jQuery Menu

jQuery Menu

Hello guys!
I made a menu with jQuery. I toggle my menu like this:

<a href='#' onclick="$('.submenue').hide('slow').not(next); $(this).next('.submenue').show('slow'); return false;">Title</a>
<ul class="submenue">
<li>point1</li>
<li>point2</li>
<li>point3</li>
</ul>

so this doesnt seems like an korrekt jQuery syntax:
$('.submenue').hide('slow').not(next);

With ".not(next)" i try to avoid a close and reopen the opened menu.

How do I write this correctly?

I got one more problem ;)

I hide all submenus with this:
$(".submenue").hide();
now i want one submenu indicated through a <li class="active"> to stay open!

how can I write this?

thank you so much

regards explofish from germany