Multimenu is the customizable and highly configurable menu system for XOOPS — when the automatically generated menus aren't enough.

Latest Version: 2.0.8 (for XOOPS 2.3.x+) | 1.8.2 (for XOOPS 2.0.x-2.2.x; worked in 2.3.x)

Note that version 1.x and version 2 are completely different modules except that they provide similar functionality. Version 1.x comes in two releases — one with 8 menus and another with 16 menus. The only difference is how many blocks you want in the module. I only used the 16 menu version (go figure) as you could turn off as many as you didn't want, but otherwise you had to go through an upgrade to have more menus. Also, note that the download for 2.0.8 shows as 2.0.6, but when installed it shows as 2.0.8.

Summary

Multimenu is a totally redesigned module from the 1.x version. This is an excellent module for customizable menus that can be dynamically created and displayed based on staticly defined links, dynamically defined links generated by database queries as well as group permissions. This latest version supports unlimited menus, blocks, and provides a truly excellent feature set that the previous one didn't have.

That said, this new but powerful module has a fairly steep learning curve to make it sing. A little experience goes a long ways.

Main Features:

• Custom Menus
• Dynamic Menus (Query any Table)
• Roughly 20 Defined Menu Styles
• Unlimited Blocks
• Custom Directories/Menu
• Custom Images
• Custom Templates
• Custom CSS Stylesheets
• Custom Javascripts
• Clonable
• Page Menus (Site Map, etc.)

Lacking Features:

• 1 Level of SubMenus (no 2nd, 3rd, etc)

Installation, Upgrade

New Install

Installation per XOOPS standard module installation instructions. Upon installation it has 3 sample menus, no blocks set to display, but standard permission are set to to allow module access and view all (turned off) blocks by all users and giving admins admin access. Permissions encompassed in the sample menus will allow various access levels.

Upgrade

Version 2 is a totally new module and there is no upgrade path from version 1.x. If upgrading from an earlier 2.0.x, then use the standard module upgrade instructions. If upgrading from 1.x, you will have to just install the module and recreate all your menus.

Configuration

The options for each menu are numerous, but there are good help files — in French at least. I have done an okay translation to English and sent it to the module authors to hopefully include in their next release.

Errors, Bugs, and Defects

This is not necessarily an exhaustive list, rather it's the ones I've currently run into.

Templates

I found the templates using some variables that no longer exist. The item.popgen variable no longer exists. The item.target now embodies this as appropriate. Found in multimenu_demo_content.html, multimenu_images.html, multimenu_select.html, multimenu_select_02.html, multimenu_ul.html.

I also can't get it to work to edit the template in the module Templates area. I followed the instructions of copying a template file to the templates/include area, then updating the module, then copying it into the custom templates set, then updating the module again, then setting it active in the preferences and a number of combinations of these. But no matter what I try, I can't get it to either display or allow me to edit there. I am able to set style and css info there, though. I'm able to edit in the XOOPS templates area, though.

Admin Links - Images

The admin links for images contains a | bar between images that doesn't look good IMHO

Language

There is one piece of language hard-coded in the the /admin area (Help page, help button, intro). Also, the admin link tabs are ordered alphabetically/numerically by some of the tags in the admin.php language file in the "Admin tab menus" descriptions. I guess this could be a good thing.