1 level relative to current level, not working as expected

First things first…
Before investigating why your settings aren’t doing what you expect, let’s see if we can get CMW to produce what (I think!) you need. Does this produce the menu you’re after?…

[cmwizard menu=3 branch=current depth=2 ancestors=2 ancestor_siblings=2 exclude_level="1" siblings=1 container_id="nav_menu-3"]

Yes, I’ve tested that and it works perfectly.

It took me a bit to figure out how to get the settings right in the interface to match your shortcode, but I got there. And it works! ??

Thanks so much.

I think the problem I had would still be worth having a look into, when you get the time. As it seemed to be inconsistent in how it was apply the depth level. But I’m very happy with the result you’ve provided. Thanks for your generosity!

Good.

Right, now to try and explain why your original settings didn’t do what you expected.

This is going to seem long-winded, for which I apologise, but you went to a lot of trouble to explain your problem to me, so it seemed only fair to try and reciprocate.

Bearing in mind that:
1. the settings are (roughly) progressive
2. current branch is defined as the current item, its ancestors and its descendants.

Branch = Current Item : definitely
Starting at = 2 : you don’t want the root level items; ok (ish)

At this point, for any current item, you get output that consists of everything that is at or below the level-2 (ref the Start at setting) item(s) within the current branch, eg

• for a level-1 current item you get all that item’s descendants (but not that item itself)
• for a level-2 item you get that item plus its descendants
• for any other level you get the level-2 item that is the current item’s ancestor, plus all descendants of that level-2 ancestor

Depth = 2 : limits the number of levels output to a maximum of 2 (excluding any later Inclusions)

Since we’re starting at level-2 this effectively says “don’t output anything at level-4 or below”. Alternatively, “only output anything we currently have that’s at level 2 or level 3 (ie. a depth of 2 levels).
However, with a menu that only has 3 levels (as you have), this has no effect when Start at is set to 2.
It’s important to note here that depth includes whatever level it is starting at, so if you start with level-X and ask for a depth of 1, you get level-X; if you ask for a depth of 3 then you (might) get levels X, X+1 and X+2. (If this seems illogical then consider what you should expect if you were allowed to ask for a depth of zero, starting with level-X? To me, a depth of zero means no output.)

(Depth) Relative to Current Item = On : this is the problematic one!

Ordinarily, Depth starts at the Start at level. A depth=1 setting would output just items at the Start at level; for depth=2 you would get any items at the Start at level, plus any items at the Start at level + 1. Making Depth relative to current item merely alters the level at which Depth starts, from the Start at level to the level at which the current item can be found. However…

The expectation here was that CMW will recalculate Depth relative to the current item regardless of where that current item is … and this is not the case. If the current item has already been excluded from the output because of some other setting – in this case, the Start at value – then it does not get used to help determine Depth.

This is because Depth – with or without Relative to Current Item being set – still has to abide by the Start at filter. Since the Relative to Current Item setting is actually part (a modifier if you like) of the Depth setting, the “Current Item” part also has to abide by the Start at filter, so if current item is outside the Start at value (ie. higher up the structure) it cannot be used to determine depth.

If I were to allow depth to be calculated relative to the current item regardless of where current item was in the structure, it would allow the Start at setting to be invalidated (or become unenforceable), eg.

Using [cmwizard ... start_at="4" depth=1 depth_rel_current=1] when current item is a level-1 item would output just the level-1 item, which breaks the start_at="4" setting. Since this is part of the Filter process, not the Inclusions, it’s not acceptable … so I don’t allow it!

That’s it, and hope it made some sort of sense. The rest of the settings are inconsequential to your problem.

I’m glad you could use CMW to get what you needed. I think that the only place you got slightly stuck was that you didn’t consider the possibility of treating the need to not show the level-1 items as an exception, rather than part of the norm.

Wizzud, thanks for taking the time to explain that. It certainly shows the complexity that you have built into your system! It is incredibly powerful, which is why it can take a bit of massaging to get the settings right I suppose.

I understand now why it was not showing as I expected. And I’m very grateful for your help with getting the settings I did want, as I don’t think I would have been able to work that out myself.

It’s good to understand that depth includes whatever level we’re starting at … and it was because I was starting at level 2 that caused the confusion with those settings.

I certainly don’t have my head wrapped around your whole plugin, but your post has helped get me further along the journey! Thanks.