Multi-level Side Menu

Ionic 3 demo of a two-level side menu. The component currently supports only two levels of items. If more levels are needed, maybe using tabs layout for the other levels would be a better approach.

The component also supports two different modes: accordion and default.

Table of contents

• Ionic info
• Running the demo
• Using the component in your projects
• Features
  • Items structure
  • Selecting options
  • Settings
  • Some other public methods
  • Theming
  • Navigation outside the side menu
    • SideMenuDisplayText
    • SideMenuDisplayTextConditions
    • SideMenuOptionSelect with SideMenuOptionSelectData
• Changelog
• Roadmap
• Contribution
• Support this project

Ionic info

Cli packages: (/usr/local/lib/node_modules)

    @ionic/cli-utils  : 1.19.0
    ionic (Ionic CLI) : 3.19.0

Local packages:

    @ionic/app-scripts : 3.1.7
    Ionic Framework    : ionic-angular 3.9.2

Running the demo

Inside of the project folder, run npm install and then to run the demo in the browser ionic serve [-t android/ios]

Using the component in your projects

Just copy the side-menu-content folder (inculding the html, ts and scss files) in your project. Then include the SideMenuContentComponent in the declarations array from your @NgModule.

Features

Items structure

Options and suboptions should be of type SideMenuOption:

export interface SideMenuOption {
    iconName?: string;
    displayText: string;
    badge?: Observable<any>;
    component?: any;
    custom?: any;
    selected?: boolean;
    suboptions?: Array<SideMenuOption>;
}

So an option with nested suboptions would look like this:

let menuOption: SideMenuOption = {
    displayText: 'Option Name',
    suboptions: [
        {
            // With icon
            iconName: 'ios-basket',
            displayText: 'Sub Option 1',
            component: 'SomePage'
        },
        {
            // Without icon
            displayText: 'Sub Option 2',
            component: 'SomeOtherPage'
        },
        {
            // Special option with icon
            iconName: 'log-in',
            displayText: 'Login',
            custom: {
                isLogin: true
            }
        },
        {
            // Another special option but without icon
            displayText: 'Spanish',
            custom: {
                shouldChangeLanguage: true,
                targetLanguage: 'ES'
            }
        }
    ]
};

Selecting options

When an option is selected, the SideMenuOption object is returned to the caller by the change event. The SideMenuOption returned object can then be used to check if we need to push/set as root a new page, or if we need to handle that option as a special option.

<side-menu-content [options]="options" (change)="onOptionSelected($event)"></side-menu-content>

And then in the App component code:

@Component({
    templateUrl: 'app.html'
})
export class MyApp {
    // ...

    public onOptionSelected(option: SideMenuOption): void {
        if (option.custom && option.custom.isLogin) {
            // Handle the login...
        } else if (option.custom && option.custom.isLogout) {
            // Handle the logout...
        } else if(option.component) {
            // Push or set as root the option.component page
        }
    }
}

Settings

The component also defines the SideMenuSettings interface, to customize the behaviour of the component.

export interface SideMenuSettings {
    accordionMode?: boolean;
    optionHeight?: {
        ios?: number,
        md?: number,
        wp?: number
    };
    arrowIcon?: string;
    showSelectedOption?: boolean;
    selectedOptionClass?: string;
    indentSubOptionsWithoutIcons?: boolean;
    subOptionIndentation?: {
        ios?: number,
        md?: number,
        wp?: number
    };
}

The settings should be sent to the component using the settings property:

@Component({
    templateUrl: 'app.html'
})
export class MyApp {
	
    //...

    // Settings for the SideMenuContentComponent
    public sideMenuSettings: SideMenuSettings = {
        accordionMode: true,
        showSelectedOption: true,
        selectedOptionClass: 'my-selected-option'
    };

    // ...

} 

And in the view:

<side-menu-content [settings]="sideMenuSettings" [options]="options" (change)="onOptionSelected($event)"></side-menu-content>

Some other public methods

The component also exposes a collapseAllOptions() method to reset the state of the options when needed (after selecting an option, or when closing the side menu for example):

@Component({
    templateUrl: 'app.html'
})
export class MyApp {
    // Get the instance to call the public methods
    @ViewChild(SideMenuContentComponent) sideMenu: SideMenuContentComponent;

    // ...

    public selectOption(option: SideMenuOption): void {
        this.menuCtrl.close().then(() => {

            // Collapse all the options
            this.sideMenu.collapseAllOptions();
            
            // ...
        
        });
    }
}

Theming

We can use some simple css rules to change the styles of the menu options. If we set the showSelectedOption setting to true, we can also set the styles of the options when they are marked as selected.

So for instance, we can use the following css rules (by adding it in the app.scss file) to change the color of the menu items, both when they are selected and when they're not:

side-menu-content {

    // In this example, we have used the following name
    // for the selected option in the settings object:
    // selectedOptionClass: 'active-side-menu-option'

    $active-color: map-get($colors, primary);
    $font-color: #222;
    $background-light-color: #fff;
    $background-dark-color: #eee;

    // Single option
    // ------------------
    ion-item.item.item-block.option {
        background-color: $background-light-color;
        color: $font-color;

        &.active-side-menu-option {
            color: $active-color;
            font-weight: 700;
        }
    }

    // Header
    // ------------------
    ion-item.item.item-block.header {
        background-color: $background-dark-color;
        color: $font-color;

        &.active-side-menu-option {
            color: $active-color;
            font-weight: 700;
        }
    }

    // Sub option
    // ------------------
    ion-item.item.item-block.sub-option {
        background-color: $background-light-color;
        color: $font-color;

        &.active-side-menu-option {
            color: $active-color;
            font-weight: 700;            
        }
    }
}

Navigation outside the side menu

If we set the showSelectedOption setting to true, and then we try to navigate to a given page using a button on the content on the page instead of clicking on that option from the side menu, that page won't be shown as selected in the menu.

In order to avoid this issue we can use:
a) The SideMenuDisplayText decorator.
b) The SideMenuDisplayTextConditions decorator.
c) The SideMenuOptionSelect event sending the SideMenuOptionSelectData.

Important: If we want to use the SideMenuDisplayText or the SideMenuDisplayTextConditions decorators, first we would need to make the injector to be available in the entire module by changing the following line of the app.module.ts file:

export class AppModule { }

and replace it by the following code:

export class AppModule {
  static injector: Injector;
  constructor(injector: Injector) { AppModule.injector = injector; }
}

SideMenuDisplayText

This custom decorator allows each page to define which option from the side menu should be marked as selected when the page is opened.

@SideMenuDisplayText(displayText: string).

The displayText parameter is mandatory and should be equal to the displayText property from the option that should be marked as selected when the user enters to this page. If there are multiple suboptions with the same displayText, "optionDisplayText >> suboptionDisplayText" should be used instead (for example, "With Icons >> Sub Option 1").

So if in the app.component.ts file we created the option like this:

// ...
this.options.push({
    iconName: 'home',
    displayText: 'Home', // <-- The displayText property of this option is 'Home'
    component: 'HomePage',
});
// ....

Then in the page we will use the SideMenuDisplayText decorator like this:

@IonicPage()
@Component({
    selector: 'page-home',
    templateUrl: 'home.html'
})
@SideMenuDisplayText('Home') // <-- We need to set this parameter to 'Home' as well
export class HomePage {
    // ...
}

SideMenuDisplayTextConditions

The previous decorator works properly but only if each page is related to only one option from the side menu (since the decorator is being set per page). But what happens if the same page is related to more than one option from the side menu?

For example, in this demo project we have a EmailsPage page/component that receives a parameter showDeleted: boolean. Based on that parameter, the page shows the inbox or the deleted messages from the user. Both Inbox and Bin are also options being shown in the side menu.

So basically two different options from the side menu are related to the same page. In this scenario, we can use the SideMenuDisplayTextConditions decorator to select the right option from the side menu based on a given condition.

SideMenuDisplayTextConditions(conditions: Array<SideMenuOptionSelectCondition>)

The conditions parameter is mandatory and should be an array of SideMenuOptionSelectCondition entities. Each condition tells the component how to check which option should be marked as selected (if any).

So if in the app.component.ts file we created the options like this:

// ...
this.options.push({
    displayText: 'Same component',
    suboptions: [
        {
            iconName: 'mail',
            displayText: 'Inbox',
            component: 'EmailsPage', // <-- Both options are related the same EmailsPage component
            custom: {
                param: { showDeleted: false }
            }
        },
        {
            iconName: 'trash',
            displayText: 'Bin',
            component: 'EmailsPage', // <-- Both options are related the same EmailsPage component
            custom: {
                param: { showDeleted: true }
            }
        }
    ]
});
// ....

Then in the page we will use the SideMenuDisplayTextConditions decorator like this:

@IonicPage({
    segment: 'emails/:showDeleted'
})
@Component({
    selector: 'page-emails',
    templateUrl: 'emails.html'
})
@SideMenuDisplayTextConditions([ // <-- Here we set an array of conditions!
    { propertyName: 'showDeleted', matcher: Matcher.ToBeFalsy, displayText: 'Inbox' },
    { propertyName: 'showDeleted', matcher: Matcher.ToBeTruthy, displayText: 'Bin' }
])
export class EmailsPage {

    public showDeleted: boolean;

    constructor(private navParams: NavParams) { }

    ionViewWillEnter() {
        // We initialize the showDeleted property so it can be ready
        // to be used in the SideMenuDisplayTextConditions decorator
        this.showDeleted = this.navParams.get('showDeleted');
    }
}

Each condition should be of type SideMenuOptionSelectCondition:

export interface SideMenuOptionSelectCondition {
    propertyName: string;
    value?: any;
    matcher: Matcher;
    displayText: string;
}

The Matcher enum includes the following values:

SideMenuOptionSelect with SideMenuOptionSelectData

If we need to select an option based on a more complex logic, we can still use the SideMenuOptionSelect event to let the side menu component know which option should be marked as selected. This component defines and makes available a SideMenuOptionSelect event and the SideMenuOptionSelectData interface:

export const SideMenuOptionSelect: string = 'sideMenu:optionSelect';
export interface SideMenuOptionSelectData { displayText?: string; }

So in the page we just need to publish that event using Ionic Events:

@Component({
    selector: 'page-demo',
    templateUrl: 'demo.html'
})
export class DemoPage {
    constructor(private eventCtrl: Events, ...) { }

    ionViewWillEnter() {
        const complexResult = this.someComplexMethod();

        if(complexResult % 2 === 0) {
            this.selectOptionByName('Option 2');
        } else {
            this.selectOptionByName('Option 1');
        }
    }

    private someComplexMethod(): number {
        return Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
    }

    private selectOptionByName(name: string): void {
        const data: SideMenuOptionSelectData = { displayText: name };
        this.eventCtrl.publish(SideMenuOptionSelect, data);
    }
}

Changelog

• 12/10/2018 Added support for multiple suboptions with the same name. In order to show the proper option as selected the displayText should be "optionDisplayText >> suboptionDisplayText" (in this demo for example, you can see that the suboption Sub Option 1 from the With Icons option uses "With icons >> Sub Option 1" in the custom decorator).

• 19/04/2018 Added SideMenuDisplayText and SideMenuDisplayTextConditions custom decorators. That way the right option can be selected when refresing the page (see this issue). Created lazy-loaded pages for every option of the demo.

  🔥 ⚠️️️ Breaking changes ⚠️️️ 🔥

  Some interfaces and properties were renamed from the previous version. So if you're updating this demo project from the previous version, please take a look at the breaking changes section.

• 06/01/2018: Added support for ion-badge in the items/sub-items. The badge option expects an Observable that allows the application to dynamically update the value of the badge (thanks @ralscha!!). Updated Ionic to the 3.9.2 version (thanks @peterennis!!)
  

• 04/11/2017: Added option, header and sub-option classes to style the options (see Theming section for more details). Improved overall performance by removing direct access to the DOM.
  

• 30/08/2017: Added showSelectedOption and selectedOptionClass to highlight the currently selected option. Added custom subproperty in the SideMenuOption model to allow the user to add any custom property on the items.
  

• 16/09/2017: Added indentSubOptionsWithoutIcons and subOptionIndentation settings to allow the user to customize the indentation of the sub items. Improved inner logic so now if the showSelectedOption setting is true and the currently selected option is a sub item, its parent will be shown expanded when opening the side menu.
  

Roadmap

• Convert this demo into an npm package
• Add unit testing
• Add e2e testing

Contribution

• Having an issue or looking for support? Open an issue and I'll do my best to help you out.
• Got a new feature or a bug fix? Fork the repo, make your changes, and submit a pull request.

Support this project

If you find this project useful, please star the repo to let people know that it's reliable. Also, share it with friends and colleagues that might find this useful as well. Thank you! :)