Chapter 9. Menus
Most websites use menus, although great inventiveness goes into forms of presentation. A menu is simply a named list of possible destinations, which may be inside the site or elsewhere. The list may contain subsidiary lists within it, which obviously form submenus. It is a matter for presentation whether the sublists are always visible, or only become visible when the parent item is selected.
The site administrator needs a mechanism for maintaining these lists, with the ability to give each item an appropriate name. That implies some basic functionality. A subsidiary requirement is that it is often desirable to keep track of which menu item is relevant to the user's current activities. Menu entries that refer into the site can also be used to define page content.
Despite the huge variety in menu styling, the concept is standard, and there is no reason why a good CMS framework should not provide all the fundamental mechanisms for menu handling. It is important that these are...
