To help users navigate through the website, menus are placed in the design, appearing on every page. By default, the page contains the main navigation in the header and a footer navigation. Further menus are available and can be activated. Extensions (e.g. multilingualism with language selection) often provide further menus.
Menus contain individual menu entries with a title, link target and possibly further settings.
Create menu items
Normal menu entries link to content of the type "Page". When creating the content, a menu entry can easily be created using the column on the right of the 'Edit' page. The title of the menu entry may differ from the page title. Pages with a menu entry automatically get a descriptive URL.
External links can be easily created in the menu administration. An icon (arrow) in the navigation indicates to users that this link is leaving the website.
Menu entries can be deactivated in the administration, hiding them from the menus. This can be useful because this way, the pages have the correct breadcrumb while not overloading the menu. For the editor's convenience, an activated menu item pointing to an unpublished page is hidden for normal users.
Hierarchical navigation
Menu entries can already be arranged hierarchically during creation. The pages descriptive URL also contains all higher-level elements.
The hierarchy is displayed differently depending on the menu. The display can also be influenced by settings in the design.
Breadcrumb
From the second level onwards, the breadcrumb appears and represents the hierarchy. This allows users to navigate easily to higher-level pages. In addition, the active menu entry is specially marked in the navigation.
Change hierarchy
The hierarchy can be changed in the menu management page with Drag & Drop. The individual contents must be edited and saved again so that their understandable URL is updated. The old URL then becomes a redirection to the new one so that external links continue to work.
Responsive design
The navigation is displayed differently depending on the size of the screen. All points remain accessible on all devices, but the main menu on a mobile device, for example, must first be opened to make the menu entries visible.
For the presentation of the mobile menu, numerous extensions are available.
Main menu
The primary navigation through the website is via the main menu. Its structure is oriented as closely as possible to the needs of the visitors. Developing a solid information architecture is often the most difficult conceptual task in a project. Projects often start leanly with the most important menu entries and plan to develop further areas of content later and then provide them as additional menu entries. Primer can handle organic growth of the navigation and structural changes very well.
Simple microsites are often limited to 3 to 5 menu items. Larger websites often require two clear levels of navigation.
The second level in the hierarchy can be displayed as a second row, or as a fold-out menu of the first level.
Secondary menu
The secondary menu is displayed less prominently and is useful if the main menu contains too many items. For example, background information about the organization, media information, contact, etc. can thus be separated from the main content. The main menu can then focus more on the user's needs.
Menu in footer
The menu in the footer can be managed completely separately. It is often used for legal, privacy information and other formal aspects.
Multilingualism
Once a project is multilingual, the language selection must be placed in the design. This allows each page to go directly to its translation.
On the front page a language recognition is performed and each user is redirected to the preferred language. Therefore the language selection is displayed less prominently in the design on mobile devices.
Menu entries can be translated normally. Primer can also hide menu entries for a specific language by setting the class attribute no-lang-SPRACHCODE(e.g. no-lang-de for German). Otherwise, untranslated menu entries for all languages are also shown.
Menu for users
Links to the login page are normally not displayed on information pages. Once the Community extension is installed, normal users need orientation for login / logout and the link to their profile.