Custom rendering of Zend_Navigation

Question

I am using a navigation XML file in conjunction with my Zend Framework MVC app.

A top level menu is rendered at the top of my layout. The code to produce it looks like this:

$this->navigation()->menu()->renderMenu(null,array('maxDepth'   =>  0));

This will automatically render an unordered list of links that I have styled into my top menu. Now, I want to render the submenu (to render the active container tree) taking advantage of all the built-in Zend_Navigation goodness (MVC and ACL integration) but with custom markup. I would do this by inserting this:

$this->navigation()->menu()->renderSubMenu();

In fact, I have a very specific set of markup that I need to render this with. It is so drastically different I do not think I could style an unordered list to accomodate my desired presentation.

Is there a simple way (or complicated if need be ;) to customize a submenu?

Answer 1

Check out this answer of mine: Getting Zend_Navigation menu to work with jQuery's Fisheye

Summarized, you create a view for the navigation and loop through the pages and use the page methods to create custom markup. As far as I know, there's no decorator-like support for Navigation currently.

Answer 2

Typeoneerror put me on the right track, here is the code I ended up using:

In layout.phtml:

<?= $this->navigation()->menu()->renderMenu(null,array('maxDepth'   =>  0)); ?>
<? $this->navigation()->menu()->setPartial('sidemenu.phtml'); ?>
<?= $this->navigation()->menu()->render(); ?>

In sidemenu.phtml:

$this->navigation()->findByResource(
  Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRequest()->module .
  Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance()->getRequest()->controller
 );

 foreach ($this->container as $page) {
    if ($page->isVisible() && $this->navigation()->accept($page)) {
        if ($page->isActive()) {
            echo $page->getLabel();
            $subcontainer = $page->getPages();
            foreach ($subcontainer as $subpage) {
                echo $subpage->getLabel();
            }
        }
    }
 }

Worked like a charm, leaving this as an answer for someone else to find.