dropmenu including or excluding folder with call

how to set it up where the folder is the menu (no content) and when selected it goes to the first doc

ie

folder (menu) no content
  doc 1 * first doc to come to when folder (menu) selected
  doc 2
  doc 3

then in the page add another dropmenu that lists all docs for that menu

it appears that that the folder has to include content otherwise it won’t work is this correct ?

also when adding a dropmenu in the page for all docs it does not include the folder if content was added which means we would have to duplicate the content on another page like so

folder (menu) with content
  doc 1 duplicated content of folder
  doc 2
  doc 3

sounds somewhat confusing 

after doing some experimenting, it appears that the folder (nocontent) as a menu only will work if the startdoc is for that folder only

but not for like this with startdoc beng folder #1

folder 1
subfolder 1 (menu1) no content
doc1
subfolder 2 (menu 2) no content
doc1

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