I am trying to add drop down menus to a drupal theme which uses text sliding door CSS rounding.

The current version uses a primary links injection of the span into the a tags, which works fine. But doesn't support drop down menus.

Working code:

<?php print theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'links primary-links')) ?>

In the template with a template.php file addition:

<?php
// function for injecting spans inside anchors which we need for the theme's rounded corner background images
function strands_guybrush_links($links, $attributes =  array('class' => 'links')) {
  $output = '';
  if (count($links) > 0) {
    $output = '<ul'. drupal_attributes($attributes) .'>';

    $num_links = count($links);
    $i = 1;

    foreach ($links as $key => $link) {
      $class = $key;

      // Add first, last and active classes to the list of links to help out themers.
      if ($i == 1) {
        $class .= ' first';
      }
      if ($i == $num_links) {
        $class .= ' last';
      }
      if (isset($link['href']) && ($link['href'] == $_GET['q'] || ($link['href'] == '<front>' && drupal_is_front_page()))) {
        $class .= ' active';
      }
      $output .= '<li'. drupal_attributes(array('class' => $class)) .'>';

      if (isset($link['href'])) {
        $link['title'] = '<span class="link">' . check_plain($link['title']) . '</span>';
        $link['html'] = TRUE;      
        // Pass in $link as $options, they share the same keys.
        $output .= l($link['title'], $link['href'], $link);        
      }
      else if (!empty($link['title'])) {
        // Some links are actually not links, but we wrap these in <span> for adding title and class attributes
        if (empty($link['html'])) {
          $link['title'] = check_plain($link['title']);
        }
        $span_attributes = '';
        if (isset($link['attributes'])) {
          $span_attributes = drupal_attributes($link['attributes']);
        }
        $output .= '<span'. $span_attributes .'>'. $link['title'] .'</span>';
      }

      $i++;
      $output .= "</li>\n";
    }

    $output .= '</ul>';
  }
  return $output;
}
?>

So I have added the [Nice Menu module][1] which works well and allows the drop down menu functions for my navigation which is now addressed from the template using:

<?php   print theme_nice_menu_primary_links() ?>

The issue is that the a tags need to have spans inside to allow for the selected state markup. I have tried every angle I could find to edit the drupal function menu_item_link which is used by nice menus to build the links.

E.g. I looked at the drupal forum for two days and no joy.

The lines in the module that build the links are:

function theme_nice_menu_build($menu) {
  $output = '';
  // Find the active trail and pull out the menus ids.

  menu_set_active_menu_name('primary-links');
  $trail = menu_get_active_trail('primary-links');
  foreach ($trail as $item) {
    $trail_ids[] = $item['mlid'];
  }

  foreach ($menu as $menu_item) {
    $mlid = $menu_item['link']['mlid'];
    // Check to see if it is a visible menu item.
    if ($menu_item['link']['hidden'] == 0) {
      // Build class name based on menu path
      // e.g. to give each menu item individual style.
      // Strip funny symbols.
      $clean_path = str_replace(array('http://', '<', '>', '&', '=', '?', ':'), '', $menu_item['link']['href']);
      // Convert slashes to dashes.
      $clean_path = str_replace('/', '-', $clean_path);
      $class = 'menu-path-'. $clean_path;
      $class .= in_array($mlid, $trail_ids) ? ' active' : '';  
      // If it has children build a nice little tree under it.
      if ((!empty($menu_item['link']['has_children'])) && (!empty($menu_item['below']))) {
        // Keep passing children into the function 'til we get them all.
        $children = theme('nice_menu_build', $menu_item['below']);
        // Set the class to parent only of children are displayed.
        $class .= $children ? ' menuparent ' : '';
        // Add an expanded class for items in the menu trail.
        $output .= '<li id="menu-'. $mlid .'" class="'. $class .'">'. theme('menu_item_link', $menu_item['link']);
        // Build the child UL only if children are displayed for the user.
        if ($children) {
          $output .= '<ul>';
          $output .= $children;
          $output .= "</ul>\n";
        }  
        $output .= "</li>\n";
      }  
      else {
        $output .= '<li id="menu-'. $mlid .'" class="'. $class .'">'. theme('menu_item_link', $menu_item['link']) .'</li>'."\n";
      }  
    }  
  }
  return $output;
}

As you can see the $output uses menu_item_link to parse the array into links and to added the class of active to the selected navigation link.

The question is how do I add a span inside the a tags OR how do I wrap the a tags with a span that has the active class to style the sliding door links?

drupal.org/project/nice_menus
drupal.org/node/53233