Modifying a single menu link title

Question

I'd like to replace the link title on the top link of my secondary navbar (called "explorer", links to "mysite.net/explorer", but actually just triggers a dropdown-menu) with a glyphicon and the current user's name.

According to this thread, a title callback is the way to do this. However, adding this code in my template.php has no effect at all.

function mythemename_menu_alter(&$items) {
  $items['explorer']['title callback'] = 'mythemename_title_callback';
}

function mythemename_title_callback($arg1, $arg2) {
  global $user;
  $title = '<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-user" aria-hidden="true"></span>'. $user->name;

  return $title;
}

What am i doing wrong? And why does the callback function take 2 parameters? (It doesn't work with 1 or 0 params.)

The "menu token" module almost crashed my site after installation, so I don't want to use that.

Answer 1

One way is to use theme_menu_link(). Use debug() or Devel's dpm() to browse through $variables in order to get a grip on how the array is structured. Then locate the particular menu link in your code and theme it to your requirements. In the API documentation there are plenty of examples in the comment area that may suit your needs.

Answer 2

If you only want to change the title of an menu item, you should be able to do this through the administration. Go to admin/structure/menu and edit the correct item in your secondary menu.

To use hook_menu_alter() you must add it in a custom module not inside your template file. Remember to clear you cache in order for the changes to take effect. To clear the cache you can goto admin/config/development/performance.