Magento – MagentoEE CMS Hierarchy Menu in Header

cmsmagento-enterprisetheme

Using Magento EE, I have created a CMS Hierarchy (Admin > CMS > Pages > Manage Hierarchy). Each of the hierarchy items are set to Show in Navigation Menu > Yes under Page Navigation Menu Options. I would like to use this page hierarchy as a separate navigation menu in my header (as a super header navigation of sorts). The hierarchy must be its own separate menu, not part of the categories top menu.

In my local.xml layout, I have added a hierarchy menu block to my header, where I will be calling the hierarchy_menu template from:

<layout>
    <default>
        ...
        <reference name="header">
            <block type="enterprise_cms/hierarchy_menu" name="hierarchy_menu" template="cms/hierarchy/menu.phtml" />
        </reference>
        ...
    </default>
</layout>

In my page/html/header.phtml template, I am echoing the block:

<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('hierarchy_menu') ?>

My issue is that the hierarchy menu block is rendering on CMS pages ONLY. On non-CMS pages, this block either halts the rendering of the rest of the page or simply does not render the menu. I can't seem to figure out why this is occurring. I would like to be able to render the cms/hierarchy/menu.phtml block in the site header on every page.

Does anyone know what is happening here?

Best Answer

The menu is rendered using either the defined cms hierarchy node or falls back to the one found in the registry.

You can check the Enterprise_Cms_Block_Hierarchy_Menu file. The logic for selecting a node can be found in the _construct method.

    if ($this->getNodeId()) {
        $this->_node = Mage::getModel('enterprise_cms/hierarchy_node')
            ->load($this->getNodeId());
    } else {
        $this->_node = Mage::registry('current_cms_hierarchy_node');
    }

Upon rendering the cms/hierarchy/menu.phtml file. The getTree() method is executed. This method uses the $this->_node value, which is not defined on a non-cms page. Hence the page halts during rendering.

If you want to display this menu on all the pages you need to extend the _construct method of this block to always fall back to the top nodeId in the hierarchy. Or to a pre-defined ID (via a configuration item for example) when the node you want to use is not the top node in the full hierarchy of cms pages.

Related Solutions

Magento – CMS XML Handles for Layout Updates

Why changing the root template doesn't work

Both

Mage_Cms_IndexController::indexAction()

and

Mage_Cms_IndexController::viewAction()

which are responsible for displaying the default homepage and a CMS page respectively call a helper:

Mage::helper('cms/page')->renderPage($this, $pageId)

If you jump into the helper (located at app/code/core/Mage/Cms/Helper/Page.php) and follow renderPage() to the protected method _renderPage() you'll see that Magento is checking two times for a root template (Magento CE 1.7.0.2):

if ($page->getRootTemplate()) {
    $handle = ($page->getCustomRootTemplate()
                && $page->getCustomRootTemplate() != 'empty'
                && $inRange) ? $page->getCustomRootTemplate() : $page->getRootTemplate();
    $action->getLayout()->helper('page/layout')->applyHandle($handle);     
}

and

if ($page->getRootTemplate()) {
    $action->getLayout()->helper('page/layout')
        ->applyTemplate($page->getRootTemplate());
}

Both calls happen after layout handles like "cms_page" and the like are processed, so you are out of luck here.

What you can do to change the root template

There is an event cms_page_render which you can use for adding your own XML layout handle on CMS pages. Create your own extension (I'll spare some details here) and configure the event observer in your config.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <Emzee_Cms>
            <version>0.0.1</version>
        </Emzee_Cms>
    </modules>

    <global>
        <events>
            <cms_page_render>
                <observers>
                    <emzee_cms_page_render>
                        <class>emzee_cms/observer</class>
                        <method>cms_page_render</method>
                    </emzee_cms_page_render>
                </observers>
            </cms_page_render>
        </events>
        <models>
            <emzee_cms>
                <class>Emzee_Cms_Model</class>
            </emzee_cms>
        </models>
    </global>
</config>

Add your event observer:

<?php

class Emzee_Cms_Model_Observer
{
    public function cms_page_render(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
    {
        $action = $observer->getEvent()->getControllerAction();

        $actionName = strtolower($action->getFullActionName());
        $action->getLayout()->getUpdate()
            ->addHandle($actionName . '_after');
        return $this;
    }
}

Finally, add your new layout XML handle (e.g. in your local.xml):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
    <cms_index_index_after>
        <reference name="root">
            <action method="setTemplate"><template>page/1column.phtml</template></action>
        </reference>
    </cms_index_index_after>
</layout>

You can use this method as well to add a cms_page_view_after handle or create page specific handles as cms_page_render passes the $page object to your observer.

Why you can't add a block to the 'reference left'

Are you sure that the template you're using has a left column? This question may sound silly but the default "2 columns with right bar" layout for example only offers a 'content' and a 'right' area. I can add blocks to the right column using cms_page without problems so this could be the problem.

In general, you can only easily add blocks to references and echo them if

the chosen root template uses the block you're referencing (see app/design/frontend/base/default/template/page/*.phtml) and
the block you're referencing either is of type core/text_list, calls $this->getChildhtml() without arguments or does something else to echo all child blocks.

Without further details, I can't tell you why your blocks are not echo'd in the left or right column.

Magento – vertical menu every page & Header menu navigation

If you look at /design/frontend/base/default/template/catalog/navigation/left.phtml you will see this code:

...
<?php $_categories = $this->getCurrentChildCategories() ?>
...

It means you can get categories which are descendants of current category. You should create own left navigation menu. It's quite simple.

/design/frontend/default/yourtheme/template/catalog/navigation/left.phtml

<?php
    $_menu = $this->renderCategoriesMenuHtml(0, 'level-top');
?>
<?php if($_menu): ?>
    <div class="category">
        <div class="title"><?php echo $this->__('Category menu:') ?></div>

        <ul class="submenu">
            <?php echo $_menu ?>
        </ul>
    </div>
<?php endif ?>

In this case you set the root category as a parent and you will see all your navigation tree in the left sidebar.

You could remove category navigation from top menu to custom it. There a lots of way. In my case I needed create own menu: /design/frontend/base/default/layout/page.xml

<block type="page/html_header" name="header" as="header">
  ...
  <block type="core/text_list" name="top.menu" as="topMenu" translate="label">
                    <label>Navigation Bar</label>
                    <block type="page/html_topmenu" name="catalog.topnav" template="page/html/topmenu.phtml"/>
                </block>
   ...
</block>

<block type="page/html_header" name="header" as="header">
     <block type="page/html_wrapper" name="top.header.menu" as="topHeaderMenu" translate="label">
          <label>Top Menu</label>
          <action method="setElementClass"><value>header_menu</value></action>                            
          <block type="page/template_links" name="custom.menu.links">
                <action method="addLink"><label>Home</label><url>/</url><title>Home</title><prepare></prepare><urlparams></urlparams><order>10</order></action>
                 ...
          </block>
     </block>
</block>

If you use category items in the top menu you should create some node in the category tree specialy for top menu. And call it like we did for left menu navigation.

UPDATE: You could reference to head to apply your css:

<reference name="head">
    <action method="addItem"><type>skin_css</type><name>css/your_style.css</name><params/></action>
</reference>

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Magento – CMS XML Handles for Layout Updates

Magento – vertical menu every page & Header menu navigation

Related Topic