Hello Ray:
The menu points are typed in by hand via the "edit menu structure". After you mentioned that the menu.php looks wrong I opened it up again and on the Design View it looks fine on my side. Checked the Code View and figuered out that the "é" and "ñ" are there in plain text. I replaced them now with é for the é and ñ for the ñ. Now it works fine
That's how the code looked like genereted by the MenuWriter:
<li><a href="<?php echo($assumedRoot); ?>peruvian_personalities/biography_jose_abelardo_quinones.php">José Quiñones</a></li>
This is the modification I made:
<li><a href="<?php echo($assumedRoot); ?>peruvian_personalities/biography_jose_abelardo_quinones.php">José Quiñones</a></li>
I still don't understand why MenuWriter doesn't generate the output correctly. I'm happy to use the workaround by editing the menu.php but everytime I make a change via MenuWriter it overwrites everything and I have to do it again. Perhaps it is somehow related to the fact, that I'm using a spanish interface (windows, dreamweaver, keyboard...).
Anyway, thanks for the hint with the menu.php!