Navigation: Quasi-Mega-Menu, Float Left, & Additional Mobile Menu Item

[Maziar]

Hi Tom,

Here are a few of suggestions regarding GP’s navigation:

1. Simple and lightweight quasi-mega-menu: some websites need to have a large number of sub-menu items (e.g. an ecommerce website) and although there are plenty of free and premium mega-menu plugins available, nearly all of them are bloated full of features that are either unnecessary or are already handled more efficiently by Generatepress. It would, therefore, be amazing if a css-based mega-menu-like functionality could be added to the theme that would enable the user to display sub-menu items in simple but user-friendly columns or tabs.

2. Navigation position floating to the left: the current navigation positioning setting gives us so many ways of customizing the look of the primary and secondary nav bars; there is, however, one essential option missing: Float Left. The need for Float Left may not have been obvious to a speaker of European languages, but when you consider that there are right-to-left scripts (Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, etc.) for which Float Right may not make sense you would see that there is a need indeed. Adding this feature would certainly make the theme more usable for non-European-language websites.

2.5. Assuming that the above Float Left option for navigational positioning is added, it would be awesome if we could have secondary navigation float to the right while the main navigation is floating to the left, with logo at the center. Given that the primary and secondary navigation bars could each display different types of items (say one being given entirely to the site’s main call-to-action) the end result would be a very efficient and effective header+navigation.

3. An additional menu item for mobile navigation bar: when viewed @ small screens, the current version of Generatepress allows us to have a navigation logo, a navigation search icon/field, and a slide-out menu button. I believe that the mobile user experience of this theme is very good but there is room for improvement and I think that having one additional menu item/icon next to the slide-out button is the answer. Consider the fact that most websites have one fundamental feature or call-to-action that they would like to draw their visitor’s attention to at all times (without trusting that their users will stumble upon it or look for it from the slide-out menu). For example, an ecommerce website needs to have a cart icon at all times, a community website benefits from an always-visible signup link, and many bloggers may like to keep a link to their Facebook or Twitter page visible on the menu for their mobile readers. Adding this feature would go a long way at enhancing the UX of GP at smaller screens.

I am not sure how practical the above suggestions are – they merely reflect the “I wish” moments that I had when playing around the navigation of the theme. Even if not practical, I hope they are useful in giving you some ideas anyways.

All the best
Maziar

[Tom]

Hi there,

Thanks so much for the suggestions, really appreciate it!

1. Will have to look into this one – adding a mega menu might be super complicated, which I try to stay away with GP.

2. Been working on this one – definitely a future option 🙂

2.5. Great idea!

3. Interesting, so the ability to add more menu items to the mobile menu bar?

Thanks again!

[Maziar]

I am glad to hear that you are working on the Float Left option (who knows maybe one day I make a website in Persian) and agree that if we have to choose between keeping things simple and having mega-menu functionality then simplicity is preferable.

The additional item on the mobile menu bar, is, I believe, essential and although people may not be missing it now, once it is provided they will find great uses for it. I think that whatever menu item you put on the mobile menu bar next to the slide-out button will on average get a higher number of visitors than the items of the slide-out menu. In order to keep things simple and uncluttered on small screens, however, it would make sense to limit the number of these additional items to one or maximum two: it/they should act as a strong call-to-action and not a replacement for the slide-out menu.

Thank you for your time and efforts
Maziar

[Tom]

I’ll definitely have to think about that mobile menu item idea – not sure how I would implement it while keeping it simple. Definitely a good idea though 🙂

Thanks!

[Author]

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