Widget Menuizer makes WordPress menus more powerful by allowing for easy creation of custom “mega menus” and other fanciness without completely overhauling the menu management system into something unrecognizable.
Installing Widget Menuizer
The following documentation provides instructions on how to configure the Widget Menuizer plugin.
Widget Menuizer can be installed via searching the WP plugin repository in the WordPress admin area or by downloading the plugin from WordPress.org.
Install via Search
Use the search bar to search “Widget Menuizer” and click Install Now. After the plugin is installed, click Activate.
Install Manually
If you downloaded the plugin, click the Upload Plugin button and then the Choose File button. Select the plugin file you downloaded, and click Install Now. After the plugin installs, click Activate Plugin.
Creating Sidebars
Note: This section assumes you are running WordPress 5.7 or lower, or are running WordPress >=5.8 with the Classic Widgets plugin. Creating sidebars is not currently supported in WordPress 5.8 and above without first activating Classic Widgets (it can be deactivated after creating new sidebars, though).
In Appearance > Widgets, you will now find a form to add additional Sidebars (also known as Widget Areas) to use with Widget Menuizer.
Add a Sidebar name and description (optional) and click Create. You can create as many sidebars as needed. We recommend using one sidebar for each parent menu item that will have a widget display.
Tip: Name the sidebar the same as the parent menu item you plan to use the sidebar on for easy organization, e.g. if it’s going to be displayed under the About menu item, call it About.
After the sidebar is created, add any desired widgets to the newly created sidebar area.
Adding Sidebars to Menus
After adding your sidebars and widgets, go to Appearance > Menus. Click Screen Options in the top right of the page and check the Sidebars checkbox.
The Sidebars toggle will then display under Add menu items. Open the toggle and check the sidebar you would like to add to the menu and click Add to Menu. Drag the sidebar menu item under the parent item you desire and click Save Menu.
Menu on the Front-end
Available Menu Item Options
When you toggle a sidebar menu item, there will be custom options available to choose from. They include the following:
Container Element
Choose whether to wrap widgets in a containing html tag or not. The default value is “div”.
Label Display
Choose whether to hide the label, or show the menu label inside/outside of the container. The default value is “None”.
Widget Layout
Choose whether the widgets are aligned vertically or horizontally.. The default value is “Vertical”.
Remember to click Save Menu for changes to be updated.
Styling Your Menus
Many themes aren’t set up to expect widgets appearing inside menus, so your menu appearance might not be what you were looking for when first adding a sidebar region to your menu.
Getting your sidebar to look how you want it may require adding additional custom CSS in the Customizer. This requires some technical knowledge of CSS and falls outside the scope of this documentation, as the needed CSS will vary depending on your theme.
Warning
Because it’s possible to put menu widgets inside sidebars, you may see a warning notice if the sidebar region you’ve put in your menu contains a menu widget.
This is because you may have inadvertently created a recursion: if the menu contained in your sidebar is the same menu your sidebar is placed in, you’ll have an infinite loop that will do bad, bad things. So be careful.