Adding markup inside first list item of main-menu

Question

I need to add some custom markup inside the first list-item of the main-menu as you can see here:

<div id="block-system-main-menu">
    <div class="block-inner clearfix">
        <div class="content clearfix">
            <ul class="menu">
                <li class="first leaf"><a href="/de/t1">Item 1</a>
                    <div class="my-custom-markup>
                        …
                        …
                    </div>
                </li>
                <li class="leaf"><a href="/de/t2">Item 2</a></li>
                <li class="last leaf"><a href="/de/t3">Item 2</a></li>
            </ul>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

With the following code, I can insert the markup:

function mytheme_preprocess_menu_link(&$variables) {
  $variables['element']['#below']['#markup'] = ' <div class="my-custom-markup">...</div>';
}

But this code adds the markup to every list-item, not just the first one. Do I use the appropriate function and how can I add the markup only at the first item of main menu?

Answer 1

I managed to apply the code only to the item in the main-menu by introducing a condition of menu-name and #href:

function mymodule_preprocess_menu_link(&$vars) {
  $element = &$vars['element'];
  $my_view = views_embed_view('view_name', 'display_id');
  if(strpos($element['#href'], 'home') !== false && $element['#original_link']['menu_name'] == 'main-menu')
  {
    $element['#below']['#markup'] = $my_view;
  }
}