If you run into a problem, have questions about how something works, or have questions about functionality that is not covered, email webservices@uoregon.edu to ask for assistance.
A navigation menu is the place on each web page where links to other pages on your website are displayed. It's the structure of your website and acts like a road map to the different pages and information. It provides a clear, simple path to all your web pages from anywhere on the website.
The navigation should be built from the most general content to the most specific content and use short, general terms that people will understand. Your primary navigation (your most general content) are the links that appear horizontally across the top of your site and are visible on every page. Your secondary, tertiary, etc. navigation (your more specific content) appears vertically on the left side of the pages on your site.
Adding Content to the Menu
Most of the time, any Menu changes or additions will be done on the content page in the Menu settings section while you are editing a page.
To add a page to your navigation:
- Go to the edit screen on the page you want to add to the menu.
- At the bottom of the edit screen, go to the section called Menu Settings.
Note: This area may look different depending on which version of Drupal you are using, however, the functionality is the same. - Click on the Provide a menu link checkbox and that will give you a sidebar menu.
The Menu link title auto populates with the title of the page. If the default title text is too long or you want to edit the text, you can type in your new text in the box, but it is recommended your make only minor changes to avoid confusion by your users.
To assign your page to a specific place in your navigation structure, use the dropdown menu below the Parent item. The parent item is the page directly above where you want your page to appear in the site structure.
- To add your page to the primary navigation, choose the <Main menu> option from the Parent item drop down, which is selected by default.
- To add your page to the secondary, tertiary, etc., navigation, choose the item from the dropdown menu just above where you would like the new item to be located. For example, if you want your page to appear in a secondary menu, select the primary navigation page you want it to appear below in the dropdown menu.
Change the Order of Navigation
To change the order of the pages in your navigation in Drupal 8+ sites, click on the "Navigation Menu" link, found under the "Shortcuts" top menu.
This will take you to your site's main menu section where you can edit or move your menu items:
If your site is still using the older Drupal 7, to access the menu area you would click the "Structure" link in the black Admin menu at the top of your site.
From the Structure page click on the Menus link:
Then click on the Main menu's list links link on the right side of the page:
From for both versions of Drupal you can use the crossed arrows (
Drag an item underneath and to the right of a menu item to add it to the sub-menu below that item. In the example below, the "Meet the Vice Provost" page is in the secondary navigation of the "About Us" page.
If you want to keep an item in the menu, but not have it visibly show up in the menu, you can uncheck the ENABLED check box.
Once you have finished making changes, click the Save configuration button to publish your changes. NOTE: Your changes will not be saved until you click the Save configuration button and will be lost if you navigate away from the page before saving.
Add Custom Menu Items
If you need to add a custom menu item to your menu—a document, a link to a page on a different website, etc., this is done from the same location as the Change the Order of Navigation section. At the top of that page, click on the + Add link link at the top of the page below the menu:
Drupal 7 will look like this:
Enter in the Menu link title for your custom menu item and the new page's URL. The URL can be either an internal or an external link. If it is an internal link, make sure you use the relative path setting which will look like: /pageURLname and not have a leading sitename.uoregon.edu part of the URL.
To assign your page to a specific place in your navigation structure, use the dropdown menu below the Parent item, just like you would when editing the menu item of a page. The parent item is the page directly above where you want your page to appear in the site structure.
- To add your page to the primary navigation, choose the <Main menu> option from the Parent item drop down, which is selected by default.
- To add your page to the secondary, tertiary, etc., navigation, choose the item from the dropdown menu just above where you would like the new item to be located. For example, if you want your page to appear in a secondary menu, select the primary navigation page you want it to appear below in the dropdown menu.
- The below example shows Drupal 7, but other than the styles, the functionality is the same in Drupal 8+ versions.
