select a main navigation menu per user type from multiple main navigation menus

Question

GOAL: I want to use custom menus for two different kinds of users. For instance, I want to Merchant users to be able to use Merchant menu, and Owner for Owner menu.

I do not have enough reputation, this image is in the admin menu panel which has theme location with custom menu selection. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6520543/custom%20menu.jpg

1. wp_terms holds names of custom menus with term_id.
2. wp_term_taxonomy holds term_id from wp_terms with taxonomy as "nav_menu" and number of menu items saved under each custom menu as count column.

"function register_custom_nav" and "register_nav_menus" work, but I can't find a clue how it selects which custom menu is selected for users. If I can find where it's loading the selected custom menu somewhere in the code or db, I can just change upon user's login. I think it's definitely in the DB where it selects the custom menu id, but I can't find.

Does anyone know how????

Answer 1

Here is what i do when i need different menus for different users, i create a role for each user type (in your case Merchant and Owner) and i give each role a different view menu capability ex:

add_role('merchant', 'Merchant', array(
    'merchant_menu' => true // would allow the merchant to view merchant menu
));
add_role('owner', 'Owner', array(
    'owner_menu' => true // would allow the owner to view owner menu
));

and then i simply create 3 menus and instead of calling wp_nav_menu() by location i call it by name:

if ( current_user_can('merchant_menu') ) { //current user is a merchant
    wp_nav_menu(array('menu' => 'Merchant Menu Name' ));
}elseif(current_user_can('owner_menu') ){ //current user is an owner
    wp_nav_menu(array('menu' => 'Owner Menu Name' ));
}else{//any one else get the default menu
    wp_nav_menu(array('menu' => 'Default Menu' ));
}