How to add .active class in to the menu item?

Question

I am developing a theme for Drupal 7 and I am struck up with the following issue. I can see there are fixes through jQuery. But I would like to do it in the Drupal way.

My current HTML

<ul class="menu sf-js-enabled">
<li class="first leaf">
    <a href="/" class="active">Home</a></li>
<li class="last expanded">
    <a href="/node/57">About Us</a>
        <ul class="menu sf-js-enabled" style="display: none; visibility: hidden;">
            <li class="first leaf"><a href="/node/69">Contact Us</a></li>
            <li class="last leaf"><a href="/node/73">Typhygraphy</a></li>
        </ul>
</li>

And I want something like this

<ul class="menu sf-js-enabled">
<li class="first leaf active">
    <a href="/" class="active">Home</a></li>
<li class="last expanded">
    <a href="/node/57">About Us</a>
        <ul class="menu sf-js-enabled" style="display: none; visibility: hidden;">
            <li class="first leaf"><a href="/node/69">Contact Us</a></li>
            <li class="last leaf"><a href="/node/73">Typhygraphy</a></li>
        </ul>
</li>

The "active" class needs to be there in the <li> also.

Answer 1

You can achieve your goal without jQuery. Just use theme_menu_link() function, or (my suggestion) theme_menu_link__your_menu()

Place this function in your template.php file:

function YOURTHEME_menu_link(array $variables) {
    $element = $variables['element'];
    $sub_menu = '';

    if ($element['#below']) {
        $sub_menu = drupal_render($element['#below']);
    }
    $output = l($element['#title'], $element['#href'], $element['#localized_options']);

    // if link class is active, make li class as active too
    if(strpos($output,"active")>0){
        $element['#attributes']['class'][] = "active";
    }
    return '<li' . drupal_attributes($element['#attributes']) . '>' . $output . $sub_menu . "</li>\n";
}

You can use this function only for menus displayed as a block. If you're theming main menu:

1. go to admin/appearance/settings/yourtheme and turn the main menu off.
2. go to admin/structure/block and place main menu block in header region
3. customize ul with theme_menu_tree() and li elements with theme_menu_link()