Posted By D0rk52 on 10/3/2025 7:40 PM

Hi all,

I’m on DNN 10.0.1 and trying to switch from the stock Aperture menu to a nicer mega menu with DDRMenu templates.

What works today

• Header uses the default Aperture menus

  <code>&lt;dnn:menu cssclass=&quot;aperture-d-none aperture-d-md-block&quot; id=&quot;menu_desktop&quot; menustyle=&quot;menus/aperture&quot; nodeselector=&quot;*,0,2&quot; &#114;&#117;nat=&quot;server&quot;&gt; &lt;dnn:menu cssclass=&quot;aperture-d-flex aperture-d-md-none&quot; id=&quot;menu_mobile&quot; menustyle=&quot;menus/mobile&quot; nodeselector=&quot;*,0,2&quot; &#114;&#117;nat=&quot;server&quot;&gt; </dnn:menu></dnn:menu></code>

• Site: https://azmanagedit.com/

What I tried

• Dropped the Mega2DNN template files into:

  • DesktopModules/DDRMenu/NavigationTemplates/Mega2DNN
    (has menudef.xml, Mega2DNN.xslt, Mega2DNN.css, hoverIntent.js)

• Then tested MenuStyle="Mega2DNN" and also relative paths like
  MenuStyle="menus/Mega2DNN/menudef.xml" (from skin folder).

Problem

• DDRMenu throws: “Couldn't load menu style … Illegal characters in path.”
  (Same message whether I reference by style name or relative file path. Using [SKINPATH] fails too.)

Ask

1. What’s the correct way to register and reference a DDRMenu template so I can use MenuStyle="Mega2DNN" without the path error?

2. Is there a recommended mega-menu template (Razor/XSLT) that’s modern, accessible (keyboard/ARIA), and works well on DNN 10?

3. Any examples of minimal header markup + where to place CSS/JS for DDRMenu templates (skin folder vs DesktopModules) you’d suggest?

Happy to move files wherever DNN expects—just need the right pattern to get past the path error and recommendations for a clean, production-ready mega menu.

Thanks!

You must be on an upgraded installation?
I don't see them in my Fresh DNN 10 test install and to be honest I wonder if they still work..

any alternatives 
I was messing with this one
https://github.com/MarkXA/ddrmenutemplates


also tried a custom one 


and ddrmenu


then i was editing my header.ascx

This is how my current menu looks just looking to improve this

That worked nice man thanks!!!

Aperture does not have bootstrap and uses css-variables that were introduce in DNN10. It was not made to be supported in DNN9 so your mileage may vary there.