Auto Generate Nav Menus on Theme Activation in WordPress

If you are building a theme in WordPress and you want to automatically generate nav menus on theme activation, here is how you can do it:

We need two functions to make it easier for us to auto generate nav menus and menu items:

Menu Item Generator Function:

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function generate_site_nav_menu_item( $term_id, $title, $url ) {

wp_update_nav_menu_item($term_id, 0, array(
'menu-item-title' => sprintf( __('%s', 'text_domain'), $title ),
'menu-item-url' => home_url( '/' . $url ),
'menu-item-status' => 'publish'
) );

}

The function above will automatically generate a “Custom Link” that points to the page we specify on the $url parameter.

Menu Generator Function:

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function generate_site_nav_menu( $menu_name, $menu_items_array, $location_target ) {

$menu_primary = $menu_name;
wp_create_nav_menu( $menu_primary );
$menu_primary_obj = get_term_by( 'name', $menu_primary, 'nav_menu' );

foreach( $menu_items_array as $page_name => $page_location ){
generate_site_nav_menu_item( $menu_primary_obj->term_id, $page_name, $page_location );
}

$locations_primary_arr = get_theme_mod( 'nav_menu_locations' );
$locations_primary_arr[$location_target] = $menu_primary_obj->term_id;
set_theme_mod( 'nav_menu_locations', $locations_primary_arr );

update_option( 'menu_check', true );

}

Usage

Example let’s create two Header menus, menu 1 will be shown to Logged in users and menu 2 will be shown to visitors only

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function my_after_setup_theme() {

/**
* Register Navigations
*/
register_nav_menus( array(
'primary' => __('Primary Navigation', 'text_domain'),
'secondary' => __('Secondary Navigation', 'text_domain')
) );

}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_after_setup_theme') );

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/**
* Runs when user switches to your custom theme
*
*/
function my_after_switch_theme() {
/**
* Setup the site navigation
*/
$run_menu_maker_once = get_option('menu_check');

if ( ! $run_menu_maker_once ){
/**
* Setup Navigation for : Header Menu - Logged In
*/
$primary_menu_items = array(
'Listings' => 'listings',
'Submit Ad' => 'submit-ad',
'Messages' => 'messages',
'Account' => 'account',
'Logout' => 'account?action=logout' // You need to setup your logout url using wp_logout()
);
cvf_generate_site_nav_menu( 'Header Menu - Logged In', $primary_menu_items, 'primary' );

/**
* Setup Navigation for : Header Menu - Logged Out
*/
$secondary_menu_items = array(
'Listings' => 'listings',
'Submit Ad' => 'submit-ad',
'Register' => 'register',
'Login' => 'login'
);
cvf_generate_site_nav_menu( 'Header Menu - Logged Out', $secondary_menu_items, 'secondary' );
}
}
add_action( 'after_switch_theme', 'my_after_switch_theme') );

Function above will execute when you switch / activate your theme.
Will be executed only when option “menu_check” is not equal to 1.

In your header.php, use the following code to output the menus for logged-in users or visitors only:

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<?php if( is_user_logged_in() ): ?>
<?php wp_nav_menu( array('theme_location' => 'primary', 'fallback_cb' => 'fallback_menu_pages' ) ); ?>
<?php else: ?>
<?php wp_nav_menu( array('theme_location' => 'secondary', 'fallback_cb' => 'fallback_menu_pages' ) ); ?>
<?php endif; ?>

If you notice we added a fallback, which is the function that will be called if our menu (primary / secondary) is not existing. Add this fallback function to your functions.php:

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function fallback_menu_pages() {

$list_pages = '';
$args = array(
'sort_order' => 'asc',
'sort_column' => 'post_title',
'hierarchical' => 1,
'child_of' => 0,
'parent' => -1,
'offset' => 0,
'number' => 5,
'post_type' => 'page',
'post_status' => 'publish'
);
$pages = get_pages( $args );

foreach( $pages as $key => $page ){
$list_pages .= '<li><a href = "' . get_permalink( $page->ID ) . '">' . $page->post_title . '</a></li>';
}

echo $list_pages;

}

The function above will output only 5 menu items. – To change this, set “number” to the number of menu items you want to output.

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