I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting modules. I especially like modules which I feel will make my clients life easier! I regularly attend Drupal meetups and browse Drupal related forums, groups and aggregation sites looking for relevant Drupal news. Recently I was shown the Menu Select module. I can see how for many projects its user interface could be more appealing for the non-technical enduser.

What does this module offer:

The module description from the menu_select.info file reads:

Expands the node menu select field functionality by adding filters and an expandable hierarchy.

Well great, what does that mean!? In short, the default default menu select for a piece of content appears as follows. It’s a default HTML select list where the menu depth is denoted by 1 ore more dashes (“-“):

Many clients I find seem overwhelmed with the number of choices in a large menu. The Select box for large websites will not show all the possible locations and an end user may need to scroll up and down the list; and often times they forget where they are within the menu (if more than 1 Menu is allowed for content placement).

The MenuSelect module changes this functionality to appears as follows:

Example of default Menu choices of a Drupal site, a simple drop down list.

Default Drupal menu select with menu dropdown opened for a large site — mehhh.

Menu Select — offers a clear item selection and UX update to show currently set path.

With an additional core patch from the module page the Menu Select module adds an ajax filter box to the menu list. Across the board this is a nice UX update (which by the looks of it should play nice even on Mobile devices!).

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