Menu items

What are menu items?

Menu items are the primary navigation links (such as "Home," "About Us," or "Contact") that visitors use to navigate your website.

The Menu Manager allows you to organize these links into distinct sets (involving a main category with nested links). Depending on your website's custom template design, you may have one or more navigation menus (such as a Main Menu, a Footer Menu, or a Member-Only Menu). Clicking on a menu set's name opens its specific list of links, where you can add, rearrange, or remove your site's navigation buttons.

To access this tool, go to Website > Menu Items.

Creating new menu items

1. Click the name of the specific menu set you want to add an item to.
2. Once inside the list, click the New (+) button in the top-right toolbar.
3. Click on one of the ten descriptive categories to expand it, then choose the exact function or destination for your link. See Selecting a menu item type below for a full description of options.
4. Enter a Title (this is the actual text that will display on your live website menu bar). The system will automatically generate a lowercase, dash-separated Alias based on your title. Note: Every single menu item must have an entirely unique alias. If the system alerts you that an alias is already in use, edit it manually (for example, change "community" to "community-page" or "community-2") to differentiate it.
5. Choose where the link sits in your menu structure using the Parent dropdown:

• Select Top to make the item a brand-new, standalone main tab in your navigation bar.
• Select an existing menu item to turn your new link into a drop-down or fly-out sub-navigation item underneath that chosen parent tab.

6. Locate the Group Access checkboxes on the right side of the screen. Check the boxes for each member type or public group that should be allowed to see and click this button on your live site. 
7. Click Save when finished.

Selecting a menu item type

When building a new link, your options are organized into ten functional categories depending on what content you want to display.

1. Database Links

• My Profile: Directs logged-in members straight to their personal profile management page.
• View All: Brings users to your public or member directory listing.
• Advanced Search: Directs users to your multi-criteria directory search page.

2. Article Content Layouts

• Single Article: Displays one specific article page. You choose which article to display in the *Parameters (Basic)* panel.
• Front Page Blog Layout: Displays a dynamic feed of all articles that have their "Front Page" checkmark enabled in the Article Manager.
• Category Blog Layout: Displays the brief introductory text of multiple articles from a specific category, often arranged in columns.
• Category List Layout: Displays a clean, scannable text list of article titles from a single category.
• Archived Article List: Displays a complete index of your archived site articles.

3. Community Features

• Event Calendar: Directs visitors to your interactive master events calendar.
• Event List: Displays your scheduled events in a chronological text list format.
• News Feeds: Pulls up a page displaying your configured external RSS news streams.
• My Community / Blog: Directs members to your built-in social community platform or organizational blog.

4. Community Forums

• View Forum List: Takes users to your main discussion board index. Visibility of categories depends on individual forum group permissions.
• Most Recent Posts: A quick shortcut to view the latest active discussions across all boards.
• My Posts: Displays a personal history of a user's forum activity (recommended for logged-in members only).

5. Interactive and Utilites

• Polls: Displays your active, published organization polls. To build a poll first, navigate to Community > Polls.
• Forms: Links directly to an active online form (such as a registration or renewal form). If a form is missing from this list, go to Forms > Form List and verify that it is fully published.
• Directory Searches / Search Criteria: Directs users straight to the real-time results of a pre-saved backend search or specialized directory view.
• Profile Lists: Displays a filtered list of member profiles pulling from your saved administrative profile lists.

8. Other

• Login/Logout: A smart link. If a visitor is logged out, the button reads "Login" and routes to your login page. Once they log in, the button dynamically switches to read "Logout".
• External Link: Redirects visitors away from your platform to a completely separate, external website URL.
• Forgot Password: A direct link to your member password recovery and reset page.
• Separator: A non-clickable structural menu placeholder. Use this to create a text header in a drop-down list to organize sub-items cleanly.

Using the list

When viewing the links inside a specific menu set, you can track and filter your site architecture using the following dashboard options:

Searching and filtering

• Filter text search: Type all or part of a link's title or its unique ID number into the search field to find it instantly.
• Max levels filter: Restrict your view by navigation depth. "Level 1" represents your main top navigation tabs. "Level 2" items are sub-menus hidden directly beneath Level 1 tabs, and so on.
• Select state: Filter your dashboard view to isolate only Published or only Unpublished links.

Understanding the list columns

• #: A standard index number automatically assigned for tracking layout order.
• Checkbox: Select individual or multiple boxes to perform bulk toolbar actions like moving or deleting links.
• Menu Item: The frontend display name of the button. Click this text link to edit the item's settings.
• Default: Displays a gold star or check icon next to the single menu item chosen to act as your website's homepage.
• Published: Shows whether the link is live. Click the icon in this column to instantly toggle a button's visibility.
• Order: The display sequence of your navigation buttons. If your list is sorted by this column, click the up/down arrows or input manual numbers and click the Save Order icon (the disk image in the header row) to save your changes. Note on Layout Overrides: Manual ordering numbers only apply if the Advanced Parameters inside that specific Menu Item are set to use Order. If it is set to an override like Title - Alphabetical, these list numbers are ignored.
• Type: Identifies the technical functional category of the link (for example, Single Article, URL, Forms).
• Item ID: A permanent, unique system identification number used for internal routing. It cannot be altered.

Understanding the toolbar

Select the checkboxes next to your chosen menu items, then click an upper-right toolbar button to execute an action:

• Menus: Exits the current list and returns you to the Menu Manager dashboard.
• Permissions: Opens the security screen to change group view permissions for all links inside this specific menu set simultaneously.
• Default: Highlights an individual menu item and sets it as your main website homepage.
• Publish / Unpublish: Activates or deactivates the selected links on your public website.
• Move: Shifts links completely out of the current menu set and transfers them into another menu set (e.g., moving a link from your top menu to your footer menu).
• Copy: Duplicates selected items and prompts you to select a target destination menu set to place the copies.
• Move to Trash: Removes items from active view and places them into a temporary holding bin.
• View Trash: Opens your system recycle bin where you can choose to permanently purge old links or safely restore trashed items back to active status.