php include sub navigation selected

[jasonhr13]

ok so here is my issue. I have a navigation that is in top-nav.php and i want it the links to show as selected when im on the page for them. I use an if statement and this works for all the top level links. But when im on a page that is a sub menu(drop down item) of one of the main links i want that main link to show as selected....

 

for instance i have this below.. as you can see the second main link has a sub navigation. each php file has a $current_page = "pageName" in them. But when I do it this way which to me theoretically should work, it always stayed selected no matter what page in on....

 

for reference... http://a120900.sb1.dev.codeanywhere.net/thwebco/index.php

 

<ul id="nav" class="sf-menu">
   <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'home') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="index.php">Home<span class="subheader">Welcome</span></a></li>
   <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'development' || 'seo' || 'mobile' || 'social' || 'hosting') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="#">Services<span class="subheader">What we offer</span></a>
    <ul>
	 <li><a href="development.php"><span> Web Design & Development</span></a></li>
	 <li><a href="seo.php"><span> Search Engine Optimization </span></a></li>
	 <li><a href="mobile.php"><span> Mobile </span></a></li>
	 <li><a href="social.php"><span> Social Media </span></a></li>
                                   <li><a href="hosting.php"><span> Web Hosting & Email </span></a></li>
    </ul>
   </li>

   <li><a href="#">Our Work <span class="subheader">See our work</span></a>
                           <ul>
                                   <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'portfolio') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="portfolio.php"><span>Portfolio </span></a></li>
                                   <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'case') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="case.php"><span>Case Studies </span></a></li>
                                   </ul>
                                   </li>
   <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'about') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="about.php">About Us<span class="subheader">Who we are</span></a>

   </li>
   <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'contact') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="contact.php">Contact<span class="subheader">Get in touch</span></a></li>
                           <li class="<?php if($current_page == 'quote') echo "current-menu-item";?>"><a href="quote.php">Get A Quote<span class="subheader">Let us help</span></a></li>
  </ul>

[denno020]

I've done this a couple of times with websites that I've built. The way I did it is in my database, I had flags which were set if a menu item was a top level link. Then for each of the sub-menu links, I had a field that said which of the top level links was its parent. That way I could match both the current link, and the parent link, from one field in the database, hence being able to highlight both the submenu link and the top level link.

 

I'm not sure how your data is stored, but you could try adapting that idea to your application.

 

Denno