Insert dynamical menu in Magento’s Admin

Hello everyone! I’ve recently got frustrated with Magento’s core functionality which requires XML definition for Administration menus. And I really wanted to add quick website / store links to it. Solution was to overwrite one of Magento’s Adminhtml blocks, and inject my non-XML, dynamic menu to it. If you’re interested in how I did it, read on.

To make it upgradeable, and painless, I’ve decided to make an extension just for this. It consists of only 2 Files, config.xml, and one Block rewrite.

First, I’ve created config.xml, and set it like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <Inchoo_ExtendedMenu>
            <version>0.1.0</version>
        </Inchoo_ExtendedMenu>
    </modules>
    <global>
        <blocks>
            <configurable>
                <class>Inchoo_Configurable_Block</class>
            </configurable>
            <adminhtml>
                <rewrite>
                    <page_menu>Inchoo_ExtendedMenu_Block_Adminhtml_Menu</page_menu>
                </rewrite>
            </adminhtml>
        </blocks>
    </global>
</config>

And since Magento parses XML as always, ideal solution for me was to hook on that parsed data just before printing the menu. So, block I mentioned earlier is “Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Page_Menu”. And here, I was interested in getMenuArray() method, and since it looks like this:

    /**
     * Retrieve Adminhtml Menu array
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function getMenuArray()
    {
        return $this->_buildMenuArray();
    }

This was the bes place to interfere in Magento’s core. I’ve created my own class “Inchoo_ExtendedMenu_Block_Adminhtml_Menu” with source code:

<?php
class Inchoo_ExtendedMenu_Block_Adminhtml_Menu extends Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Page_Menu
{
	public function getMenuArray()
	{
		//Load standard menu
		$parentArr = parent::getMenuArray();
 
		//Prepare "View Sites" menu
		$parentArr['view_sites'] = array(
			'label' => 'View Sites',
			'active'=>false ,
			'sort_order'=>0,
			'click' => 'return false;',
			'url'=>'#',
			'level'=>0,
			'last'=> true,
			'children' => array()
		);
 
		$app = Mage::app();
 
		$j = 0;
 
		$allWebsites = $app->getWebsites();
		$totalWebsiteCount = count($allWebsites) - 1;
 
		foreach ($allWebsites as $_eachWebsiteId => $websiteVal){
			$_storeName = $app->getWebsite($_eachWebsiteId)->getName();
			$_websiteUrl = array(
					'label' => $_storeName,
					'active' => false ,
					'url' => '#',
					'click' => "return false",
					'sort_order' => $j++ * 10,
					'level' => 1,
					'children' => array()
					);
 
			if(count($parentArr['view_sites']['children']) == $totalWebsiteCount){
				$_websiteUrl['last'] = true;
			} else {
				$_websiteUrl['last'] = false;
			}
 
			$parentArr['view_sites']['children'][$j - 1] = $_websiteUrl;
 
			$allStores = $app->getWebsite($app->getWebsite($_eachWebsiteId)->getId())->getStores();
			$totalCount = count($allStores);
			$i = 0;
			foreach ($allStores as $_eachStoreId => $val){
				$_websiteId = $app->getStore($_eachStoreId)->getWebsiteId();
				if($_websiteId == $j){
					$_storeName = $app->getStore($_eachStoreId)->getName();
					$baseUrl = $app->getStore($_eachStoreId)->getUrl();
					$_websiteUrl = array(
							'label' => $_storeName,
							'active' => false ,
							'click' => "window.open(this.href, 'Website - ' + this.href); return false;",
							'sort_order' => $i++ * 10,
							'level' => 2,
							'url' => $baseUrl
							);
 
					if(count($parentArr['view_sites']['children'][$j - 1]['children']) + 1 == $totalCount or $totalCount == 0)
						$_websiteUrl['last'] = true;
						else
						$_websiteUrl['last'] = false;
 
					$parentArr['view_sites']['children'][$j - 1]['children'][$i] = $_websiteUrl;
				}
			}
		}
		return $parentArr;
    }
}

What I did her was overwrite of “getMenuArray()” call on parent method, and population of resulting array with my own dynamic menu.

Result looks like this on default Magento 1.5.0.1 installation:

And you can download it here.

Note:
As always, please make backup before installation, as this is provided for usage at your own risk.

By the way, this is the Inchoo’s 500th post!

Cheers!