Remove Elgg menu, insert JS megamenu?

We are adding Elgg as a new feature of our existing site, so I need to make Elgg look like our main website. I am using a complex JS + CSS megamenu system in the main website.

I would appreciate some input on how to go about writing a plugin to remove the default Elgg menu and insert the megamenu files from our main website.  If it matters, Elgg is installed in a different directory on the same server as our primary site.

References I have reviewed already include http://community.elgg.org/pg/plugins/project/819003/developer/_13net/menu-manager-for-18 and http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Menus.

I am using EasyTheme to modify the site's appearance, so the menu solution will need to be compatible with it.

  • The easiest way is to add a plugin that overrides the page/default view. This view is a wrapper for the entire markup of the page. In your copy, you can then change whatever you like.

  • Thank you. I am currently looking at myElggfolder\views\default\page\default.php and it seems to have the entire page markup. I will inspect that to see if I can find the variables and classes that need to be overwritten.  This is my first plugin, so I'll probably be posting again soon.

  • My first goal is to simply eliminate the default Elgg menu.  I created a plugin named "page-wrapper-override" since I'll be doing other wrapper manipulation later.

    I found in elggdir/views/default/page/elements/header.php on line 13:

    // insert site-wide navigation
    echo elgg_view_menu('site');

    It appears this is where the menu is embedded. In my plugin, I copied all the code from the core header.php file to /mod/page-wrapper-override/views/default/page_elements/elgg_header.php, and then removed the line that inserts the site menu.

    The plugin appears in Elgg and activates normally, but I still see the default Elgg menu.

    I built my directory names based on http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Views/Creating_a_new_site_theme  and http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Overriding_a_view

    I also tried structuring the plugin to: /mod/page-wrapper-override/views/default/elements/header.php with the same result.

    Since I have bigger plans for the plugins, I have several empty placeholder files. Could that cause the problem?

  • You are misunderstanding Elgg's view system. To overload a specific view you need to replicate it's path in your plugin. So, the new header should be in /mod/page-wrapper-override/views/default/page/elements/header.php

    Make sure you disable path caching, or run upgrade.php

  • That worked. Thank you.

    Is the documentation I was following that specified /views/default/page_elements/ for a previous version of Elgg?

  • Yes, that documentation was for 1.7. 1.8 changed the location of many views.