Basics of Menus

Creating a new menu collection is simple. Simply use the make() method:

...

Menu::make('example', function(Builder $menu) {
    // You may define and add your menu links here
});

...

The above will create a new "example" menu collection, and register a new global view composer by the name of $menu_example that you may call within your view files to render your menu.

---

Some of you may ask were the best place to house the code to create your menu collections. A middleware would be the ideal place, but you may opt to simply create your menus within your routes file as well if you're developing a very small application.

Here's a middleware stub to get you started. Just remember to register it within your applications app config file.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware

use Closure;
use Menu;
use Caffeinated\Menus\Builder;

class MenuMiddleware
{
    /**
     * Run the request filter.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
     * @param  \Closure                  $next
     * @return mixed
     */
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        Menu::make('example', function(Builder $menu) {
            $menu->add('Home', '/');
            $menu->add('About', '/about');
            $menu->add('Blog', '/blog');
            $menu->add('Contact Me', '/contact-me');
        });

        return $next($request);
    }
}