't seem to find a way of putting information between the different section headings on an Actinic generated list, as the layout code only allows me to edit the layout that is applied to every option - so I don't understand how I could place different blockifs between each of the different options.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, let me know if there's anything I forgot to mention.

[leehack]

Have a look at the accordion menu on drillpine.biz, without doubt the best value you will find for ease of use and implementation.

Incidentally, i've never used an actinic menu, nor have I ever hard coded one, take a look at the Block facility, you have entiresectionlist and childsectionlist both at your disposal, i use these to create any menu of my own, like you say can fully design and style as you wish then.

[Archer]

Ah thank you, I think I understand - I'm used to implementing the menu via Dreamweaver where I don't tend to use blockifs, but I can see that obviously I could code the menu with blockifs into actinic's coding. Seems obvious now that I know - but I just couldn't get my head around it.

However, I don't understand how the entiresectionlist and childsectionlist tools work - I worked out that I can use entiresectionlist to display a list of all the sections, but again I have the same problem of not being able to individually manipulate individual options to add blockifs (since they are all generated from one piece of code). Do you know of any tutorials that might help? I've looked at these but I'm a little lost and can't seem to find what I'm looking for.

Sadly, since I'm an employee, paying for add-ons isn't really something I can do unless there's no other option (in which case we'd probably compromise with a slightly different menu structure)

[leehack]

Oh come on James, no boss in the world would rather have a member of staff trying to learn something for a couple of days (or more) and possibly not manage it, instead of paying £35 to an addon company and having it all done and installed in 10 minutes flat. You'll need to understand blocks, blockifs and Javascript pretty well to do this yourself.

Gabe provided a free php menu on the forum, not used it myself, maybe worth a look into that also.

You need to get the child list showing on each menu first, then you will use Javascript to do the hide/show of it, usually activated by the click or hover on the parent section.

PS - I have no problem with wanting to learn or improve yourself, it's actually something i admire, but you have to be realistic of your ability. Buying the addon for instance and then dissecting that will present you with far better learning possibilities.

[Archer]

OK - I suggested the idea of downloading the add-on, and I'm going to see if I can code it myself today, or else we'll go with the add-on instead.

I'm getting there now, but I'll go to drillpine if it's just not feasible for me to get this done in a reasonable amount of time.

Thanks for the tips, it's always good to pick up any new information and work out more ways to work with actinic.