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Set up your menus

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Set up your menus

Section titled “Set up your menus”

You will end up with a main menu at the top of your site, a matching menu on phones, and a profile dropdown for members. Optionally you also get a slide-in side menu called the Left Panel. A menu location is a named spot in the design where a menu can appear. You build a menu once, then assign it to one or more locations.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”
  • Create the pages you want to link to, such as About and Contact.
  • Decide whether logged-in and logged-out visitors should see different links. Reign has a separate location for each.
  • Reign has no menu for the footer. Footer links go in a widget. See change the footer.

The locations Reign registers

Section titled “The locations Reign registers”
Location name Where it shows
Primary - Logged in users Main menu in the header, for logged-in visitors
Primary - Logged out users Main menu in the header, for logged-out visitors
Left Panel - Logged in users Slide-in side menu, for logged-in visitors
Left Panel - Logged out users Slide-in side menu, for logged-out visitors
Mobile Menu - Logged in Slide-out menu on phones and tablets, logged in
Mobile Menu - Logged out Slide-out menu on phones and tablets, logged out
User Profile The dropdown under a member’s avatar in the header

With BuddyNext active you also see BuddyNext Community Nav. That one belongs to BuddyNext, not Reign: a menu assigned there shows as a navigation bar at the top of BuddyNext’s community pages (feed, members, spaces). Leave it empty if you do not need one.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”
  1. Go to Appearance > Menus. Select create a new menu, name it “Main”, add your pages, and select Create Menu.
  2. Under Menu Settings, in Display location, tick Primary - Logged in users and Primary - Logged out users. Select Save Menu. Do this first.
  3. Create a second menu for phones if you want different links there. Tick Mobile Menu - Logged in and Mobile Menu - Logged out, then save.
  4. If you run a community, create a menu named “Profile” for the avatar dropdown. Tick User Profile and save. With BuddyNext, add items from the BuddyNext box on the left of the Menus screen (My Profile, Edit Profile, My Connections, Messages, Bookmarks, Settings). Those links work for whichever member is logged in. Two things to avoid:
    • Do not type custom links that contain a username, such as /members/admin/settings/. A custom link is the same for every visitor, so every member would be sent to that one person’s page.
    • Do not add a Log Out link. BuddyNext adds Log Out to the dropdown by itself, and a pasted logout link stops working after a day because it carries a one-time security code.
  5. For a side menu, create a menu and tick Left Panel - Logged in users and Left Panel - Logged out users. Then check Appearance > Customize > Header > Left Panel, where Left Panel - Global Setting is the master switch.
  6. To show different links to guests, build a second menu with only public pages and assign it to the Logged out location.

If you assign nothing, the main menu shows a plain list of your pages. The phone menu uses your Primary - Logged in users menu when no mobile menu is set.

Where each plugin’s menu items are

Section titled “Where each plugin’s menu items are”

Each Wbcom plugin adds its pages to the Menus screen in one of three ways:

Plugin Box on the Menus screen
BuddyNext BuddyNext Pages for community pages (Activity, Explore, Members, Spaces and more), and BuddyNext for links that follow the logged-in member, plus Log In, Register and Log Out items that show the right one to each visitor
Jetonomy Community (Community Home, Search, Leaderboard, every space)
Learnomy Learnomy Pages (Course Catalog, My Courses, Instructor Dashboard and more). Hidden at first: open Screen Options at the top right of the Menus screen and tick it
Eventonomy, MediaVerse, WP Career Board, Listora, WP Sell Services, WB Gamification Their pages are in the normal Pages box (for example Events, Explore Media, Find Jobs, Directory, Services, Gamification)

The Log In, Register and Log Out items from the BuddyNext box are ideal for the main menu: each visitor sees only the one that applies to them. Leave Log Out out of the User Profile menu, because the dropdown adds it.

Check it worked

Section titled “Check it worked”
  1. View the site on a desktop. The main menu shows in the header.
  2. Open a private (incognito) window to see the logged-out menus.
  3. Narrow the browser or open the site on a phone. Tap the menu button and check the mobile menu.
  4. As a member, open the avatar dropdown and check your User Profile links.

If something looks wrong

Section titled “If something looks wrong”
  • The Left Panel does not appear. It only shows when a menu is assigned to the location that matches the visitor. A logged-out visitor needs Left Panel - Logged out users filled.
  • Guests see the member menu, or the reverse. Check both Primary locations. They are separate.
  • The profile dropdown has no Log Out. With BuddyNext, Log Out is always kept. On other setups, check the dropdown after assigning a menu so members can still log out.
  • Log Out shows twice in the profile dropdown. Your User Profile menu has its own Log Out link. Remove it from the menu; BuddyNext already adds one.
  • Profile dropdown links open “Page not found”. The menu holds custom links made for one account, often left over from BuddyPress or an imported demo. Delete them and add items from the BuddyNext box instead.
  • Some items vanish from a long menu. Reign moves items that do not fit into a “More” dropdown. See header layout.
Section titled “Related”