default to expanded per book?

Are you just wanting to be able to choose whether the top level books are expanded by default, or are you wanting the option for every book in the hierarchy?

Yes, i also would highly appreciate this feature :-)

I have been wanting for this feature for a long time.

+1
expand all books would do me.
option to check off which books to expand by default would be logical and maybe I'll want it someday.

option to expend one/top level, or expand all levels would be desirable.

That is assuming you would not want to allow setting per page.
But if you were to allow settings per page, then I would want to set the default value for a Book. And then over-ride per page. New pages would get the default setting obviously.
Deleted pages would possibly leave dangling values :(

Then add one more option to hide pages and you have pretty much the full "menu" features.

Not that I need all these features, but I'd really love a check box for expand all by default in particular.

(how is book menu not in core anyway?) And good work, love this, and the fact that it's all synced up with JQuery Menu, and Advanced Taxonomy Blocks.

I'd really like the same option.

It seems there are at least 2 or 3 posts on the same theme in this issue queue, all at least 6 months old and with lots of people asking for this feature. Is there any hope of it being looked at?

I'm looking for this feature, too. Actually, all I want is my books expanded permanently, but this would be great.

I am interested in this. People want to have the book menu fully expanded all the time, there should be a checkbox to always have it expanded.

+1

Until a feature is developed, can someone tell me what changes to the code are needed to make it expand by default. I really need this ASAP.

This works for me.
Just stick it in your 'body' field.

<script type="text/javascript">
	$(function() {
		$(".block-advancedbookblocks .closed").removeClass("closed").addClass("open");
	});
</script>

Nice one Marvin

I added a filter on the body tag, hopefully to save time on pages other than book ones (intuitively it must be quicker to stop searching when the test on the body tag shows it's not a book-type page)

<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
$("body.node-type-book  .block-advancedbookblocks .closed").removeClass("closed").addClass("open");
});
</script>