Menu

BluePrint/Menu/Application

Our current menu has these deficiencies:

• No visual clue to the user as to where in the system that they are
• Not easy to provide deployment customisations which are separated from the main code

Proposed solution:

• Move all the menu configuration to a single pair of files:
  • Generic settings (01_menu.py)
    • aURL handles the disabling of modules & hiding options without access rights
  • deployment-template for per-instance customisation (01_menu_.py)
    • Labels & Hiding unused options
• Render out HTML using a new S3Menu class (replacing the existing MENUS3)
  • HTML/CSS will come from a design company
• 1st level navigation will be horizontal (as-now) with CSS to show which one we're active in
• 2nd level navigation will be available onHover of the 1st-level & when inside a 1st/2nd level, will be available as a vertical menu on the left
  • The Vertical menu will mean that our dataTables lists will have less width available to them. The designer's recommendation is to reduce the font-size & keep the vertical menu's width as small as possible.
• 3rd level navigation will be available onHover of the 2nd-level & when inside a 3rd level, will be available as a submenu within the 2nd-level vertical menu on the left
• Breadcrumbs will be rendered out from the same configuration
• (default) Module index pages will be rendered out from the same configuration
• Site Map can be rendered out from the same configuration

Old Ideas

Ideally this would be loaded once & then cached (e.g. have the system generate a static menu.js which can then be loaded/cached)

We should always know where in the system we are.

• e.g. Chevron-style breadcrumbs (e.g. ​http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa)
• e.g. Highlight the active menu item using CSS (JS to set this would be in the main body template, rather than in menu.js)
• Web2Py implementation of breadcrumbs: ​http://www.web2pyslices.com/main/slices/take_slice/47

Icons in Menus?

• ​http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_thread/thread/aeb21cca011e4632
• Easy with this ​jQuery menu

ExtJS menus are flexible & can allow DRY creation of navigation elements (buttons/menus):

• ​http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/menu/menus.html
• ​http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/menu/actions.html
• Example: ​http://demo.eden.sahanafoundation.org/extjs

Ideas for improving the menu:

• Code for the menus should be segregated between the technical implementation and the layout - making it easy for non-technical users to customize the menu and reducing the clutter in the code, and reduce the amount of code being executed every run in the models.
• Make Menu customization completely independent from the modules.
• How many levels? Configurable. Suggestion.
  • Application - a deployment of Sahana may contain different applications, which may be used by different people and certainly at different times/workflows. This could be separate from the main menu - at the very top.
  • Functional - what does someone want to do in the current application.
  • Functional level 2 / Work Stage - this could represent work flow, or just reduce the clutter in one level of functional
  • Avoid 3rd level - especially pop-ups!

Allow the user to define a custom home page, without editing core code.