When, in a custom module, you add a subitem to the top menu in the back-end, is it possible to insert in image alongside the title?

Question

I'm trying to add in an image next to a dropdown item, alongside the title. Is this possible? I've seen it being done with items in the sidebar under System > Configuration before, but never in the top menu. Being able to do something like this would be great, for example:

<menu>
    <system>
        <children>
            <example>
                <title><img src="foo.png" />Example</title>
                <action>adminhtml/example/index</action>
            </example>
        </children>
    </system>
</menu>

Obviously that's not going to work, so any pointers would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can add a class to the title like below

<menu>
        <custom_module module="custom_module" translate="title">
        <title><![CDATA[<span class="custom_module">Custom Module</span>]]></title>

And then add a adminhtml layout file to add some css to add the image to your menu item.

Update:

Ok so it looks like this only worked for me because I have an extension installed that overwrites Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Page_Menu::getMenuLevel and updates line 301 to not have the $this->escapeHtml wrapper on the label.

            . $this->escapeHtml($item['label']) . '</span></a>' . PHP_EOL;