Like most newbie, before I start develop WordPress theme from scratch, I started with getting a framework from others, and apply design to it. Though it saved a few hours of my time cracking my head knowing how the tags works. Until the day I found and understand how understand WordPress tags from its template tags page, I keep referring back from time to time.
At first, I was quite confused with all the writing and PHP array it has in there. After a long time, it is actually quite simple to understand and apply. Read on the page, it will explain how each array means and how it work.
It may be confusing when it written:
<? php $defaults = array( 'menu'=>'Main Menu', 'container'=>'div', 'container_class'=>, 'container_id'=>, 'menu_class'=>'menu', 'menu_id'=>, 'echo'=>true, 'fallback_cb'=>'wp_page_menu', 'before'=>'<span>', 'after'=>'</span>', 'link_before'=>'<span>', 'link_after'=>'</span>', 'depth'=>0, 'walker'=>, 'theme_location'=>'theme'); ?>
Scroll down the page, it will explain everything in details 
Just slow and easy, don’t get too rush or you may get frustrated.
Like all CMS may have – Limitation. Unless you are building your own CMS system, you may have some obstacle when you want some function that doesn’t have in WordPress. Of course, before you think about plugins, you may consider looking into their function reference. There are lots of way to twist a function to fit your need.
This is related to the menu function. Previously, if you notice, many theme comes with an instruction telling you how to use custom field to do re-direction. Key in “redirect” for name then key in the address in value, change the page template. Well, no biggy now, just a link and name of the link it can be up in your menu by your order.
Since you can actually order your menu and place any page as parent and child page. You don’t really need the page attribute.
