Kestello

Appearance

Menus ​

This page covers building the menus visitors use to find their way around your site: creating a menu, adding pages, posts, categories and your own links, nesting items, and putting the menu in the places your theme offers. Read it when you set up a new site, or when a page you added to a menu does not show up.

How menus work ​

A menu is a list of links you build in the admin. On its own, a menu is not shown anywhere. Your theme decides where menus can appear, for example across the top of every page or in the footer. Each of those places is a theme location, and you choose which menu goes in each one.

You can build as many menus as you like and switch them between locations at any time.

Menus are under Appearance → Menus. Editors and administrators can use this screen.

Create a menu ​

  1. Open Appearance → Menus.
  2. Choose New menu.
  3. Enter a Name, such as "Main" or "Footer links". Only editors see the name; visitors never do.
  4. Choose Create. The empty menu opens, with Add items on the left and the menu itself on the right.

Add items ​

The Add items card has a tab for each kind of link.

Pages and posts ​

  1. Open the Content tab.
  2. In Find a page or post, type part of a title and pick the entry. You can pick several, one after another.
  3. Each one is added at the end of the menu.

Items that point at an entry stay in sync with it. If you change the page's title or address, the menu follows by itself. Entries that are not published yet are marked not published in the search results; you can still add them (see Hidden items).

Categories and tags ​

  1. Open the Terms tab. It only appears when your site has categories, tags or another taxonomy with public pages.
  2. Choose the Taxonomy, such as Categories.
  3. In Find a term, pick the ones you want.

Archives ​

The Archives tab lists the content types that have a page listing all their entries, such as Posts at /blog. Choose Add next to the one you want.

  1. Open the Link tab.
  2. Fill in Address. It can be:
    • a full web address: https://example.com/page,
    • a path on your own site: /contact,
    • a section of the current page: #opening-hours,
    • an email link: mailto:hello@example.com,
    • a phone link: tel:+15551234567.
  3. Fill in Label, the text visitors see. Your own links always need one.
  4. Choose Add link.

TIP

For a page on your own site, add it from the Content tab instead of typing its address. If the page moves later, the menu item follows it; a typed address does not.

Arrange items ​

Each item has buttons on the right:

  • Move up and Move down move it among the items at the same level, taking its sub-items along.
  • Nest under the item above turns it into a sub-item of the item above it. Themes usually show sub-items as a drop-down.
  • Move out a level moves it back up one level.
  • The cross removes it, along with its sub-items.

With the keyboard, select an item's title and hold Alt while pressing the arrow keys: up and down move it, right nests it, left moves it out.

Menus can nest four levels deep and hold up to 300 items.

Change an item's label ​

Select an item's title to open its settings:

  • Label: the text visitors see. For pages, posts and terms you can leave it empty to use the entry's own title. The help text shows which title that is.
  • Address: only for your own links.
  • Open in a new tab: opens the link in a new browser tab.

Save the menu ​

Choose Save menu at the bottom (or press Ctrl+S, Cmd+S on a Mac). Unsaved changes shows next to the button until you do. If you try to leave the page or open another menu with unsaved changes, Kestello asks you first.

To rename the menu, click its name at the top of the card and type.

Put a menu in a theme location ​

The Theme locations card at the top of the screen lists the places your theme offers, with a short description of each.

  1. Find the location. The built-in theme offers Main navigation (across the top of every page) and Footer links (a row of links at the bottom).
  2. Pick the menu from its list. No menu leaves the location empty.

The change applies straight away; there is nothing to save.

If the card is missing and you see The active theme declares no menu locations, so menus built here are not shown yet., your theme has no places for menus, and no menu you build is shown on the site, not even through the Menu block (it shows the menu assigned to a theme location). Ask whoever made the theme, or choose a different theme under Appearance → Themes (see Themes).

When you switch themes, the new theme may name its locations differently. Check Theme locations after switching and assign your menus again where needed.

Hidden items ​

An item that points at a draft, scheduled or trashed entry is kept in the menu but not shown to visitors. In the admin it carries the badge Hidden: not published. Its sub-items are hidden with it. Once the entry is published, the item appears by itself, with no need to edit the menu.

This lets you prepare a menu entry for a page before it goes live.

Edit another menu or delete one ​

When your site has more than one menu, the list at the top right of the menu card switches between them.

To delete the menu you are editing, choose Delete menu at the bottom. The message tells you if the menu is shown in any theme location; those locations become empty. This cannot be undone.

If something goes wrong ​

"Some items need attention." One or more items could not be saved. The problem is shown under each item.

"Use a web address (https://…), mailto:, tel:, a path starting with / or an #anchor." The address of your own link is not one of the accepted forms. Check for spaces, and that a web address starts with https:// or http://.

"Custom links need a label." Your own links have no entry to take a title from. Fill in Label.

"It no longer exists." The page, post or term the item pointed at was deleted for good. Remove the item.

"Menus nest at most 4 levels." Move some items out a level before nesting further.

"A menu can have at most 300 items." Split the menu into two, for example a main menu and a footer menu.

"Give the menu a name." The menu's name is empty.

A page is in the menu but visitors do not see it. Look for the Hidden: not published badge on the item, or on an item above it. Publish the page.

A menu item does not show on the site. Visitors only see items that lead somewhere public. An item is left out while its page is a draft, scheduled, private or in the trash, while a page above it is not published (see Parent pages), and, for a category or tag, while no published post uses it. In the menu editor such items carry the badge Hidden: not published. They appear by themselves once their target is public.

The menu does not appear on the site at all. Check that it is assigned under Theme locations, and that you saved it.

Kestello documentation.