Multi-level Navigation Plugin for WordPress
Published June 1st, 2008 under Plugins
Sorry, but there are better ways to do this now. This project has been deprecated and is no longer in development. This page will be kept online for archival purposes and in case anyone is still interested in the project despite being no longer maintained.
This plugin is a replacement for the now defunct Suckerfish dropdown menu plugin for WordPress.
The plugin generates the code necessary to create a Son of Suckerfish horizontal dropdown, vertical flyout or horizontal slider menu. The plugin produces W3C valid HTML and CSS and only requires Javascript to function for very old browsers such as IE 6. The Javascript is held in an external file which is linked via IE conditional comments, so only the browsers which require it will download the file. You have control over what items (pages, categories, archives, blogroll etc.) appear in your dropdown via the plugins options page.
To style your menu, head over to the Multi-level Menu CSS Generator page. Simply copy and paste the CSS from the generator to the plugins options page.
Demo
Demo is available here … Multi-level Navigation Plugin demo
Download
The plugin is available for download here … Multi-level Navigation Plugin
Installation
Add the following code wherever you want the dropdown to appear in your theme (usually header.php) and activate the plugin in your admin panel.
This code adds a button for your home page and dropdowns for your Pages, Archives, Categories and Blogroll.
<?php if (function_exists('pixopoint_menu')) {pixopoint_menu();} ?>
Customisation
You can modify the look of your dropdown by using our new Multi-level Menu CSS Generator page. The generator has been designed with this plugin in mind, so just copy and paste the CSS code from the generator to the plugins options page.
If anyone out there would like a custom designed dropdown, then please get in touch with us via our contact page for pricing information.
Compatibility
The menus (CSS sourced from generator page) have been tested (and work correctly) in the following browsers:
Mozilla Firefox Version 3.0
Mozilla Firefox Version 2.0
Mozilla Firefox Version 1.5
Opera Version 9
Safari Version 3.0
Google Chrome
Internet Explorer Version 8 RC2
Internet Explorer Version 7.0
Internet Explorer Version 6.0 (with Javascript on)
Internet Explorer Version 5.5 (with Javascript on)
Internet Explorer Version 5.0 (with Javascript on)
Live Examples
There is a list of live examples in our forum … live examples
Credits
Thanks to Patrick Griffiths and Dan Webb for their article which we used as a model for the CSS used in this plugin. And thanks to Miriam Schwab for writing the blog post which motivated us to create it.
Support
For support, please visit the dropdown menus board in our support forum.
Telmo Bermeo says:
Does this plugin offer a contrain to only show a certain number of children from a parent that it has a lot of children? Please let me know.
October 18, 2012 at 1:14 am # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
I’m not sure what a “contrain” is.
October 21, 2012 at 10:13 pm # //
Jim says:
This menu is now broken in WordPress latest version? I have 2.3.3 and its disappeared completely…
December 10, 2012 at 3:28 pm # //
Ryan says:
I don’t think the plugin is at fault. I suspect something else has happened to your site to cause that.
December 10, 2012 at 3:38 pm # //
CHRCLMNKY says:
Hello Sir Ryan, just want to ask why the MLNP stops having the dynamic dropdown effect after upgrading to WP 3.5? Thanks.
December 12, 2012 at 11:44 am # //
Ryan says:
I’m not aware of any problems with the plugin.
December 12, 2012 at 11:49 am # //
Jan-E says:
The newest version of the plugin needs at least PHP 5.3. It is broken under PHP 5.2.
August 7, 2013 at 9:34 pm # //
Ryan says:
What happens when you use PHP 5.2?
August 7, 2013 at 9:39 pm # //
Daniel Dessinger says:
FYI, this is what the theme support specialist said:
“Contact the plugin authors and let them know your having trouble with the plugin and WordPress 3.5, most likely from the newer version of jQuery 3.5 is using.”
December 16, 2012 at 10:56 pm # //
Mindy says:
This plugin is not working on my most recent version of WordPress either. Any thoughts?
December 17, 2012 at 6:02 pm # //
Steve says:
The plugin is still broken when used on the new WordPress 3.5. Don’t update WordPress yet if you need this plugin to work.
January 6, 2013 at 4:45 am # //
Rob says:
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for this plug-in! It is great!
I am seeing an issue with the plug-in though. I used Firebug to see if I could figure out what the issue is. I am seeing the following: TypeError: jQuery(…).superfish is not a function.
It appears that superfish.js is not getting loaded. If I add a block with the superfish.js source referenced, it works fine.
This doesn’t actually break the menus, but it does keep subsequent javascript functions from executing in a jQuery (document).ready() block.
Is there any chance that this will be fixed?
Thanks!
January 22, 2013 at 3:16 am # //
Ryan says:
It should be working. I’ll see if I can figure out what is wrong tonight.
January 23, 2013 at 12:44 pm # //
Rob says:
Hi Ryan,
Did you have a chance to take a look? We’re still seeing the issue on our site. If you look at our home page, you will see the error (http://www.ulstercorps.org/). We’re using WP3.5. I think the issue arose after updating to 3.5.
Thanks!
February 3, 2013 at 1:14 pm # //
Ryan says:
I took a look but didn’t find anything wrong.
It seems that your site is not loading the superfish.js file, although when I install the plugin fresh it definitely does load, so I’m not sure what is causing that. I’ll try to get time to take a look for you later on. If I don’t respond back here, then I probably forgot so feel free to pester me about it.
February 3, 2013 at 1:30 pm # //
Rob says:
Hi Ryan,
We should have tried re-installing the plug-in right from the start. Since you indicated that it worked with a fresh install, we re-installed and everything is working now.
Thanks for looking into it!
February 4, 2013 at 11:49 am # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
I did indeed forget again!
You should never need to reinstall a plugin just to make it work, so there was clearly a bug afflicting you unfortunately. But glad to hear you got it working eventually.
February 4, 2013 at 12:14 pm # //
Celwin Frenzen says:
Hey,
I use this plugin for a client of mine. I just upgraded to WordPress 3.6 and now get this error:
Deprecated: Function ereg_replace() is deprecated in /wp-content/plugins/multi-level-navigation-plugin/legacy.php on line 124
When I change ereg_replace to preg_replace (as I should seeing ereg_replace is deprecated) I get this error:
Warning: preg_replace(): Unknown modifier ‘\’ in /wp-content/plugins/multi-level-navigation-plugin/legacy.php on line 124
I can’t seem to find the right modifier that’s causing the error though. Could you please take a look at this and fix it?
Thanks,
Celwin
August 7, 2013 at 9:35 am # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
Thanks for the detailed bug report. I’ll look into this and push out an update once I’ve found a solution for you.
August 7, 2013 at 10:43 am # //
Ryan says:
I’ve uploaded a new version of the plugin for you now.
August 7, 2013 at 9:11 pm # //
Celwin Frenzen says:
Thanks for the quick response and fix Ryan! Will download later today and let you know if it solved the problem (which I think it does).
August 8, 2013 at 6:43 am # //
Ray says:
I have the menu set up, but am having some minor issues:
1. the dropdown choices disappear very quickly and appear to be hidden behind other text on the screen.
2. the red menu bar is slightly wider than the rest of the content.
3. the search box has been displaced…how do I get it lined up with the menu bar as opposed to slightly higher?
Please check out the menu on my homepage and advise what I am missing and can do to get this fixed.. Thank you.
December 12, 2013 at 11:24 am # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
These are all CSS issues related to your theme. You will need to debug what is clashing between your themes CSS and the plugins CSS.
December 12, 2013 at 11:26 am # //
Brenda says:
Currently using this plugin and it works great except for one thing. It occasionally resets its settings to the default. Both the Appearance and the Menu contents revert to the default settings. Any thoughts on this?
January 28, 2014 at 3:07 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
Since no one else has reported this problem and I haven’t made any changes to it in a long time, my gut says this is probably something related to your particular WordPress installation rather than WordPress itself.
If you have any evidence otherwise, please let me know and I’ll take a closer look for you.
January 28, 2014 at 3:10 pm # //
Mael Shanti says:
Hello Ryan,
I am working on a new website based on WP since sunday, and I noticed that it is not possible, using the default WP menu, to add sub-content to the content in the menu (I mean that it is not possible to put a three sub-categories under a parent category, and to have them displayed with a dropdown in the menu).
After long researches, I found that plugin and that’s why I was wondering if it adds this ability to the WordPress primary menu. Also, is it possible with this plugin to add external links in the menu (e.g. “Forum” linking to an external PhpBB forum) ?
Many thanks in advance for answering !
Edit : It seems like I’m just an idiot. I just fount out how to create sub-menus. Very sorry for disturbing ><
March 4, 2014 at 7:15 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
I’m pretty sure you can go as deep as you like with the built-in menu system. Is it possible that it is just your theme which is at fault and doesn’t support going any deeper?
And yes, it is possible to add custom links in with both the built-in WordPress menu system and this plugin.
I do not recommend using this plugin anymore though. I think the built-in system is better in almost every regard.
March 4, 2014 at 7:20 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
Haha, nice to see someone making use of the comment editor 🙂 That is one of my favourite plugins, but I hadn’t notice anybody but me using it on my site(s) until now.
And no problem on bothering me. Glad to hear you found a solution.
March 4, 2014 at 7:21 pm # //
Mael Shanti says:
Thanks !
Regarding the comment editor, would you link it to me ? I may use it on my website too, as it seems cool !
March 4, 2014 at 10:15 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
It was created by my friend Ronald. It is called Simple Comment Editing.
I wrote an article about it here … http://wprealm.com/blog/simple-comment-editing-a-review/
March 4, 2014 at 10:18 pm # //
Mael Shanti says:
Thanks !
March 5, 2014 at 9:55 pm # //
Lloyd Slapar says:
We’re having some issues with some of our drop down links not functioning on Android platforms. Has this been reported as an issue with the plugin? For instance our Program Schedules …A-Z listing is not sending us the child page instead it reverts to the Top Program Schedules Page.
March 31, 2014 at 8:17 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
That’s probably a CSS clash issue with the theme. If you can pin-point exactly what is causing it, I’m happy to check it out, but usually these sorts of issues are caused by clashes with a themes menu CSS rather than anything to do with the CSS provided with the plugin.
April 1, 2014 at 7:03 am # //
Andrew Vick says:
Any clue why #77 (no title) is showing up in my nav? I have no page with that name, and can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s there. Thanks and great plugin 🙂
April 30, 2014 at 11:35 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
It looks like you have a page called “#77 (no title)” in your site. If not, then try deactivating all your plugins to see if that helps. If that still doesn’t help, then change to one of the themes which come with WordPress (eg: TwentyFourteen) and see if that helps. If none of those work, try reinstalling the plugin. If that still fails, then let me know and I’ll look into it further for you.
May 1, 2014 at 1:03 pm # //
João Miguel Aliano says:
Hi Ryan,
I was looking up the Multi level menu plugin and read your note that’s its no longer in development. I really like the built in WP menu as well. What would you recommend as an approach to style the built in menu? Is there any way to bring css editing to the menu dashboard on the WP back end and take advantage of the wp_nav_menu function? I’m using the 20-13 theme, btw.
May 6, 2014 at 2:29 pm # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
Hi,
You can style the CSS for the built in menu in exactly the same way as you do for any other menu. It just uses a regular unordered list, just like the Multi-level navigation plugin does.
May 7, 2014 at 11:17 am # //
PMRenault says:
I am developing a custom theme. What method would you recommend for easily integrating a multi-level drop down menu?
January 12, 2015 at 6:00 pm # //
Ryan says:
I recommend writing some custom CMS and using the native WordPress menu system. That’s how the default TwentyTen, TwentyEleven etc. themes do it too.
January 13, 2015 at 9:23 am # //
Carrie Grow says:
This website was built awhile ago using your plugin. Today, there appeared a second \”home\” in the navigation bar. Any idea why that would\’ve happened? And how can we remove the second one?
Thanks. Carrie
January 26, 2015 at 5:30 pm # //
Ryan says:
It looks like someone may have created a home page whereas before it may have been using posts for the home page perhaps?
If that is the case, then you will need to exclude it via the plugins settings page. There is an option to exclude specific page ID’s in there.
Even better, would be to upgrade to the menu system built into WordPress. It was introduced about 4.5 years ago and is a lot better than this plugin.
January 26, 2015 at 5:36 pm # //
BJ Singh says:
Hey Ryan, I guess now this Multi-level Navigation Plugin for WordPress is no more working. im working on developing a Custom theme.
July 8, 2020 at 6:18 am # //
Ryan Hellyer says:
It should still work. I’m not aware of any changes in WordPress core which would prevent it from working. You shouldn’t use it, because there are better ways of doing this now, but I’m not aware of any reason it would stop working.
August 7, 2020 at 12:48 pm # //