Menus and navigation

There are four template tags for use in the templates that are connected to the menu:

• show_menu
• show_menu_below_id
• show_sub_menu
• show_breadcrumb

To use any of these template tags, you need to have {% load menu_tags %} in your template before the line on which you call the template tag.

Note

Please note that menus live in the menus application, which though tightly coupled to the cms application exists independently of it. Menus are usable by any application, not just by django CMS.

show_menu

The show_menu tag renders the navigation of the current page. You can overwrite the appearance and the HTML if you add a menu/menu.html template to your project or edit the one provided with django CMS. show_menu takes six optional parameters: start_level, end_level, extra_inactive, extra_active, namespace and root_id.

The first two parameters, start_level (default=0) and end_level (default=100) specify from which level the navigation should be rendered and at which level it should stop. If you have home as a root node (i.e. level 0) and don’t want to display the root node(s), set start_level to 1.

The third parameter, extra_inactive (default=0), specifies how many levels of navigation should be displayed if a node is not a direct ancestor or descendant of the current active node.

The fourth parameter, extra_active (default=100), specifies how many levels of descendants of the currently active node should be displayed.

The fifth parameter, namespace, is currently not implemented.

The sixth parameter root_id specifies the id of the root node.

You can supply a template parameter to the tag.

Some Examples

Complete navigation (as a nested list):

{% load menu_tags %}
<ul>
    {% show_menu 0 100 100 100 %}
</ul>

Navigation with active tree (as a nested list):

<ul>
    {% show_menu 0 100 0 100 %}
</ul>

Navigation with only one active extra level:

<ul>
    {% show_menu 0 100 0 1 %}
</ul>

Level 1 navigation (as a nested list):

<ul>
    {% show_menu 1 %}
</ul>

Navigation with a custom template:

{% show_menu 0 100 100 100 "myapp/menu.html" %}

show_menu_below_id

If you have set an id in the advanced settings of a page, you can display the sub-menu of this page with a template tag. For example, we have a page called meta that is not displayed in the navigation and that has the id “meta”:

<ul>
    {% show_menu_below_id "meta" %}
</ul>

You can give it the same optional parameters as show_menu:

<ul>
    {% show_menu_below_id "meta" 0 100 100 100 "myapp/menu.html" %}
</ul>

Unlike show_menu, however, soft roots will not affect the menu when using show_menu_below_id.

show_sub_menu

Displays the sub menu of the current page (as a nested list).

The first argument, levels (default=100), specifies how many levels deep the sub menu should be displayed.

The second argument, root_level (default=None), specifies at what level, if any, the menu should have its root. For example, if root_level is 0 the menu will start at that level regardless of what level the current page is on.

The third argument, nephews (default=100), specifies how many levels of nephews (children of siblings) are shown.

Fourth argument, template (default=menu/sub_menu.html), is the template used by the tag; if you want to use a different template you must supply default values for root_level and nephews.

Examples:

<ul>
    {% show_sub_menu 1 %}
</ul>

Rooted at level 0:

<ul>
    {% show_sub_menu 1 0 %}
</ul>

Or with a custom template:

<ul>
    {% show_sub_menu 1 None 100 "myapp/submenu.html" %}
</ul>

show_breadcrumb

Show the breadcrumb navigation of the current page. The template for the HTML can be found at menu/breadcrumb.html.:

{% show_breadcrumb %}

Or with a custom template and only display level 2 or higher:

{% show_breadcrumb 2 "myapp/breadcrumb.html" %}

Usually, only pages visible in the navigation are shown in the breadcrumb. To include all pages in the breadcrumb, write:

{% show_breadcrumb 0 "menu/breadcrumb.html" 0 %}

If the current URL is not handled by the CMS or by a navigation extender, the current menu node can not be determined. In this case you may need to provide your own breadcrumb via the template. This is mostly needed for pages like login, logout and third-party apps. This can easily be accomplished by a block you overwrite in your templates.

For example in your base.html:

<ul>
    {% block breadcrumb %}
    {% show_breadcrumb %}
    {% endblock %}
<ul>

And then in your app template:

{% block breadcrumb %}
<li><a href="/">home</a></li>
<li>My current page</li>
{% endblock %}

Properties of Navigation Nodes in templates

{{ node.is_leaf_node }}

Is it the last in the tree? If true it doesn’t have any children.

{{ node.level }}

The level of the node. Starts at 0.

{{ node.menu_level }}

The level of the node from the root node of the menu. Starts at 0. If your menu starts at level 1 or you have a “soft root” (described in the next section) the first node would still have 0 as its menu_level.

{{ node.get_absolute_url }}

The absolute URL of the node, without any protocol, domain or port.

{{ node.title }}

The title in the current language of the node.

{{ node.selected }}

If true this node is the current one selected/active at this URL.

{{ node.ancestor }}

If true this node is an ancestor of the current selected node.

{{ node.sibling }}

If true this node is a sibling of the current selected node.

{{ node.descendant }}

If true this node is a descendant of the current selected node.

{{ node.soft_root }}

If true this node is a soft root. A page can be marked as a soft root in its ‘Advanced Settings’.

Modifying & Extending the menu

Please refer to the How to customise navigation menus documentation

Menu system classes and function

menu application

class menus.base.Menu

The base class for all menu-generating classes.

get_nodes(self, request)

Each sub-class of Menu should return a list of NavigationNode instances.

class menus.base.Modifier

The base class for all menu-modifying classes. A modifier add, removes or changes NavigationNodes in the list.

modify(self, request, nodes, namespace, root_id, post_cut, breadcrumb)

Each sub-class of Modifier should implement a modify() method.

class menus.menu_pool.MenuPool

get_nodes()

discover_menus()

apply_modifiers()

_build_nodes()

_mark_selected()

menus.menu_pool._build_nodes_inner_for_one_menu()

menus.templatetags.menu_tags.cut_levels()

class menus.templatetags.menu_tags.ShowMenu

get_context()

class menus.base.NavigationNode(title, url, id[, parent_id=None][, parent_namespace=None][, attr=None][, visible=True])

Each node in a menu tree is represented by a NavigationNode instance.

Parameters:

• title (str) – The title to display this menu item with.
• url (str) – The URL associated with this menu item.
• id – Unique (for the current tree) ID of this item.
• parent_id – Optional, ID of the parent item.
• parent_namespace – Optional, namespace of the parent.
• attr (dict) – Optional, dictionary of additional information to store on this node.
• visible (bool) – Optional, defaults to True, whether this item is visible or not.

attr

A dictionary, provided in order that arbitrary attributes may be added to the node - placing them directly on the node itself could cause a clash with an existing or future attribute.

An important key in this dictionary is is_page: if True, the node represents a django CMS Page object.

Nodes that represent CMS pages have the following keys in attr:

• auth_required (bool) – is authentication required to access this page
• is_page (bool) – Always True
• navigation_extenders (list) – navigation extenders connected to this node
• redirect_url (str) – redirect URL of page (if any)
• reverse_id (str) – unique identifier for the page
• soft_root (bool) – whether page is a soft root
• visible_for_authenticated (bool) – visible for authenticated users
• visible_for_anonymous (bool) – visible for anonymous users

get_descendants()

Returns a list of all children beneath the current menu item.

get_ancestors()

Returns a list of all parent items, excluding the current menu item.

get_absolute_url()

Utility method to return the URL associated with this menu item, primarily to follow naming convention asserted by Django.

get_menu_title()

Utility method to return the associated title, using the same naming convention used by cms.models.Page.

attr

A dictionary, provided in order that arbitrary attributes may be added to the node - placing them directly on the node itself could cause a clash with an existing or future attribute.

An important key in this dictionary is is_page: if True, the node represents a django CMS Page object.

class menus.modifiers.Marker

class menus.modifiers.AuthVisibility

class menus.modifiers.Level

mark_levels()

cms application

class cms.menu.CMSMenu

Subclass of menus.base.Menu. Its get_nodes() creates a list of NavigationNodes based on Page objects.

class cms.menu.NavExtender

class cms.menu.SoftRootCutter

class cms.menu_bases.CMSAttachMenu