Create custom hierarchy in Menu Module

Question

I have the following Menu Structure

Books [/books]
    New Books [/books/new-books]
        Fiction [/books/new-books/fiction]
        Sci Fi[/books/new-books/sci-fi]

The Books Menu has Books (the Menu itself) as the first level, New books as the second level and Fiction and Sci Fi as the third level.

What I am trying to achieve is the following. Essentially the url structure for the 'Sci Fi' Menu Item remains the same but visually, it sits under Fiction.

Books [/books]
    New Books [/books/new-books]
        Fiction [/books/new-books/fiction]
            Sci Fi[/books/new-books/sci-fi]

There were two ways I thought I might (a big might at that) be able to achieve this but both seems like a very 'ugly' way to go about doing it but I can't think of any other way I could achieve this.

Method 1: Created a content plugin to which will check a pre-defined class name on the of the menu list item -> get the parent li -> remove all such menu items and put it under another predefined parent item.

Method 2: Using jQuery get all the list items with a defined class (in the jsfiddle "fourth-menu"), remove it from their existing position and add it to the pre-defined parent (using class/id on the menu item href).

As I mentioned before both method sounds very convoluated so I was wondering if there was a better way to achieve this?

I have created a jsfiddle which makes it a bit more clear as to what I am trying to achieve.

Answer 1

You can always use template overrides to achieve an altered rendering, mod_menu is no exception. But a better way might be the use of Menu Item Aliases. You can find this menu item type under "System Links" if you create or modify a menu item.

A Menu Item Alias will use the URL of its target menu item. A possible structure could look like the following example:

Basic Menu, which may or may not be displayed:
- RealA (type: any) => /a
- - RealB (type: any) => /a/b
- - RealC (type: any) => /a/c

Special Menu, which will be displayed through mod_menu
- AliasC (type: alias, target: Realc) => /a/c
- - AliasA (type: alias, target: RealA) => /a
- AliasB (type: alias, target: RealB) => /a/b