Menus

The site menu provides the means for visitors to navigate and discover your site’s content. Not every piece of content needs to be in the menu and not every menu item must reside on your site. The best menus are those that allow visitors to find the pages they are after with a minimum of clutter.

Each of the themes available to your site can display a main navigational menu. The ACS Stacked theme uses a horizontal menu toward the top of the page content. Top level items are displayed as links along the menu bar. Nested items are revealed in drop-down menus when a user places their mouse over the top-level link. Items at deeper levels of nesting are exposed via fly-out menus.

The ACS Columns theme uses a stacked set of links in the left column. Nested items are revealed by clicking the down arrow to the right of the top level item.

Each theme also allows a “Link Buttons” or quick links menu. This menu is intended to be used for links to frequently accessed content or web sites. It can be placed in any widget area from the widgets screen.

The Menus Screen

The Menus Screen

The Menus Screen

Both menus are managed from the Appearance > Menus screen. To switch menus, select the desired menu from the drop-down list under the Edit Menus tab and click the Select button.

Adding Menu Items

The menu work area is divided into two sections: site content on the left and menu structure on the right. To add content to the selected menu, expand the appropriate section in the left column, (i.e. Pages), place a check mark next to each item, and click the Add to Menu button.

Items within the  Menu Structure section will appear in the menu. They can be re-ordered by dragging and dropping. An item can be nested by moving it under the parent item and dragging to the right to “indent.”

After making changes to the menu structure, remember to click the Save Menu button.

External Links

Menu items do not have to point to pages within your own website. You can link to external pages by expanding the Links section, entering the URL and link text, and clicking Add to Menu. Once in the Menu Structure section, the external link can be re-arranged just like any other menu item.

Post Categories

You may have noticed that posts cannot be included directly in a site menu. Rather, you can link to a page that lists all posts from a particular category. For example, to add News menu item, first create a News category and populate it with posts. Then expand the Categories section on the menu screen place a check next to the News category and click Add to Menu.

Link Buttons Menu

The link buttons menu is managed in the same way as the main menu. On the Appearance > Menus screen, select Link Buttons from the menu drop-down. Once you are happy with the menu structure, save the menu and use the Appearance > Widgets screen to add the Link Buttons widget to a widget area.