Genesis comes with a feature called Primary Navigation Extras, which let’s you stick the following at the end of the primary navigation: Date, RSS Feed, Search, or Twitter link. But for a project I’m working on now, I wanted something more custom.
This tutorial will show you how to customize the navigation area. I’ll be sticking a “Follow” section at the end of the navigation with links to an RSS feed and Twitter profile. You can use this technique to do almost anything to the navigation – stick something before it, after it, or modify the navigation’s output itself.
I’m going to walk you through the code, so skip to the end if you just want the functioning code.
Setting up the Filter
The best way to modify Genesis (and any other theme framework for that matter) is with functions attached to actions and filters. If you’d like a review, take a look at the Plugin API in the Codex.
I’m going to create a function called follow_icons() and attach it to two different filters, genesis_nav_items and wp_nav_menu_items. Which filter is actually used depends on what type of menu you select in the Genesis Options, so include them both for compatibility.
This code isn’t really doing anything yet. It’s pulling in the content of the nav menu and sending it right back out. The first condition of the add_filter specifies the filter you want to work with. The second is the function you want attached to that filter. The third is the priority (10 is default), and the fourth is the number of arguments used (I’m only using 1).
Add your Changes
Once you have the basic filter set up, you can jump in and add your modifications.
In the first line I’ve created a variable called $follow which will contain the code I’m adding, and the second line sticks my new code to the end of the existing navigation content. This just contains static text right now, which I’ll be replacing next with some more code.
I’ve turned the static RSS and Twitter text into links and images. Here’s what each one means:
get_bloginfo('rss_url');– This is the link to the RSS feed. The reason I didn’t hardcode an RSS feed link in is if you change your RSS feed using the Genesis Options, this will automatically be updated. This code also works on any site now, not just the one I built this for (always try and make your code easily reusable for future projects).get_bloginfo('stylesheet_directory');– This is the link to your child theme’s directory. I have an image for the RSS feed and Twitter uploaded in the images directory of the child theme.esc_url()– Any time you’re using data created by a person, you want to escape it. Escaping it ensures that untrusted text can’t do damage to your site (more info here). I have to thank Aaron Brazell for teaching me this.genesis_get_option('nav_extras_twitter_id')– In the Genesis Options panel, inside Primary Navigation Extras is a box to type your twitter username. This function pulls the content of that box.
From there, you can use CSS to style it how you want.
This technique can be used to do anything to the navigation. You could stick something to the beginning or modify the $output to change the navigation itself.
Hi Bill,
I would not really be exaggerating to say you have saved my life. Your tutorials and snippets are amazing and I can’t say enough how much I appreciate and benefit from them.
I have used but modified the code above and have achieved what I need plus an unusual twist. There is now a ’1′ in my navigation bar. I can’t figure it out for the life of me and would really appreciate it if you could have a look here – git://gist.github.com/1786595.git
Thanks a ton for everything
I believe the issue is that dynamic_sidebar() echos the sidebar and then returns “true” if it worked. When you echo a variable that is set to “true” it shows up as 1.
If you must use a sidebar, you’ll need to output buffer it. Try this: https://gist.github.com/1794879
Thank a lot Bill. The code you supplied almost did the trick. A little tweaking and it is now perfect. Code posted with yours…
Hi Bill,
Thanks for sharing this code. To me, as a novice it seems that in order to implement this code one would need to know how to make a plug in. I was wondering if making a plug in available so that it would be easy to implement would be difficult for this type of application. If it is not, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks
This code can be added directly to your theme files, but could also be done by a plugin. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to turn it into a plugin (or to support that plugin), but you could hire a developer to do it for you.
Hi Bill,
This was amazingly helpful. I’ve implemented the code you recommended for chad above on my site.
Quick question: is there a way to do the same thing chad did but also for the subnav? I’m pretty new at this and haven’t yet been able to figure it out. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Chris
Yep, just change ‘primary’ to ‘secondary’.
Just slapped my forehead. Awesome! Thx!
Thank you so much for this write up – it worked perfectly!!!!
Some might found this one helpful:
add_filter( ‘genesis_nav_items’, ‘sws_social_icons’, 10, 2 );
add_filter( ‘wp_nav_menu_items’, ‘sws_social_icons’, 10, 2 );
function sws_social_icons($menu, $args) {
$args = (array)$args;
if ( ‘primary’ !== $args['theme_location'] )
return $menu;
ob_start();
dynamic_sidebar(‘Social Menu’);
$social = ob_get_clean();
return $social . $menu;
}
It just makes an extra widget area in the primary navigation
Getting the following error:
Fatal error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in /home/clicktruemedia/peytonwilliamsforcongress.com/va/wp-content/themes/politica/functions.php on line 31
Referenced line is:
if ( ‘secondary’ !== $args['theme_location'] )
Have changed from ‘primary’ to ‘secondary’ b/c I need modification to appear in sub-nav.
Does ‘theme_location’ need to be specified? I pasted it into my functions.php exactly as shown, but is this a placeholder for the actual path to the theme?
Hmm, it looks like the error is that your $args is an object, not an array. Try doing print_r( $args ); exit; to see what’s in the args, and then find the theme location. You might need to use $args->theme_location.
I’ve never seen that issue before.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the great tutorial, but when I pasted your code into my functions.php file, it gave me the same error that Jonah was getting:
Fatal error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in /home/livephil/public_html/thetimoroustimes.com/wp-content/themes/child/functions.php on line 43
Line 43 is:
if ( ‘primary’ !== $args['theme_location'] )
I did the print_r($args), and got the following:
stdClass Object ( [menu] => [container] => [container_class] => [container_id] => [menu_class] => menu menu-primary superfish [menu_id] => [echo] => 0 [fallback_cb] => wp_page_menu [before] => [after] => [link_before] => [link_after] => [items_wrap] =>
%3$s
[depth] => 0 [walker] => [theme_location] => primary )
Any tips on troubleshooting?
Thanks!
BJorn
It’s been a while since I’ve used this technique, but it looks like you’re getting an object, not an array, back. Try using $args->theme_location instead of $args['theme_location']
That was it, thanks! And I should have figured that out from your reply to Jonah, I wasn’t sure where to place the $args->theme location. Thanks again!
Thank you very much for sharing this Bill. As a Genesis newbie I was completely lost but thanks to your piece of code I was able to create a submenu drop down layer.
This looks like the start of what I want to do. Seems a common request but I can find little help.
I want to add the search form to the right side of the secondary nav. I tried the plugin Genesis Nav Menu Amplified but it breaks my template. Any help on this would be appreciated.
So here is what I did. I added a new widget section to the same position as the secondary nav and with css aligned the search form to the right of the navbar. Seems to work and is more flexible than coding this into the nav.
“Genesis comes with a feature called Primary Navigation Extras” – where do I find this? I just want to add a search at the end of my nav bar.
Go to Genesis > Theme Settings > Navigation Settings. Make sure “Include Primary Navigation” is checked, then check “Enable Extras on the Right Side”, and select “Search Form”.
Hi Bill
is there any way i can change where this ends up in the menu, at the moment it outputs the …etc as the first list item in the menu
is it possible to have it so it becomes the last list item in the menu?
hey guys…
does anyone know the answer to this, getting our custom ‘li’ at the end of the menu instead of the beginning?
really stuck on this one.
At the bottom of the code snippet you’ll see:
return $menu . $follow;. Simply switch to the variables to make your custom code show at the beginning:return $follow . $menu;Ha ! GENIUS !!!
and so simple. it was for a client, so was really important too..
thanks champ, hugely appreciated
Hello Bill,I am looking forward to using the code you’ve offered here, but I am really new to all of this and don’t understand it fully.
Do I simply paste this code at the bottom of the functions.php area? Also I would like to simply add a search bar on my secondary nav, do you have the code to make that work?
Thanks in advance for your help!
John
Yes, this code would go in functions.php.
To add the search bar to the secondary navigation, use this: https://gist.github.com/d0644aa57b5934263349
I’m so sorry, but even though I have been using Studio Press themes for over three years and modifying them mostly through CSS and slightly through modifying the functions.php file, I am not knowledgeable enough in PHP to understand your solution above. I want to add a Like Us on Facebook link to the right side of the primary navigation. Facebook provides the code. Is it possible to add this code the right side of the navigation bar?
Yes, it is possible to add that, but writing the code for you is outside the scope of free support I provide through my blog.
Hey! This is awesome, thx!
2 Things:
1. I used the code, and changed the links and images. It’s putting my three images to the right of the primary nav bar, which I want, but they’re stacked vertically. If I put “display: inline” one each on the “a” tags, I can get them to line up horizontally. However, for some reason, it doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to the class on my “a” tags. When I use the debugger in Chrome, it’s not showing the class elements on the right, even though it’s showing it in the HTML on the left. Any ideas?
2. What’s the best way to insert an external URL into the “a” tag? (e.g. http://www.google.com)
Actually, I made it work.
I put each of the images/links as their own “li”, and that seemed to work
Hi, I’m currently working on developing a child theme for genesis. You’re code was VERY helpful in getting what I wanted faster, however I wanted to take it a step further and add many other social media icons. I would like to be able to input the specific page urls for various social media sites (not just twitter) in the wp genesis admin and have a function pull that content into the function you wrote here, so that I (or others) could interact with the admin (and not have to mess with the functions.php file) to turn on and off various social icons, and input their individual urls. I guess what’d I’d like to do is “genericize” it further – the way you can input the twitter handle… Is this possible? Where would I even start? Is an explanation outside the scope of this comment section? It would be really great to know how to do this.
Thanks in advance!
Hello,
I’m banging my head against my keyboard trying to figure out why I keep getting a T_STRING error when I try to include a search form in my functions.php using this method: https://gist.github.com/4656469
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
-Efrem
I’m not sure what you’re trying to do there. To include a search form somewhere, use get_search_form( false ) ; the false returns it, leave that out to echo. See here for more information: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_search_form
If you’re trying to customize the search form’s text or the button text, use the filters ‘genesis_search_text’, and ‘genesis_search_button_text’. For more information, look about halfway down this page: http://www.billerickson.net/genesis-quick-tips/
Hi, Bill.
Thanks for the quick reply. I was trying to include a custom search form in the nav bar of my theme using this code: http://wpmu.org/add-search-by-category-functionality-to-your-wordpress-site/ and using the method you described above.
I can get the search form with the category select menu to show up but it shows up above our header–not in the nav bar.
It sounds like you’re using get_search_form() which echos it, rather than get_search_form( false ), which returns it.
I used this method to add a menu-toggle button (needed to make the navigation a toggle button for smaller devices) inside the and right before . It is required that the toggle button be directly above the ul.
Think this is the best approach or can I add an action that could place my toggle button Menu inside the add the custom nav action described above?
To sum it up my code has to look like this:
Menu
Thanks.
Wow this is exactly what I was looking for, thanks Bill! And so simple too! I added it to my secondary nav and it works like a charm
Just wanted to show my appreciation!
(new comment, botched the link in the last one)
Hi Bill,
Thanks for writing this blog post.
The first version of the code (that technically does nothing)… does nothing. So that’s good.
The second and third code samples break my Studiopress Outreach child theme.
After a bit of digging, I came across this post:
http://www.billerickson.net/customizing-wordpress-menus/#extra-code
Although that sample code did nothing either.
However, by merging the two (replacing filters and renaming the function within the new filters), I came up with this code that actually works for me: http://codebin.org/view/073ef4cc
I’ll try pasting it below, but I’m not sure if that will work. Either way, I hope this helps someone else!
Hi Bill
It was a nice article. Actually I am developing a menu where I need to add div under sub menu.
Here is the code which I am using
add_filter( ‘genesis_nav_items’, ‘custom_sbmenu’, 10, 2 );
add_filter( ‘wp_nav_menu_items’, ‘custom_sbmenu’, 10, 2 );
function custom_sbmenu($menu, $args) {
$args = (array)$args;
if ( ‘primary’ !== $args['theme_location'] )
return $menu;
$follow = ‘Some Text and Images’;
return $menu . $follow;
}
The result is:
—————–
Menu Item 1
Menu Item 2
Menu Item 1
Menu Item 2
Menu Item 3
Some Text and Images
What I want to achieve is:
———————————-
Menu Item 1
Menu Item 2
Menu Item 1
Menu Item 2
Some Text and Images
Menu Item 3
Please let me know what changes I need to do in my code? Looking forward to hear from you soon.
Thanks.