useMenu

If you are using @refinedev/antd, @refinedev/mui, @refinedev/chakra-ui or @refinedev/mantine as a UI framework integration, you can find out more info about their structure and how to use useMenu in the Custom Layout

We will show you how to use useMenu to create a simple menu for your Refine application.

import React from "react";
import { useMenu, LayoutProps, ITreeMenu } from "@refinedev/core";

import { Link } from "react-router";

const Layout: React.FC<LayoutProps> = ({ children }) => {
  const { menuItems, selectedKey } = useMenu();

  const renderMenuItems = (items: ITreeMenu[]) => {
    return (
      <>
        {items.map(({ key, name, label, icon, route }) => {
          const isSelected = key === selectedKey;
          return (
            <li key={name}>
              <Link
                to={route}
                style={{
                  fontWeight: isSelected ? "bold" : "normal",
                }}
              >
                {icon}
                <span>{label ?? name}</span>
              </Link>
            </li>
          );
        })}
      </>
    );
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <div>
        <Link to="/">
          <img src="https://refine.dev/img/refine_logo.png" alt="Logo" />
        </Link>
        <ul>{renderMenuItems(menuItems)}</ul>
      </div>
      <div>{children}</div>
    </div>
  );
};

import { Refine } from "@refinedev/core";
import routerProvider, { NavigateToResource } from "@refinedev/react-router";
import dataProvider from "@refinedev/simple-rest";

import { BrowserRouter, Routes, Route, Outlet } from "react-router";

import { Layout } from "components";

const API_URL = "https://api.fake-rest.refine.dev";

const App: React.FC = () => {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Refine
        dataProvider={dataProvider(API_URL)}
        routerProvider={routerProvider}
        resources={[
          {
            name: "posts",
            list: "/posts",
          },
          {
            name: "categories",
            list: "/categories",
          },
        ]}
      >
        <Routes>
          <Route
            element={
              <Layout>
                <Outlet />
              </Layout>
            }
          >
            <Route index element={<NavigateToResource />} />
            <Route path="/posts" element={<div>dummy posts page</div>} />
            <Route
              path="/categories"
              element={<div>dummy categories page</div>}
            />
          </Route>
        </Routes>
      </Refine>
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
};

We created <Layout> with a header with a logo and a list of links to all menu items (resources). The links are clickable and will navigate to the corresponding resource. To do this, we used the useMenu hook to get the menu items from the <Refine/> and the useRouterContext hook to get the <Link/> component from the router provider. The useNavigation hook can be used for navigating between routes as well.

children is the content of the layout. In our case, it is the content of the Page components.

After creating the <Layout/> component, we can use it in our application. We need to pass it to the <Refine/> component as a prop.

For more information on layout customization, refer to the Custom Layout guide →

useMenu hook comes out of the box with multi level menu support, you can render menu items recursively to get a multi level menu.

Update your resources in <Refine/> with meta.parent to nest them inside a label:

import { Refine } from "@refinedev/core";
import routerProvider, { NavigateToResource } from "@refinedev/react-router";
import dataProvider from "@refinedev/simple-rest";

import { BrowserRouter, Routes, Route, Outlet } from "react-router";

import { Layout } from "components/layout";

const API_URL = "https://api.fake-rest.refine.dev";

const App: React.FC = () => {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <Refine
        routerProvider={routerProvider}
        dataProvider={dataProvider(API_URL)}
        resources={[
          {
            name: "CMS",
          },
          {
            name: "posts",
            list: "/CMS/posts",
            meta: { parent: "CMS" },
          },
          {
            name: "categories",
            list: "/CMS/categories",
            meta: { parent: "CMS" },
          },
        ]}
      >
        <Routes>
          <Route
            element={
              <Layout>
                <Outlet />
              </Layout>
            }
          >
            <Route index element={<NavigateToResource />} />
            <Route path="/posts" element={<div>dummy posts page</div>} />
            <Route
              path="/categories"
              element={<div>dummy categories page</div>}
            />
          </Route>
        </Routes>
      </Refine>
    </BrowserRouter>
  );
};

export default App;

Now you can update your <Layout/> to support multi level rendering with following code:

import React from "react";
import { useMenu, LayoutProps, ITreeMenu } from "@refinedev/core";

import { Link } from "react-router";

export const Layout: React.FC<LayoutProps> = ({ children }) => {
  const { menuItems, selectedKey } = useMenu();

  const renderMenuItems = (items: ITreeMenu[]) => {
    return (
      <>
        {items.map(({ key, name, label, icon, route, children, list }) => {
          if (!list) {
            return (
              <li key={label}>
                <span>{label ?? name}</span>
                {children ? renderMenuItems(children) : null}
              </li>
            );
          }

          const isSelected = key === selectedKey;

          return (
            <li key={label}>
              <Link
                to={route}
                style={{
                  fontWeight: isSelected ? "bold" : "normal",
                }}
              >
                {icon}
                <span>{label ?? name}</span>
              </Link>
            </li>
          );
        })}
      </>
    );
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <div>
        <Link to="/">
          <img src="https://refine.dev/img/refine_logo.png" alt="Logo" />
        </Link>
        <ul>{renderMenuItems(menuItems)}</ul>
      </div>
      <div>{children}</div>
    </div>
  );
};

It only affects menu items that require additional parameters to generate their URL. If the parameters are missing in the current URL neither in the meta property of the useMenu or in the meta property of the resource definition, the menu items that require a parameter will be hidden. By default, this property is set to true.

For example, suppose you have a resource with a list path defined as /authors/:authorId/books. If there is no authorId parameter in the current URL or in the meta object, the menu item for this resource will be hidden.

However, if you set hideOnMissingParameter to false when calling useMenu, the menu item for this resource will still be shown, even if the authorId parameter is missing.

An object of parameters to use when additional parameters are present in the resource paths. For example, if you have a resource with list path defined as /:authorId/posts and want to show this resource in your menu:

const { menuItems } = useMenu({ meta: { authorId: 123 } });

If there is already an authorId parameter in the current URL or in the meta property of the resource definition, useMenu will use this parameter by default. You can override this behavior by passing the meta property to the useMenu hook.

If the current URL matches a resource path, the key of the resource will be returned. Otherwise, undefined will be returned.

List of the menu tems returned based on the resources prop of the <Refine/> component.

Array with the keys of default opened menus.