How do I wrap an empty submenu? - menu

Question

I have this menu in TYPO3:
HEADER = HMENU
HEADER {
1 = TMENU
1 {
expAll = 1
NO = 1
NO {
wrapItemAndSub = <ul class="select one"><li>|</li></ul> || <ul class="select two"><li>|</li></ul>
}
ACT < .NO
ACT = 1
ACT {
wrapItemAndSub = <ul class="current one"><li>|</li></ul> || <ul class="current two"><li>|</li></ul>
}
}
2 < .1
2.wrap = <ul class="sub">|</ul>
2.NO.wrapItemAndSub = <li>|</li>
2.ACT.wrapItemAndSub = <li class="current_sub">|</li>
}
Here is the resulting HTML code:
<ul class="current one">
<li>
Homepage
<ul class="sub">
<li>Subpage</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="current two">
<li>
Second page
</li>
</ul>
As you can see, there are no subpages below the second page. That is the reason <ul class="sub">...</ul> is not rendered for second page.
However, I need the <ul class="sub"></ul> - even if there is nothing in it.
How can I get it into my code?

Answer 1

Premise: the whole menu seems a bit...odd... at least for my tastes (each first level item is wrapped with an <ul>, and you also require an additional empty <ul> even without subitems...)
Said that, this trick should work: Basically I appended at the NO state a "fake" empty <ul class="sub"></ul> and I removed it when the actual subpages kick in.
HEADER = HMENU
HEADER{
1 = TMENU
1 {
expAll = 1
NO = 1
NO {
wrapItemAndSub = <ul class="select one"><li>|</li></ul> || <ul class="select two"><li>|</li></ul>
}
NO.after = <ul class="sub"></ul>
ACT < .NO
ACT = 1
ACT {
wrapItemAndSub = <ul class="current one"><li>|</li></ul> || <ul class="current two"><li>|</li></ul>
}
IFSUB < .NO
IFSUB = 1
IFSUB.after =
ACTIFSUB < .ACT
ACTIFSUB = 1
ACTIFSUB.after =
}
2 < .1
2.wrap = <ul class="sub">|</ul>
2.NO.wrapItemAndSub = <li>|</li>
2.ACT.wrapItemAndSub = <li class="current_sub">|</li>
}

Answer 2

This is the solution I ended up using. I still took care to remove the additional code again for the second level and I made sure the right classes still are applied on level 2:
HEADER = HMENU
HEADER {
1 = TMENU
1 {
expAll = 1
NO = 1
NO {
wrapItemAndSub = <ul class="select one"><li>|</li></ul> || <ul class="select two"><li>|</li></ul>
}
NO.after = <ul class="sub"><li class="empty"> </li></ul>
ACT < .NO
ACT = 1
ACT {
wrapItemAndSub = <ul class="current one"><li>|</li></ul> || <ul class="current two"><li>|</li></ul>
}
IFSUB < .NO
IFSUB = 1
IFSUB.after =
ACTIFSUB < .ACT
ACTIFSUB = 1
ACTIFSUB.after =
}
2 < .1
2.wrap = <ul class="sub">|</ul>
2.NO.wrapItemAndSub = <li>|</li>
2.NO.after =
2.ACT.wrapItemAndSub = <li class="current_sub">|</li>
2.ACT.after =
2.IFSUB.wrapItemAndSub = <li>|</li>
2.ACTIFSUB.wrapItemAndSub = <li class="current_sub">|</li>
}