mmx

Achieving the results you need with a frameset is much easier than doing it with a template because you can work with targets in the anchor elements when loading the various frames. I do this a lot with TYPO3 and frameset-based templates, but have never tried it with Mambo in frameless templates.

I don't recall which template name, but I believe that one of the YTW templates on mamboportal.com uses a dual menu system. I took a look at the mechanics sometime back out of curiosity but do not remember all the details. The query for the first menu excludes the submenu items and the main menu passes the top level record id as a variable to the second menu. The passed variable is then used in the query for the second menu to only display the submenu items for the top level specified by that top level variable. The template was released about 1-2 months ago. The basic mechanics are somewhat similar to what you need to achieve.

YTW also has another template that uses sub_template variables locally within the confines of the template set. A combination of the two techniques should allow you to handle the secondary menus for specific sub_templates and use a discrete sub_template for handling the opening page without a secondary menu.

Read backwards through the news articles on mamboportal.com. The articles contain more detailed information about the various template releases.