Is using wp_nav_menu compulsory?

  • mikewhitehead00

    (@mikewhitehead00)


    8 years, 7 months ago

    I’ve built a site as a stand alone front-end site which I’m now loading onto WordPress to utilise the CMS facility. I’m using a child theme for HTML5 Blank Theme. Everything’s good and everything is working in my localhost. However, I’ve been told I’m breaking WordPress conventions by not using the wp_nav_menu to build my Home page navigation, instead I’m using a standard frontend html code version with CSS styling applied – 

    <header>
        <nav>
            <a href="<?php the_permalink(4); ?>#particle-slider">Home</a>
            <a href="#what">What we do</a>
            <a href="#who">Who we are</a>
            <a href="#partners">Who we work with</a>
            <a href="#contact">Say hello</a>
            <a href="<?php the_permalink(70); ?>">Blog</a>
        </nav>
    </header>

    So, will this navigation work when the site is launched? I understand that WordPress convention may dictate that I use the WP menu but will my version still work? I’m quite new to WordPress so using the html blank theme seemed the most straightforward way to set up a pre-built site. Do I need to change this?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Jacob Peattie

    (@jakept)

    8 years, 7 months ago

    It’s not compulsory (it might be if you’re submitting to the theme repository), but it means that it’s not going to be editable via the CMS, which seems to defeat the purpose of moving it to a CMS.

    Thread Starter mikewhitehead00

    (@mikewhitehead00)

    8 years, 7 months ago

    @jakept Ah, I see. I guess I’m okay to leave it as it is then – my main menu is set up with some javascript to scroll to sections on the home page so I’d rather leave it as it is. I won’t be submitting anything to the theme repository, I’m using the html5 blank child theme as I’ve been led to believe it’s a good way to handle front-end files to move across to wordpress. I’ve set up quite a bit on the CMS site so it was worth moving it to wordpress but I doubt the nav menu will change at all really. I can also see why it would be a good idea to do nav menus the conventional way. Thanks, Jacob.

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    8 years, 7 months ago

    If you will not be distributing your theme, you can do as you please. (Well, within what’s legal for your jurisdiction anyway 🙂 ) You certainly don’t need to use wp_nav_menu(), but I would advise you to at least make use of the nav_menu_item post type created by the default admin menu screen. It’s going to make future maintenance of the site much easier. Even though you anticipate the menu never changing, in my experience, somewhere down the line it always does change eventually. You could directly query for these posts and loop through the results to generate any sort of menu structure you may desire. The posts basically provide the labels and destination for each menu item, it’s up to your custom menu function how to make use of the data. My two cents worth 🙂

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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