• Templating and Integration Guide
  • Part 1: Concepts
    • The "Everything is Content" Paradigm
      • Content items are objects with properties that correspond to a type
      • Nodes are stored in workspaces, organized in trees
    • The rendering flow
      • To render a node, you need a view
      • To render a page, you need a template
    • Modules are packages used to deploy “code” into Jahia
    • The Jahia actors
      • Content flow
  • Part 2: Modules
    • What is a module?
    • Module type
    • Module creation
    • Anatomy of a module
    • Adding classes and Jars in modules
    • Spring files
  • Part 3: Templates and Studio
    • Introduction to templates
    • Studio
      • Studio overview
    • Creating a template-set
      • Using the Maven archetype
      • Using Eclipse
      • Using Jahia Studio
      • Update the Maven project when templates are modified in the Studio
    • Building templates
      • There are 3 different kind of templates
      • Main Resource and template resolution
      • Areas in detail
      • Content templates in details
      • Bound Components
    • CSS style sheets and design
      • Preparing your stylesheet
      • Including stylesheets in templates
      • Managing different stylesheets depending on the context
      • Print friendly CSS
      • CSS frameworks and handmade XHTML
    • Themes
      • How it works
    • Skins
      • Creating skins
      • Skin rendering
  • Part 4: Content Definitions and Views
    • Definitons
      • NodeType
      • Namespaces
      • Supertypes
      • Options
      • Node Type properties
      • Input masks
      • Default values
      • Initializers
      • Validators
      • Abstract types
      • In practice: create the node type definition for dogs
    • Views
      • NodeType folders
      • Output formats
      • Default view
      • Other views
      • Modules versus Components
      • Module packaging and deployement
    • Managing URLs in scripts
    • Managing lists
      • Summary for a simple list
      • Using list views
    • Managing and customizing navigation menus
      • Menu Rendering
      • Customization
  • Part 5: Advanced Techniques
    • Search and queries
      • Full text queries using search tag libraries
      • Queries
      • In practice: creating a custom search component
    • Forms
      • Principles
      • Form data parameters
      • In practice: Transform a custom HTML form into a Jahia valid form step by step
    • Macros
      • Macro implementation languages
      • Typical usage
    • Caches
  • Part 6: Setting up an integration environment
    • Software Requirements
    • Maven configuration for Eclipse IDE
    • Maven External Configuration
    • Creating a template set
  • Part 7: Step by step integration
    • Cutting of the mockup
    • Integration of the Base
    • CSS / Javascript integration
    • Creating the content zones
  • Further reading and resources

Customization

Customization may be done at two different levels: on the menu structure itself (navMenu.jsp), and on the rendering of menu items (navMenuItem.menuElement.jsp).

Menu structure

You may for instance add a view to a menu (jnt:navMenu) to change its structure or add Javascript to build complex menus. The new view will be automatically available in the layout tab of the menu engine.

You just have to create a new file under the jnt_navMenu/html folder or create this folders tree in your module directory, named navMenu.<yourView>.jsp where <yourView> is your view name.

In a file named navMenu.<yourView>.properties you have to set two properties for this view, as they are needed to manage cache dependency which is very important on menus (because of recursivity of the display code).

cache.mainResource = true
cache.mainResource.flushParent = true

The best practice is to copy one of the predefined menus that is the closest to your needs and to customize it.

At the beginning of the file the properties are setup to prepare the display of the menu. The display part is between the <ul> tags.

Rendering items

The default view for items in a menu is defined in the menuElement view. The rendering is applied on jmix:navMenuItem, which means that the default JSP file used for rendering items will be located in the file :

jahia/modules/default/jmix_navMenuItem/html/navMenuItem.menuElement.jsp

You can define your own menu items by adding the jmix:navMenuItem to your own type definitions. If you want a customized display, you will need to create a new menuElement view for your new type definitions. For example Jahia uses a custom view for jnt:page items. This choice will let you add properties such as icons (reference to a file) or alternate text for a menu item.

Example:

[jnt:navMenuText] >jnt:content, mix:title, jmix:navMenuItem
+ * (jmix:navMenuItem)

or

[jnt:page] > nt:base, jmix:nodenameInfo, jmix:observable, jmix:basemetadata, mix:title, jmix:publication, jmix:tagged, jmix:navMenuItem, jmix:hasTemplateNode
orderable
- jcr:title (string) i18n mandatory
- j:templateNode (weakreference,choicelist[templatesNode]) mandatory < jnt:template
+ * (nt:base) = nt:base version
+ * (jmix:navMenuItem)

+ * (jmix:navMenuItem) let you add sub menu items under your current menu item.

You can also define your own view for items. You will also need to define a default view for it. This view will be available in the jnt:navMenu view list in the studio. All items in the menu will then use the same view.