Navigation

Navigation in Superlite is managed separately from pages and other content. This gives you control over which pages appear in menus, in what order they appear and whether a menu item links to content inside the site or to an external website.

A published page does not need to appear in a menu. You can therefore create pages that are only reached through links from other pages, while keeping the main navigation focused on the most important sections of the site.

Opening Navigation

Open Navigation from the main Superlite menu.

This section contains the menus available to the active site.

A site can have more than one menu. For example, a theme may use one menu for the main navigation and another in the footer.

Select a menu to view and edit its items.

Adding a page to a menu

You can add an existing Superlite page to a menu.

Choose the option to add a menu item and select the page you want to include.

Superlite links the menu item to the page.

This is preferable to manually entering the URL because the menu can remain connected to the content managed by Superlite.

The text displayed in the menu can normally be based on the page title or adjusted separately where the interface allows it.

Adding an external link

Menus can also contain links to websites or pages outside Superlite.

Choose the option to add an external link and enter the destination URL.

You can then enter the text that should appear in the menu.

For example, a menu could contain links to the main sections of your Superlite site together with a link to an external booking system or another website.

Check external URLs carefully before saving the menu.

Changing the menu order

Menu items can be arranged in the order in which you want them to appear.

Superlite supports changing the order through the Navigation interface.

Move an item above or below another item to change its position.

The active theme uses this order when rendering the menu on the public website.

After changing the order, publish or rebuild the affected parts of the site where required.

Creating submenus

Navigation can contain hierarchical levels.

This allows one menu item to contain items below it.

For example, a Services item could contain separate links for:

• SEO
• Paid search
• Analytics

Move the relevant items below the parent item using the Navigation interface.

The active theme determines how hierarchical navigation is displayed.

A theme might use a dropdown menu, an expanded list or another presentation.

Internal and external links

Superlite menus can contain both internal pages and external URLs.

Internal items point to content managed by Superlite.

External items point to a URL that you enter manually.

Where possible, use an internal page item for pages managed by Superlite instead of creating an external style link to the same page.

This makes the relationship between the menu and the page clearer inside the CMS.

Primary navigation

A theme can request a named menu for a particular position.

The main site navigation is commonly called:

primary

The active theme can use this menu for the main navigation displayed at the top of the website.

The exact position and design depend on the theme.

Changing the contents of the primary menu changes which links the theme receives for that navigation area.

Footer navigation

A theme can also request a separate menu for the footer.

This menu is commonly called:

footer

A footer menu can contain links that do not need to appear in the main navigation, such as contact information, privacy information or other secondary pages.

The available named menus depend on the theme and the Superlite configuration.

Navigation and themes

Superlite stores the menu structure, while the theme controls how the menu looks.

The theme decides how menu items are displayed, how submenus behave and where each named menu appears.

This separation means that changing theme does not require you to recreate the navigation structure.

A new theme can use the same menus if it supports the same menu locations.

Navigation and page titles

The name of a page and the text used in navigation do not always need to be identical.

A page can have a longer descriptive title while the menu uses shorter text.

For example, a page titled:

Search engine optimization services

could use:

SEO services

in the main navigation.

Use menu text that is clear and easy to understand.

Removing an item from a menu

Removing a menu item does not delete the page it links to.

It only removes that link from the selected menu.

The page can remain published and accessible through its URL or through links elsewhere on the site.

This makes it possible to change the navigation without changing the underlying content.

Deleting a page that appears in navigation

Before deleting a page, check whether it is used in any menus.

A menu should not contain links to content that no longer exists.

If a page has been replaced by another page, update the navigation to point to the replacement.

You may also need a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new destination.

Publishing navigation changes

Navigation is part of the generated public website.

Changes made in the administration interface need to be reflected in the static HTML before visitors can see them.

Superlite rebuilds the pages affected by the menu change.

Because the same menu can appear on many pages, changing navigation may require more pages to be rebuilt than changing the content of a single page.

Navigation and the homepage

The page selected as the homepage can also be included in navigation.

A theme may display this as Home or use another label you choose.

The public homepage itself is available at the root of the website:

example.com/

You do not need to create a separate copy of the page just to add a Home link to the navigation.