Mura 10: Navigation Menus

Adding Navigation to Content

Mura CMS includes several different types of navigational aids which can be applied to your site. The general concepts on applying navigational elements to your layout are covered under the Navigation section of Modules section.

Reorganizing Content Items

This section covers the sorting and ordering options for navigational elements, including how to manually re-order content items within the back-end administration area.

Sorting Content Items

As mentioned in the Managing Navigation Menus section, Mura CMS auto-generates hierarchical navigation based on the way content is structured, and sorted in the back-end administration area's Content Tree View. 

For example, content items located immediately below the "Home" page may have a link auto-generated to it in the "Primary Navigation" area of the public-facing site. Only content items with "Nav (Display in Navigation)" set to "Yes" and "Display" set to "Yes" or if the current date falls within the schedule set under "Per Schedule" will be displayed to end users.

In the above photo, you'll notice a link to "Site Map" and some of the other content items listed in the prior image don't appear in the primary navigation because the content items have either the "Nav" or "Display" options set to "No." This concept applies anywhere navigational elements are generated by Mura CMS.

Modify View

From the Content Tree View, just above, and to the right of the content listing area, you should see a "Modify View" button.

Clicking this button will reveal a number options which vary based on which section of the site you're currently "zoomed" in to. For example, if you're completely zoomed out to the "Home" view, clicking the "Modify View" button will only reveal an option to change the number of rows display.

Note: For larger sites, Administrators may change the default number of rows to display (from 20) by going to Site Settings > Edit Site, and updating the "Default Rows (in Site Manager)" field. Content managers will have to log out, and log back in for the new setting to take effect.

The only way to sort "top level" content items, located directly beneath the "Home" content item, is manually using the Drag and Drop method. To learn how to manually sort content items, please visit the Manually Sorting Content with Drag & Drop section.

Once "zoomed" into a specific section of the site, by clicking the three-dot menu icon and selecting "Zoom," "Sort Navigation" options will appear on the Modify View menu.

Sort Navigation Options

Listed below are the various options for sorting content items located below the "top level" content items. Please note these sorting options only apply to the direct children of the section you are applying the sort options to. For example, if you sort by "Menu Title" in the "About Us" section, and you create a new section beneath that which contains its own child content, the new section will default to sorting "Manually" and have its own sorting options and capabilities.

Field Description
Manual Sort the content items manually. This is the default setting. See Manually Sorting Content with Drag & Drop for more information on sorting content manually.
Official Release Date Sort the content items by the Official Release Date field, located the content item's Publishing tab.
Last Updated Sort by the date the content items were last updated.
Created Sort by the date content items were created
Menu Title Sort content items by their Navigation Title, as found on the "Basic" tab, and selecting "Show Additional Titles."
Long Title Sort content items by their Title field, as found on the "Basic" tab.
Rating Sort content items by the "Content Rating" the content item has received from end users. To have higher rated content appear first, select "Descending" for the Sort Order.
Comments Sort content items by the number of comments the content item has received from end users.
Extended Attributes If your site has any custom class extensions, their extended attributes may also appear as potential sort options

Once you have selected the sort criteria, you may choose to display the content items in either "Ascending", or "Descending" order.

Drag and Drop Manual Sorting

The default Sort Navigation option for content items in Mura CMS is "Manual." In fact, top-level content, or content located immediately below the "Home" page, can only be sorted manually. Before attempting to sort content items manually, be sure the Sort Navigation is set to "Manual."

Follow the steps below to manually sort content items.

  1. First, you must use the Content Tree View to sort content items manually.
  2. Next, select the content item you wish to move by using a click, drag, and drop method. We recommend clicking between the three-dot menu and the content item title, then dragging it up or down, then releasing the mouse click when the item has reached its intended target area.
  3. It's important to understand that to manually reorder "children" of a specific section, you must first "zoom" into that specific section. In the prior example above, you'll notice that moving the "About" content item selects all of its children as well, and moves along with it. The same would occur if you attempt to select a child of the About section while zoomed out to the "Home" top-level view.
  4. Once you've finished manually re-ordering the content items, you must select the "Save Order" button from the notice that appears above the content listing to save the new sort order.
  5. The new sort order should now be reflected in your navigation menus on the front-end public-facing site.

Selecting New Parent

When you wish to move a content item to a new section of the site, you can quickly, and easily select a new "parent" for the content item. Follow the steps below to change a content item's parent, and move it to a completely different section of the site.

  1. Select a content item to edit. Note, if you're editing from the front-end public-facing view, be sure to select "Full Edit" option.
  2. Open the Basic tab on the Edit Content screen's right-side menu.
  3. Click the Select New Parent button to reveal a search box and Search button.
  4. Enter text into the search box and click the Search button to obtain a listing of content options. The first option in the list with the radio button selected is the current content parent. Simply select your newly desired option, and select your desired publishing option to save the new content parent.
  5. The content item, and all of its children, if any, should now be located under the new content parent.

Editing Navigation/Menu Titles

Sometimes, when you create a content item, you might want the text which appears for a link to be different than the actual title of the page. For example, you might have a page "Title" of "About Us." However, you would prefer any links to this page to simply output as "About" instead. Mura CMS offers a convenient and easy method to accomplish this.

Follow the steps below to edit a content item's title fields.

  1. Select a content item to edit. If editing content on the front-end public-facing view of your site, you will need to use "Full Edit" mode.
  2. Open the Basic tab on the right-hand menu.
  3. There are several title options you can change:
    • Title: The actual title of the page you are editing. The page title will display as the headline or title on a given page.
    • Navigation Title (optional): You may enter an optional, shorter, or completely different title to be used wherever Mura generates navigational links to this content item. If this field is left blank, Mura will auto-generate the text based on the information entered in the "Title" field.
    • URL Title (optional): Text entered here will display in the browser's address bar. If you choose to customize this field, be sure to use URL-friendly characters (e.g., use only alpha-numeric characters, etc.). If this field is left blank, Mura will auto-generate the text based on the information entered in the "Title" field, in a URL-friendly manner by replacing spaces and punctuation with hyphens, etc.
    • HTML (Browser) Title (Optional): Text entered here will appear in the browser's "chrome" or "tab" typically located above the address bar. If this field is left blank, Mura will auto-generate the text based on the information entered in the "Title" field.
  4. If you wish to update the "Title", if you press the spacebar while in the Title field, a notice with a button to "Clear Additional Titles" should appear.
  5. If you would like Mura to regenerate all of the additional title fields based on the new text entered, simply click the "Clear Additional Titles" button, and Mura will wipe out the old values, and then update those fields once you publish the content item.
  6. After making your desired changes, select your preferred publishing option to save your changes.

Mobile Navigation

You can control the display of a link generated by Mura based on whether or not a visitor is accessing the site from a "mobile" device. This is quite useful when you might want to display mobile-specific content, which may not necessarily apply to someone accessing your site from a non-mobile device, and vice versa.

Note: Mura does not consider tablets, such as iPads, as mobile devices since they typically have screen real estate and resolution capabilities on par with most desktop and laptop computers.

Follow the steps below to control the display of a link to a specific content item when a user is accessing the site from a mobile or non-mobile device.

  1. Select a content item to edit. If editing content on the front-end public-facing view of your site, you will need to use the "Full Edit" mode.
  2. Select the Publishing tab from the Edit Content screen.
  3. Scroll down to the Mobile Navigation section.
    • Include for all:
      • A link will be generated by Mura regardless of which device type the visitor is using.
    • Include for Mobile Only:
      • If a visitor is accessing the site from a mobile device, Mura will generate a link to this content item. Otherwise, it will not appear in any Mura generated navigational elements.
    • Exclude from Mobile: 
      • If a visitor is accessing the site from a non-mobile device (e.g., tablet, desktop, laptop, etc.), Mura will generate a link to this content item. Otherwise, it will not appear in any Mura generated navigational elements.
  4. After you've chosen your desired option, simply select your preferred publishing option to save your changes.

Note: Just because a link is not generated by Mura doesn't mean the content is not "visible" per se. If a visitor knows the URL to the content item, they could still technically enter that URL in their address bar to see the content. If you wish to completely hide content item altogether, use the "Display" filed located on the same tab.