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pages vs custom menu?

  1. watsonpotson
    Member

    Hello and thank you for reading, I am completely new to wordpress and have spent the past week putting together a website for myself. I've managed to navigate my way around pretty well and it's coming along nicely. I am using the twentyeleven theme and simply want to have a homepage, about me, projects, gallery, contact me and testimonials. 6 pages in total, I have achieved this so far by using seperate pages for each. I have been looking at Menu's today and am wondering if I should have used custom menu's instead as I would like the "projects" tab to reveal sub menu's when the cursor is hovered over it, I'd also like to disable the "projects" tab itself so that users choose from the sub menu instead. I really hope that this makes sense and apologize if it doesn't. Getting a tad confused here, hope someone can help to point me in the right direction. Many thanks in advance.

    The blog I need help with is watsonpotsonworkshop.wordpress.com.

  2. justpi
    Member

    "wondering if I should have used custom menu's instead"
    ? You're already using a custom menu.

    For details, techniques and tricks see this post of mine:
    http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/custom-menus/

  3. watsonpotson
    Member

    Thanks justpi. I will have a look at your link now.

  4. watsonpotson
    Member

    Ok, just had a good look at the link you sent, very helpful so thanks for that. I am still confused though so please bear with me. When constructing my site I set up the top nav menu using and adding "pages" rather than using the "menu" options. When I look in my menu options in the dashboard I see that I haven't actually created a custom menu yet. If I go back on myself and create the top nav menu using custom menu instead of pages will I be able to keep my individual header image for each menu item?

  5. styledbysadie
    Member

    I am having the same issue!

  6. watsonpotson
    Member

    I think, from what I am discovering, that by creating my top nav menu using pages rather than menus I am not given the option to add a custom link and set # to it, so that the tab remains static.

  7. styledbysadie
    Member

    Then what do they give you the options when you open them... Guess I'll have to retrack. My first time using WP.

  8. watsonpotson
    Member

    me too. It doesn't give you an option to add a custom link and set # to pages, I am wondering if I should start over using the menu's instead. I don't want to lose the featured image on each page though.

  9. justpi
    Member

    Sorry, I saw that your menu items weren't in alphabetical order and thought you'd used a custom menu to do that (while apparently you've used page order numbers).
    a) As my post explains, the regular top menu displays links to all your published static pages. To display anything other than that (for instance exclude a page from showing, or include links to categories, external links and non-linking items), yes, you need a custom menu.
    b) A featured image that replaces the default header image when you view a static page is part of that page: it has nothing to do with whether the link to that page is in the regular menu or in a custom menu or in the Pages widget.

  10. watsonpotson
    Member

    Thanks again, your link is going to be really helpful. I think I understand now :) I am going to go into menus and start again. Can I ask you....what do you think of my site so far? Honestly?

  11. watsonpotson
    Member

    Yay! I did it, easy once you know how. I followed ur guide and have now set up my menu correctly, have the static top tab I wanted and have kept all my featured images : ) thanks a million.

  12. styledbysadie
    Member

    I watched this video and have started from scratch with a new menu. I created static tabs then followed the directions for adding dropdowns but everything still shows up on the top natigation header. I am heading out to a mtg. but will tackle it again later. UGH! I don't mind things taking time or being comples - but when I follow direction, read the literature AND watch the video and it STILL doesn't work I get ticked. : / I am sure there is some small step I am missing.

  13. justpi
    Member

    @styledbysadie: Start by giving us the URL of the blog you're talking about.

  14. watsonpotson
    Member

    Hi Sadie, this is what I did. dashboard>appearance>menus. I created a menu and then added the pages I wanted (from the column on the left of the screen) I wanted to call my static tab "projects" so I created a custom link, set the http to # and labelled it "projects" before adding it to the menu. Then I went into custom for "projects" deleted the http line, and then dragged it to where I wanted it to appear in the Top bar menu. THEN, all the menu items that I wanted to appear in the drop down menu under the static "projects" tab I dragged over horizontally so that they are sitting a little to the right. I hope this is making sense? Finally I saved the menu and then selected it from Theme Locations. Hope that helps, it worked for me :) Let me know if you need more help.

  15. styledbysadie
    Member

    Thanks. I did exactly what you did. I found a video that showed my how to do exactly what you did. I dragged and dropped the pages slightly to the right and clicked save it all slipped back to the left - the result is that the entire menu appears on the top navigation line of my website.

    I even tried going into the individual pages and tried choosing the parent and numbering the hierarchy of the child pages with no change after I saved it.

    Beyond frustrated.

  16. justpi
    Member

    a) The actual page hierarchy and the order numbers play no role when you use a custom menu.
    b) If the items you try to indent slip back, you're probably having a browser issue. What browser and version are you using?

  17. styledbysadie
    Member

    YES! I swtiched from explore to foxfire and it worked! : ))) Thanks for not giving up on me. YOU ROCK!

  18. justpi
    Member

    You're welcome!
    IE is a lousy browser. The most reliable browsers are Firefox and Safari.

  19. watsonpotson
    Member

    Yay! well done on sorting it! Good luck with the rest of your site. ps. I agree that IE is the worst browser, I use firefox and have never looked back.

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