[web2py] JQuery harmonica menu, but what's the use in web2py, I'm totally confused

[Stef Mientki]

hello,

at the moment I'm totally confused about what should be where ....

I made a page with 2 columns,
on the left a vertical menu and
on the center and right the contents to show.

The contents to be shown are paragraphs of a book.

The left menu shows the chapters of the book,
and the submenus shows the paragraph titles.

Now I wanted to use a harmonica menu for the left menu,
so I found a JQuery harmonica menu,
which works quit nice,
the chapter on which you click is expanded and all other chapters are closed.
As long as you don't attach a link to the paragraph menu items, it really looks 
very nice.

This is the main JQuery script
<script src="static/jquery.js"></script>
<script>
  $(document).ready(function(){
    $("dd:not(:first)").hide();
    $("dt a").click(function(){
      $("dd:visible").slideUp("slow");
      $(this).parent().next().slideDown("slow");
      return false;
    });
  });
</script> 

But how should that work with web2py,
if the whole page is refreshed each load of a new paragraph.
A load also rebuilds the harmonica menu.

Now I could think of 2 solutions, and I'm not sure which is the best, or if 
they are all bad.

first solution:
load the new paragraph in an I-frame (or something like that, I'm not an 
expert),
but I think that will be destroy a lot of power of web2py.

second solution:
dont't use the jquery harmonica menu at all,
but let the controller in web2py build a specific menu + (submenus for 1 menu 
item) for each new page.

Another side effect is that reloading a new chapter gives a lot of flicker, 
because although the
major part of the screen is (semi-) static,
each new call the whole page is refreshed.
How in general can you mainitain those static parts with web2py ?

Sorry for the long story,
but I've the feeling I'm missing something very essential in building web2py 
pages.

thanks,
Stef Mientki