JSON: templates

This file contains an array of template objects.

'struct'

The 'struct' part of the template object is either a string (for the bits surrounding the menu) or a keyed-array of similar strings within one of the lvl objects.

This string simply tells Flexwalker when to open and to close tags, using the id of a tag within tags.json. There is one reserved word, 'walker', which inserts the wp_nav_menu return when used in the top struct. Otherwise, the string is a nesting key, with '/' used to close the last opened tag. In pseudo code, this struct:

nav toggle toggleicon / / walker /

Turns into this code (using the id as the html tag):

<nav>
    <toggle>
        <toggleicon></toggleicon>
    </toggle>
    <!-- returned menu from Flexwalker_Walker -->
</nav>

Note that within the lvl objects, there are opening and close structs for 'lvl' and 'el'. See below for an explanation of how they work.

Template Object

A template object looks like this:

{
    "id": "yourid",
    "depth": 1,
    "struct": "nav toggle toggleicon / / walker /",
    "lvl": []
}

• id is what you use to get this template when calling flexwalker()
• depth is the menu depth allowed and will override other walker depth arguments
• struct describes the structure around the nav menu and its position within it
• lvl is an array containing 'lvl objects', described below

struct at this level allows you to put all menu-specific HTML here, which gives you more flexibility when coding your actual templates. If you need to go back to conventional menus instead of a deeply layered Bootstrap menu, for example, you can simply change which template you're using without having to modify the code in your theme header.

lvl Object

The lvl array tells Flexwalker what to build as it steps through your navigation menu via lvl objects. These objects have the following structure:

{
    "check": {
        "depth": 0,
        "children": false,
        "final": false
    },
    "struct": {
        "lvlo": "",
        "lvlc": "",
        "open": "",
        "close": "",
        "item": "item",
        "link": "a"
    }
}

• check is a set of rules for Flexwalker to check to see if it should apply the struct array. Flexwalker will stop checking when depth and children both evaluate to true:
  • depth is compared against the current menu depth
  • children is compared to whether this item has children
  • final tells Flexwalker whether to evaluate depth as === (false) or >= (true). For example, if depth is 1 and final is true, all menu depths of 1 and below will use this rule.
• struct is an array which contains 'tag' strings similar to those explained above:
  • lvlo is the tag structure when opening a new level containing this item's children
  • lvlc must balance lvlo (ie, all open tags from lvlo must be closed)
  • open are tags before this item and its children
  • close must balance open; will be after the lvlc tags
  • item is the id of the tag used for the item, it does not need to be closed
  • link is the id of the tag used to link the item, it does not need to be closed

You may have as many lvl objects within a template as you like. Note again that Flexwalker stops once the check rules evaluate to true, so there's a practical limit.