Mega Menus: How do you set them up?

[jamminjames]

The prospect of using Mega Menus is very enticing. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any straightforward information on how to use them.

In Appearance/Widgets, I see the Mega Menu Widget Areas, but there's no way to set them to appear in a certain area of the theme. In Appearance/Menus, you can set the top level menu items to be in a Mega Menu Widget Area, but still, how do you direct where these Areas will appear? I'd like to have a Mega Menu in the Header, on the right side, if possible.

The only thing I could think to do was to just create a new menu in Appearance/Menus, with the top level items set with the Mega Menu settings (3 columns), and set it in the Navigation Bar Above Header area, but it was transparent and barely readable, and otherwise did not act any differently than a regular menu (they did not have the columns as I had set them).

Is a plugin like UberMenu required to use this?

As you can see, I am very confused, and cannot find any directions for how to set up Mega Menus.

Someone asked in another topic about a tutorial for setting up a Mega Menu. That would be awesome, if anyone could do it!

Thanks for any help.

[sayontan]

For now the instructions here are the only ones available: http://aquoid.com/news/2012/02/suffusion-version-4-0-0/. The end result should look like the picture here: http://aquoid.com/news/themes/suffusion ... -and-mega/

[rsteer]

Sayontan --

There are two pictures at the link you provided. I presume you are referring to the second menu image, where the menu item "Actiform" is highlighted?

Thanks.

[jamminjames]

OK, I guess the most confusing part for me is where they get placed.

As the instructions you link to say, "There are 10 widget areas dedicated to mega menus," but nowhere in the theme setup that I've found does it say where those widget areas are.

As I said in my original post, I could see where the areas are listed in the regular Widget setup page, but it's just a numbered list, I see no explanation of where the menus would go, based on which area you choose. Is it just a trial and error thing, to see where they end up?

Also, the one time I did get something to show up, I tried Mega Menu Widget Area 1, and since it didn't show up anywhere on its own, I set it in Appearance/Menus as the top navigation menu. It then showed up at the very top of the browser window, but it had no background color, and was transparent and hard to see. It also did not have the three columns, as I had set it up in Appearance/Menus. Structure-wise, other than not having a background, it really just looked like a regular flyout menu.

I know you're busy, Sayontan, but maybe someone else, who has had success with your setup, could write a more detailed tutorial. Anybody?

Thanks for any help.

[sayontan]

As the instructions you link to say, "There are 10 widget areas dedicated to mega menus," but nowhere in the theme setup that I've found does it say where those widget areas are.

As I said in my original post, I could see where the areas are listed in the regular Widget setup page, but it's just a numbered list, I see no explanation of where the menus would go, based on which area you choose. Is it just a trial and error thing, to see where they end up?

I didn't follow the part about "a numbered list". Also the menus don't go to a mega menu widget area. Rather a mega menu widget area goes to a menu. If you click on a "Mega Menu Widget Area" under Appearance -> Widgets, you will see this: "The contents of this widget area are included as a mega-menu if this widget area is selected for a tab under Appearance → Menus"

The high level process is pretty simple (and is the essence of the instructions in my first link). Let's say you have a menu with 3 links, "Home", "Blog" and "Contact". These are regular tabs, pretty much like the "Navigation Bar Below Header" here: http://aquoid.com/news. Now let's say you want to add a 4th tab for a mega menu. That tab will be called "Fun Stuff" and will have things like Recent Posts, a Search field, Recent Comments etc. So this is what you will do:
1. Go to Appearance -> Menus and pull up the menu where you had Home, Blog and Contact as items.
2. Add a new item to this menu called "Fun Stuff" and set it up as a Custom Link with URL #
3. Associate a Mega Menu widget area to "Fun Stuff", say "Mega Menu Widget Area 1". Set up other parameters, such as the number of columns (say that is 3). Save the menu.
4. Now go to Appearance -> Widgets. Drag these widgets to "Mega Menu Widget Area 1": Recent Posts, Search, Recent Comments. Add others as required.

That's it. Now when you visit your site you will see a new tab called "Fun Stuff" and it will have the 3 widgets underneath it (whatever the contents of that widget area are).

[jamminjames]

Ah, now it is all becoming clear! Thank you so much for the detailed response, I will play with that.

I would highly recommend you putting these same instructions along with your other instructions, it might save kinda slow people like me a lot of grief!

Thanks again.

[Bock]

I'm also one of those slow people.

Sayontan, how does one choose a URL to associate with the custom link?

[levonk]

I'm also one of those slow people.

Sayontan, how does one choose a URL to associate with the custom link?

You don't associate the URL with the Mega Menu. Just add the custom links menu item: enter a title and any test for the URL, then click Add to Menu. Save your menu. Open your new menu by clicking on the triangle to the right, next to the word Custom. You will now see extra options below the description to link to your Mega Menu Widget.

It is not easy to figure out, and there are no clear instructions that will walk you through.

[99gui1]

mega course
if you understand chinese,try it. sorry,my english is poor.
http://www.99gui1.com/853/suffusion-mega.html