Extend a module / Module dependencies

[valerian.dredd]

Hi,

 

I need to have a custom menu in the header of the site (so I use the blocktopmenu module that fits perfectly for that purpose), but I also need a similar menu (but with other links) in the footer, that can also provide support for product categories and stuff (not only CMS pages or static links) like the blocktopmenu module allows to do.

 

It seems that blocktopmenu does not allows to create multiple menus and to put them in other places than the header.

 

I thought the best solution was to create a blockbottommenu module which extends blocktopmenu module and overrides some methods to display it in the footer, and change the table names... but I didn't find anything about extending an existing module and requiring the dependency.

 

So I just detect if the Blocktopmenu class exists, and displays an error message if it doesn't. Fine. But then I realize that I need to override nearly everything, and I can't even reuse the helper functions to get categories, CMS menu items, etc... for the display because everything is private.

 

It ends like a big copy paste with s/top/bottom/g. And it works fine. But I'm quite sure this is not the good way to do it.

 

What is the best solution to achieve this, without any copy/paste and search/replace ?

 

Thanks for answering.

Edited August 6, 2013 by valerian.dredd (see edit history)