Managing Website Menus
Edit Menus
With standard Drupal website configurations, there should be three main types of menu systems for your website: Navigation, Primary Links and Secondary Links. The outward website display primarily works with Primary Links and Secondary Links, while the Navigation menu pertains to the administrative options that do not affect the website's display.
There are two areas where you can manage the menu structure. The first are is directly on the individual nodes (i.e. pages) in Menu Settings. This option is ideal when you are creating new content and you would like to immediately add it to the menu. *Note: Remember to add a "Menu link title" - if you neglect this step, your page will not show up in the menu.
The other option for managing menus is to go to the Menus administration page. Follow these steps to get there:
- Login and go to Administer.
- Go to Site Building: Menus.
- Select Navigation, Primary Links, Secondary Links.
- Use the upper tabs for "Add Item" to add new menu links, and "List Items" to see the menu organization and drag-and-drop menu links.
Menu Structure
- Primary Links refer to the main menu featured on your website, usually the primary navigation tool for users. Primary Links usually are structured to run left to right, so in the Menu Settings a greater weight will draw the menu item to the right, and on the Menu administration page the further down the list the menu item is, the further right that menu link will appear.
- Secondary Links refer to the pages that are sub-sections of the primary links. Usually secondary links are within a drop-down menu featured on the main navigation of the site, or are listed on a column with you are in any of the pages within the larger section. When you are editing the Menu Settings, the select menu is called "Parent item" because you are adding a node to a larger category.
- Adding pages to the Navigation menu is usually unnecessary and will not help website visitors navigate because the Navigation menu is exposed to authenticated users only.
Adding and removing menu items does not change the node's URL, but if you change the node's URL manually it may disrupt the menu link.
