Menu management

Menus are how users navigate Open Intranet. The top bar, the footer columns, the user-account dropdown — every clickable list of links you see is a Drupal menu rendered through a menu block. This page explains the menus shipped with Open Intranet and the most common admin tasks.

Mental model

• Menu — a named, ordered tree of links (Main navigation, Footer, User account…). Stored as configuration.
• Menu link — one entry in a menu. Points to a node, a route, or an external URL. Can have children, can be enabled/disabled.
• Menu block — the visible widget that renders a menu in a region. The same menu can be rendered in multiple regions with different settings (depth, expand, …).

A menu has no visual presence on its own — you place a menu block for it in a region. Open Intranet already does this for every menu shipped, so most of the time you only edit menu items, not blocks.

The admin UI lives at Structure → Menus (/admin/structure/menu).

Menus that ship with Open Intranet

Menu	Machine name	Where it appears	Purpose
Main navigation	main	Top header (primary_menu region)	Primary navigation for end users — Documents, Knowledge Base, News, Events…
User account menu	account	Top right (top_header_user_actions region)	Per-user links — My account, My bookmarks, Log in/out
Navigation user links	navigation-user-links	User profile dropdown	View / edit profile, log out
Footer	footer	Footer (currently not placed by default)	Generic site information links
Footer – Legal & Compliance	footer---legal-compliance	footer_third region	Terms, Privacy, GDPR, Code of Conduct
Footer – Quick Links	footer---quick-links	footer_fourth region	Meeting Room Booking, IT Support, HR Policies…
Administration	admin	Drupal admin toolbar	Administrative tasks (managed by Drupal core, rarely edited by hand)
Content	content	Admin-only	Content task links
Tools	tools	Admin-only	Tools menu often added to by contributed modules

You can see the full structure of any menu at /admin/structure/menu/manage/<machine_name>, e.g. /admin/structure/menu/manage/main for the main top-bar menu.

Default contents of the Main navigation

Out of the box, the top-bar Main navigation looks like this:

• Home
• News
• Events
• Documents
• Knowledge Base
  • Sales
  • Strategy
  • Operations / Delivery
  • HR & Recruitment
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Company
  • Other
• Employee Directory
• About Company
  • Department Pages
  • Legal
  • About Company
• Tools
  • Forms
  • Courses
  • Room Booking (only if the Room Booking recipe is applied)

This is a starting point. Most production sites rename, reorder or remove items to match their own information architecture.

Common tasks

Add a menu item

1. Go to Structure → Menus (/admin/structure/menu) and click Edit menu next to the menu you want (e.g. Main navigation).
2. Click Add link.
3. Fill in:
   • Menu link title — the text users will see.
   • Link — start typing a node title to autocomplete to internal content, paste an external URL, or use a Drupal route like /news or <front> for the homepage.
   • Parent link — pick a parent if you want this item nested under another (creates a dropdown).
   • Weight — lower number floats up; usually you reorder visually instead of setting weight by hand.
   • Show as expanded — keep children visible by default in mega-menu / sidebar renderings.
   • Description — optional, used as the link title attribute.
4. Save.

Adding from a content page

When editing a node (article, page, KB page, …) you can also expand the Menu settings vertical tab on the edit form and tick “Provide a menu link”. This is the fastest way to expose a single page in the main menu without leaving the editor.

Reorder menu items (drag-and-drop)

1. Open the menu at /admin/structure/menu/manage/<machine_name>.
2. Use the cross-shaped drag handle on the left of each row to drag a row up/down or to indent/outdent it.
   • Up/down — change order within the same parent.
   • Right — make the item a child of the item directly above it (creates / extends a dropdown).
   • Left — promote the item to a higher level.
3. Click Save at the bottom of the page. The new order will not stick until you save.

The hierarchy you build here is what the Main navigation will render as a dropdown / mega-menu.

Edit or rename a menu item

1. On the menu’s edit page, click Edit next to the item.
2. Change the title, link target, parent or any other field.
3. Save.

Renaming a menu item does not change the URL of the page it points to — you are only changing the label users see in the menu.

Disable a menu item (without deleting it)

On the menu edit page, untick Enabled for the row and save. The item stays in configuration but stops rendering. Re-tick to bring it back. This is the safest way to “hide for now” a menu item that you may want later, without losing its link or sub-tree.

Delete a menu item

Click Delete on the row, confirm. If the item has children, Drupal will ask whether to delete them too or move them up one level.

Link to an external URL

In the Link field, paste the full URL (https://example.com/something). External links are allowed for any role with the “Administer menus and menu items” permission, which by default is restricted to administrators.

Link to internal content using a path or route

In the Link field you can use:

• A path — /news, /events, /documents.
• A token — <front> for the homepage, <nolink> for a non-clickable parent (useful for grouping headers in mega-menus), <button> for a JavaScript-only trigger.
• A node autocomplete — type the title of a node and pick it; Drupal will store the canonical entity reference and your link will keep working even if you change the URL alias later.

Create a new menu

Most of the time you should not need to — Open Intranet already ships a menu for every typical region. If you genuinely need a new one (e.g. a custom sidebar menu for one section of the site):

1. Structure → Menus → Add menu (/admin/structure/menu/add).
2. Give it a label and a description, save.
3. Add menu links as usual.
4. Place a menu block for it in the region you want — see below.

Show a menu in a region (place a menu block)

If you create a new menu, or if you want to show an existing one in another region (e.g. a sidebar mini-menu of the KB), you place a menu block:

1. Go to Structure → Block layout (/admin/structure/block).
2. Find the region you want, click Place block, search for the menu’s name (e.g. “Footer – Quick Links”).
3. Configure depth, expand-by-default, visibility (per role / path / content type), save.

For full mechanics, see Block management.

Mega-menu / dropdown rendering

The Main navigation in openintranet_theme is rendered as a multi-column dropdown when items have children. To take advantage of it:

• Add at least one child under a top-level item — that item will gain a dropdown caret.
• Tick Show as expanded on the parent so the children render automatically.
• Use <nolink> as the link target on a parent item if it should only be a label opening a dropdown (no destination page).

For richer mega-menus with images and multiple columns, the contributed module Mega Menu↗ integrates with Drupal core menus and is a popular drop-in.

Permissions

The relevant Drupal permissions, all assigned to the Administrator role by default:

• Administer menus and menu items — full access to /admin/structure/menu and all menu CRUD operations.
• Use the administration toolbar — needed to actually navigate to the menu admin UI from the top bar.

For non-admin roles (e.g. a Content editor who should manage the main navigation but not the rest of Drupal), grant Administer menus and menu items and consider scoping with the contributed module Menu Admin per Menu↗ — it lets you allow a role to edit, say, only the Main navigation without touching the Footer.

Where to learn more

• Drupal Menu UI module documentation↗ — full reference for menus and menu links.
• Working with menus in the Drupal admin UI↗ — beginner-friendly walkthrough in the official user guide.
• Menu Admin per Menu↗ — delegate editing of a single menu to non-admin roles.
• Mega Menu↗ — multi-column dropdowns with images and HTML.
• Block management — needed when you want a menu visible in a new region.