Creating CakePHP Dynamic Menus

Prior to this example, we created a Sections Controller and a Tutorials Controller via the Book Titles Tutorial techniques.

Begin by creating the menu Element template, menubaker.thtml, in the /app/view/elements/ folder. See: Element

<!-- elements::menubaker start -->
 
<ul id="nav">
<li style="width:70px;"> <?php echo $html->link( 'Home', '/' ); ?></li>
<?php foreach( $menu as $section ): ?>
<li>
   <?php echo $html->link( $section['Section']['name'], '/#', array( 'onClick' => 'blur();', 'class' => 'mainLink' ) ); ?>
   <div id="submenu">
	<ul>	
	<?php foreach( $section['Tutorial'] as $tutorial ): ?>
 
<?php 
echo $ajax->linkToRemote($tutorial['name'], 
      array(
            'fallback' => '/#aview', 'before'=>'blur();'
            'url' => "/tutorials/view/{$tutorial['id']}", 
            'update' => "subcontent", 
            'after' => "new Effect.Fade('subcontent');",
            'complete' => "new Effect.Appear('subcontent');")
      );
?>	
 
		<?php endforeach; ?>
		</ul>
	</div>
   </li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
 
<!-- elements::menubaker end -->

Next, write an Element to create a static-menu Layout template file. This is done to decrease page-loading time, rather than load the menu, dynamically, upon every page view.

<?php
$filename = '/absolute/path/on/server/app/views/elements/menu.thtml';		
$handle = fopen($filename, 'w');
fwrite($handle, $menucode);
fclose($handle);
?>

Add a BakeMenu function to the controller - to call the menu-creation Element.

function bakemenu() {
      $this->layout = '';		  
      $this->set( 'menu', $this->Section->findAll() );    
}

Refresh the view by rendering the bake Element ...

<?php
$menucode  = $this->renderElement( 'menubaker', array( 'menu' => $menu) );
$this->renderElement( 'bake', array( 'menucode' => $menucode ) );
?>

Every time menu content is altered, “re-bake” the menu, using the requestAction function at the end of controller method which modified the data.

      $this->requestAction( '/sections/bakemenu/' );

Finally, echo the dynamically-created menu Element in your layout.

<?php echo $this->renderElement( 'menu' ); ?>