Wordpress: Menus

Introduction to Menus
It's important to remember that the display of menu navigation in your site controlled entirely by the theme that you are using. You are creating content on your site, in the form of posts & pages, and your theme is determining how that content is going be presented to your reader. That said, there are some basic concepts that it's good to understand.

By default, many themes make use of WordPress' basic built-in menu feature. Basically, every time you create a top-level page on your site, it becomes a main link in your site's menu. If you have a fairly straightforward site, setting up a few top-level pages and then creating a few more "child" pages which fall below the top-level pages can be a fine way to set up navigation on your site. Ordering pages within this structure, however, is tricky, and it is one of the main reasons that custom menus are useful. In addition, when you're relying on the built-in menu system, it is difficult to "hide" pages. If WordPress has a page, it's going to try and display it in the menu according to how you've organized it.

By default, when you create posts on your site, they are not placed in any built-in menu. Posts are usually presented in reverse-chronological order (often on your site's home page), and are organized using categories and tags. Your user can find posts by searching your site or browsing your categories and tags.

Enter Custom Menus
Custom menus allow you to fully customize your site's navigational scheme. However, their appearance is still controlled entirely by the theme you're using. Some, older themes don't make use of custom menus; you simply can't use them. Other themes may allow you to use custom menus, but you may not like the way they look. Without editing the theme, you can't change this.

What the custom menu feature does allow you to do is create exactly the navigational menu you need (with links to your content as well as external content):


 * You can reorder pages.
 * You can "hide" pages. (Keep in mind that just because you don't create a link to a page in your menu doesn't mean it isn't there. If someone knows the actual address of a page, they can still view it.)
 * You can includes links to individual posts.
 * You can include links to category and tag pages.
 * You can include links to external URLs.

Custom Menu Tutorial
The custom menus can be activated by going to Appearance > Menus. You'll be presented with the custom menu interface. You will want to enter a name for your menu (this is just for reference; it will not be displayed anywhere) and click the "Create Menu" button.

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If your theme supports custom menus, the box shown below will appear. Your theme could have one or more areas where you can assign your new menu. Choose the one you want to use, and select your menu from the drop-down. You may need to experiment with this a little to determine how your theme works. Click "Save" when you are done.

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Use the boxes on the left to determine what you want to put into your menu. You can choose from any of your posts and pages. You can also add links to a category or tag. These will display a list of all the posts that appear in that category or tag. Finally, you can add external links to other sites.

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Once you've placed items in your menu, you can rearrange them and change their settings in the big menu editor.

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When you're done make sure you save your menu. If you've placed your custom menu in the proper location, you should be able to see it now on your site.