How to Create a Custom WordPress Navigation Menu with Menu Manager Plugin
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Update 08/05/2010: The custom navigation function is now built into WordPress 3.0. See: Solostream Themes and WordPress 3.0 Menu Management Function.
With most WordPress themes, your site navigation menu is based on your pages. For each page, a link is created in the navigation menu, and the link text is based on the title you choose for the page. This method of creating a site navigation menu is inferior for many reasons, some of which are these:
1. It doesn’t allow you to include 1 or more category pages in your nav menu.
2. It doesn’t allow you to exclude 1 or more pages from the nav menu.
3. It doesn’t allow you to include links to an external site in your nav menu.
4. It doesn’t make it easy for you to control the order of the links in your nav menu.
5. It doesn’t allow you to use navigation link text that’s different from the page title.
To deal with such issues, I’ve seen some WordPress theme developers who are building a custom navigation menu function into their themes. At first glance, this seems like a great feature to include in a WordPress theme, and I’ve considered it for Solostream themes.
Ultimately, though, I decided against it, because what happens when you decide to change your theme? Once you move to a different theme, your navigation structure is toast. It’s great for the theme developer, because you’re less likely to switch to a competitor’s theme, but it limits you as the user.
That’s what I love about the Menu Manager plugin. It gives you complete control over your navigation menu without locking you into using a specific theme. With Menu Manager, you can include or exclude any page or category you like. You can also create links to external pages if you like.
As far as the link text, you can make it whatever you want. So, if you have a page with the title “Learn a Little More About Me,” you can just use “About” as the navigation link. Further, there’s a drag-and-drop function that allows you to order you navigation links any way you choose.
Here’s a short video tutorial showing how to create your navigation menu with Menu Manager.
Here’s the code I used in the video to install the Menu Manager plugin:
<ul>
<?php /*If Menu Manger is activated, run it */ if (function_exists('mm_menu')) { ?>
<?php mm_menu(); ?>
<?php /* If Menu Manger is not active, run the usual navigation code */ } else { ?>
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li='); ?>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
About the Author
Michael Pollock is the marketing and product development guy for Solostream. He's also an Internet business coach who teaches bloggers, coaches, consultants and other creative entrepreneurs how to use the Internet to earn more money and live an amazing life. Visit Michael's Internet Business Coaching site.
I’d love to integrate dynamic menu highlighting using something like a conditional “current_page_item” id on the menu s that I can use as a CSS selector to highlight the current page in the nav menu. Am I missing something that’s already built in to facilitate this? If not, do you have any plans to add this to the MM plugin?
This is not a plugin we created. Please check with the plugin author found here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/menu-manager/
I’m having trouble with the menu in the Mystique theme. Is there a different code I need to put in?
Not familiar with that theme, so I don’t know.
I can’t get this to work correctly in the Mystique theme.
I was trying to use this menu in the Mystique theme but the menu shows up like regular text with bullets one under each other.
Hi, thanks for the tutorial. I’ve made my navigation system and got my pages ordered correctly. The only thing is, the splash / home page has disappeared! How can I get this back as I can no longer navigate to the home page where everything is being posted!
Would it be easier to re-route my posts to a different page? ie. one that I have just created?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
This is the address of my site:
http://www.barnyscott.co.uk/blog
Thanks in advance,
Tom
No idea what to tell you tom.
It works great except on thing. The drop down does not appear to be working with WordPress 3.0
There is supposed to be drop down items under Blog
http://uaspilot.com
Any advice
That would be a problem with your theme. My advice is to buy one of our premium themes with drop-down navigation built-in. They’re also WP 3.0 compatible, so you wouldn’t even need to use the plugin discussed in this post as the function is now built into WP 3.0. See: http://www.solostream.com/blog/wordpress/solostream-themes-and-wordpress-3-0-menu-management-function/
Hi, I did this and it worked great- except for one thing. Under one of the ‘customs’ I added a subpage and it’s visible all the time (shows up under the custom). Can I hide it so it’s only visible when i roll over the custom?
Mike, does the coding that you posted work for Sublime also?
Actually, it would be a little different. Find this code:
<ul><?php if ( $wp_sublime_hide_home_link == 'no' ) { ?>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>">Home</a></li>
<?php } ?>
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li='); ?>
</ul>
Replace with this:
<ul><?php /*If Menu Manger is activated, run it */ if (function_exists('mm_menu')) { ?>
<?php mm_menu(); ?>
<?php /* If Menu Manger is not active, run the usual navigation code */ } else { ?>
<?php if ( $wp_sublime_hide_home_link == 'no' ) { ?>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>">Home</a></li>
<?php } ?>
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li='); ?>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
Wow, wouldn’t you know it. I was really in need of a plugin like this. It’s like you are psychic! :)
Glad to hear I read your mind Dennis. :-)
Hi All, I’m not having an luck with this plugin, and now my menus are awry – it’s all under “Home” – Chicagoartmagazine.com – try IE and Firefox, they look very different.
Anway, my code is below. I see the code you’re adding, but I can’t (squinting at the video) figure out what code you’re pulling out. So after cutting and pasting, this is what my header code looks like:
Hi Kathryn. Could you please post your issue on the Support Forum. We don’t address support issues via site comments. Thanks for your understanding.
THANK YOU! This is my first blog that I’ve designed and am trying to build and your plugin and video have been the easiest part! I am so excited! Now, if I can just figure out my missing 2nd sidebar. Do you have any videos about that? :)
Thanks again,
Michele
My pleasure Michele. Glad it was helpful. It looks like you’ve maybe figured out how to get that second sidebar to show up. If not, my best advice would be to check with the theme creator.
Your video is so much usefull for me.. thank’s…
Outstanding Michael! Worked the first time…thank you, thank you.
My pleasure David. Glad it was helpful.
This is a pretty cool plugin, however I understand per Jane Wells that WordPress 3 will ship with the Woo Menu Navigation system.
http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-ui/2010-February/000143.html
http://www.wptavern.com/woo-to-power-menu-management-in-wp-3-0
Will Solostream support this new woo menu by default?
Yes, I saw that too, Kel. That would be a huge benefit to WP users, and as such, we’ll likely support it. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how it’s implemented.
Thanks michael.. Nice video and posts.. Good Luck..
my pleasure tristan.