Predefined smarty variable reference (mainly $count)

[completely lost]

Ive been searching the documentation for a few hours now just trying to get a grasp on how to create my own menu... I understand the concept of the smarty scripting, however in all of the menu page examples almost everything starts with "if $count > 0"  Now I have looked and looked and looked as to find out what exactly is the value in $count, ive looked through the smarty homepage, and the cmsms api documentation only to find out that a reference to such a widely used variable is not at all easy to find anywhere.

I mean the menu examples/tutorials jsut throw a bunch of code on a page and doesnt explain in detail what it does, just vague titles that tell what the whole example does....

So could someone please end my frustration and point me at a useful page/reference that i can use to find out what predefined variables there are, or a mroe in-depth menu tutorial?

[Jeff]

Try using {get_template_vars} or it you want a print-out of an object (like a menu node) {$node|print_r}