Trying to add a class to a menu in a preprocess function

Question

I want to add a class to a menu - doing it in hook_menu won't work because I'm adding an icon with the icon API, and this seems to override any classes put on the menu items.

I have this preprocess function:

/**
 * hook_preprocess_page().
 */
function MYMODULE_preprocess_page(&$vars) {
  $vars['main_menu']['menu-1914']['attributes']['class'] = array('message');
}

But it doesn't seem to add the css class "message" onto my element.

How do I reliably add a css class to a menu item before display, but before icon API would display it. Theming has to be my weakest Drupal skill.

Answer 1

To add class in navigation's <ul> element, include below code in template.php

function THEMENAME_menu_tree__menu_MENUNAME($variables) {
return '<ul class="CLASSNAME YOU WANT TO ADD">' . $variables['tree'] . '</ul>';
}

Answer 2

I was able to apply a class to the menu item this way:

function MYMODULE_preprocess_menu_link(&$variables) {
  if($variables['element']['#original_link']['link_title'] == "Messages") {
  $variables['element']['#attributes']['class'][] = "no-message";
  }
}