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YUI Library Examples: Menu Family: Multi-tiered Menu From JavaScript

Menu Family: Multi-tiered Menu From JavaScript

This example demonstrates how to create a multi-tiered menu using nothing but JavaScript.

Note: By default clicking outside of a Menu instance will hide it. Additionally, MenuItem instances without a submenu or a URL to navigate to will hide their parent Menu instance when clicked. Click the "Show Menu" button below to make the Menu instance visible if it is hidden.

Creating a Menu with submenus from JavaScript

To create a Menu with no pre-existing markup on the page, call the Menu constructor (YAHOO.widget.Menu) passing the id of the Menu element to be created as the first argument.

Next, define an array of MenuItem configuration properties. Add a submenu to a MenuItem by setting the MenuItem instance's "submenu" configuration property to an object literal that specifies values for both the "id" and "itemdata" properties. The "id" property specifies the id of the Menu to be created, while the "itemdata" property accepts an array of MenuItem configuration properties, each of which is used to configure the individual items in the Menu. Once defined, pass the array of MenuItem configuration properties to the addItems method of Menu.

Finally, it is necessary to call the render method passing the id of, or reference to the element the Menu should be appended to. Just as with creating a Menu hierarchy via existing HTML, it is only necessary to instantiate and render the root Menu as each submenu is automatically instantiated and rendered with the root Menu as a convenience.

1/*
2     Define an array of object literals, each containing 
3     the configuration properties necessary to create a MenuItem and 
4     its corresponding submenu.
5*/ 
6 
7var aItems = [ 
8 
9    { 
10        text: "Communication",  
11        url: "#communication",  
12        submenu: {  
13         
14            id: "communication",  
15            itemdata: [  
16     
17                { text: "360", url: "http://360.yahoo.com" }, 
18                { text: "Alerts", url: "http://alerts.yahoo.com" }, 
19                { text: "Avatars", url: "http://avatars.yahoo.com" }, 
20                { text: "Groups", url: "http://groups.yahoo.com " }, 
21                { text: "Internet Access", url: "http://promo.yahoo.com/broadband" }, 
22                { 
23                    text: "PIM",  
24                    url: "#pim",  
25                    submenu: { 
26                        id: "pim",  
27                        itemdata: [ 
28 
29                            { text: "Yahoo! Mail", url: "http://mail.yahoo.com" }, 
30                            { text: "Yahoo! Address Book", url: "http://addressbook.yahoo.com" }, 
31                            { text: "Yahoo! Calendar",  url: "http://calendar.yahoo.com" }, 
32                            { text: "Yahoo! Notepad", url: "http://notepad.yahoo.com" } 
33 
34                        ]  
35                    } 
36                 
37                },  
38                { text: "Member Directory", url: "http://members.yahoo.com" }, 
39                { text: "Messenger", url: "http://messenger.yahoo.com" }, 
40                { text: "Mobile", url: "http://mobile.yahoo.com" }, 
41                { text: "Flickr Photo Sharing", url: "http://www.flickr.com" } 
42     
43            ]  
44         
45        }  
46     
47    }, 
48 
49    { 
50        text: "Shopping",  
51        url: "http://shopping.yahoo.com",  
52        submenu: { 
53            id: "shopping",  
54            itemdata: [ 
55 
56                { text: "Auctions", url: "http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com" }, 
57                { text: "Autos", url: "http://autos.yahoo.com" }, 
58                { text: "Classifieds", url: "http://classifieds.yahoo.com" }, 
59                { text: "Flowers & Gifts", url: "http://shopping.yahoo.com/b:Flowers%20%26%20Gifts:20146735" }, 
60                { text: "Real Estate", url: "http://realestate.yahoo.com" }, 
61                { text: "Travel", url: "http://travel.yahoo.com" }, 
62                { text: "Wallet", url: "http://wallet.yahoo.com" }, 
63                { text: "Yellow Pages", url: "http://yp.yahoo.com" } 
64     
65            ]  
66        }  
67    }, 
68 
69    { 
70        text: "Entertainment",  
71        url: "http://entertainment.yahoo.com",  
72        submenu: {  
73            id: "entertainment",  
74            itemdata: [ 
75     
76                { text: "Fantasy Sports", url: "http://fantasysports.yahoo.com" }, 
77                { text: "Games", url: "http://games.yahoo.com" }, 
78                { text: "Kids", url: "http://www.yahooligans.com" }, 
79                { text: "Music", url: "http://music.yahoo.com" }, 
80                { text: "Movies", url: "http://movies.yahoo.com" }, 
81                { text: "Radio", url: "http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast" }, 
82                { text: "Travel", url: "http://travel.yahoo.com" }, 
83                { text: "TV", url: "http://tv.yahoo.com" }               
84            ]  
85        }  
86    }, 
87 
88    { 
89        text: "Information",  
90        url: "#information",  
91        submenu: { 
92            id: "information",  
93            itemdata: [ 
94     
95                { text: "Downloads", url: "http://downloads.yahoo.com" }, 
96                { text: "Finance", url: "http://finance.yahoo.com" }, 
97                { text: "Health", url: "http://health.yahoo.com" }, 
98                { text: "Local", url: "http://local.yahoo.com" }, 
99                { text: "Maps & Directions", url: "http://maps.yahoo.com" }, 
100                { text: "My Yahoo!", url: "http://my.yahoo.com" }, 
101                { text: "News", url: "http://news.yahoo.com" }, 
102                { text: "Search", url: "http://search.yahoo.com" }, 
103                { text: "Small Business", url: "http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com" }, 
104                { text: "Weather", url: "http://weather.yahoo.com" } 
105     
106            ] 
107        }  
108    }             
109];                 
110 
111 
112/*
113     Instantiate a Menu:  The first argument passed to the 
114     constructor is the id of the element in the page 
115     representing the Menu; the second is an object literal 
116     of configuration properties.
117*/ 
118 
119var oMenu = new YAHOO.widget.Menu("productsandservices", { fixedcenter: true }); 
120 
121 
122/*
123    Add items to the Menu instance by passing an array of object literals 
124    (each of which represents a set of YAHOO.widget.MenuItem 
125    configuration properties) to the "addItems" method.
126*/ 
127 
128oMenu.addItems(aItems); 
129 
130 
131/*
132    Since this Menu instance is built completely from script, call the 
133    "render" method passing in the DOM element that it should be 
134    appended to.
135*/ 
136 
137oMenu.render("rendertarget"); 
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