- How do I install smorken/menu in a Laravel application?
- Smorken Menu is not distributed on Packagist, so add a repositories entry of type vcs pointing at https://bitbucket.org/scott_morken/menu.git and then require smorken/menu with a pinned tag or commit SHA. Bitbucket credentials, either an app password or an SSH key, must be available to Composer in every environment including ephemeral CI runners. After installing, check whether the package supports auto-discovery or requires manual registration of its service provider and facade alias.
- Is smorken/menu available on Packagist?
- No, smorken/menu is hosted on Bitbucket and has no Packagist presence. That means no Packagist metadata, no semantic version resolution beyond git tags and branches, and no participation in Composer audit advisory feeds. You must resolve it through an explicit vcs repository entry and manage version constraints yourself.
- Which Laravel and PHP versions does smorken/menu support?
- The package metadata available here does not declare supported Laravel or PHP versions, so verify the constraints in its composer.json before planning an upgrade path. Menu packages are sensitive to Blade compilation, container resolution, and middleware changes across Laravel majors, so test it against your target version in a short spike. Also check whether illuminate/support is pinned or open, since an open constraint can pull unexpected framework versions.
- How do I render a smorken/menu menu in a Blade view?
- The conventional pattern for this class of package is a builder or container binding that returns a menu tree, plus a Blade directive or recursive partial for rendering it. Confirm the actual API in the source or README before committing to it, since no documentation is referenced in the package metadata. If nothing ships for views, you can still walk the tree with a recursive Blade partial of your own.
- Does smorken/menu depend on laravelcollective/html or other abandoned packages?
- That lineage is common in menu helpers of this generation, but it is not confirmed for smorken/menu. Run composer show or composer why on the installed package to inspect its transitive dependencies, and check each one for abandonment. If laravelcollective/html is present, plan to replace those calls before a Laravel upgrade, since that package is no longer maintained.
- Can smorken/menu store hierarchical menu items in the database?
- The package description states that it supports storing menu items, which suggests database-backed trees rather than plain config arrays. Check whether it ships migrations and a publishable config file, and whether menu construction issues a query per node, particularly if you filter items by role or permission. For fully static navigation, a config-driven array is usually simpler and avoids the extra dependency.
- What license does smorken/menu ship under?
- The license is not stated in the package metadata available here, which makes it a blocking item for legal review. Look for a LICENSE file in the repository root and a license field in composer.json before merging anything. Do not assume MIT just because most Laravel packages use it.
- Is smorken/menu actively maintained and tested?
- There are no stars, dependents, Packagist stats, or documentation references indicating adoption, and no signal of a test suite. Treat smorken/menu as a package you adopt only if you intend to own it, including patching it yourself at Laravel upgrade time. A quick spike that runs the package against your target Laravel version will tell you more than the metadata does.
- Should I fork smorken/menu instead of installing it directly from Bitbucket?
- Given the Bitbucket-only distribution, credential requirements in CI, and lack of external validation, forking to your own VCS namespace and tagging an internal release is often the safer path. That lets you publish to a private Composer registry, control versions, add tests, and patch the render path without upstream coordination. Pinning to a commit SHA from the original repository is the minimum acceptable posture if you skip the fork.
- What are alternatives to smorken/menu for building Laravel navigation menus?
- spatie/laravel-menu and lavary/laravel-menu are commonly cited Packagist-hosted options with maintained documentation and version constraints. For simple, static navigation, a config-driven array plus a recursive Blade partial avoids a dependency entirely. Evaluate alternatives against the same criteria: Laravel version support, active maintenance, license, and query behavior for permission-filtered menus.