Navigation Menu Element Types
Navigation menus have a variety of element types that you can add and arrange in your desired hierarchy. These types include specific pages, content items with display pages, categories, vocabularies, or custom placeholders or URLs. See here for more information on adding navigation menus with these elements.
Pages
Specific pages are some of the most common elements used for navigation menus. You can add any published page from your site’s page sets to the menu.
Submenus
Submenus are placeholder elements you can add to navigation menus to group additional menu elements under them without needing a specific page or content for it. When used on a page, submenu elements do not have clickable links, but expand to show their child elements when users hover over them.
With the default widget template for navigation menus, a submenu appears only when at least one element under it has a link.
Content Items
You can add these content items as independent menu elements:
Each element links to the item’s display page, and an item without a display page has no link. With the default widget template for navigation menus, an element with no link appears only when at least one element under it has a link. It then appears without a link, with those elements under it. Use a custom widget template can change this behavior.
The list of element types you can add has no single option for custom object entries. Instead, each published, active custom object appears in the list under its own Label.
Categories and Vocabularies
Categories
You can add a category as a menu element that links to the category’s display page. A category without a display page has no link and follows the same display rule as content items.
From Liferay 7.4 versions U9+ and GA13+, you can select multiple categories at once. Adding a category together with subcategories under it places them in the navigation menu in the correct hierarchy.
If a category added as a navigation menu element contains subcategories, changes to the subcategories do not automatically reflect in the navigation menu’s hierarchy. If you want changes to the subcategories to automatically update the navigation menu, then you can use a dynamic vocabulary element instead.
Vocabularies
Liferay 7.4 U26+/GA26+
You can add entire vocabularies as menu elements. Vocabularies dynamically update so that all changes to the categories within them and their hierarchies reflect in the navigation menu itself. However, this does not allow you to reorder or change the hierarchy of the contained categories; if you want to create a different hierarchy of categories, then add the categories individually outside of the vocabulary instead.
By default, when you add a vocabulary as a menu element, the menu replaces that element with all of its top-level categories when it is displayed on a page. However, when you select the vocabulary element while editing the navigation menu, you can also check the Display Name as First Level checkbox to make the vocabulary itself appear in the menu (as an element that is not clickable), with the top-level categories under it.
With the default widget template for navigation menus, a category at any level appears in the menu when it has a display page or when a category under it has one. Categories without a display page appear without a link. A different widget template can change this behavior.
URLs
You can also add a navigation menu element with a custom URL, that does not need to be tied to any specific content. When you add a URL element to a navigation menu, you must input the display name of the menu element and the URL that the element points to on click. Check the Open in a new tab checkbox if you want the URL to open in a separate tab in the user’s browser.
Liferay 7.4 GA4 and Older
In earlier versions of Liferay 7.4 than GA4, there is also a Display Page navigation menu element type, which is used for any display page added to the menu (for any type of content).
In Liferay 7.4 GA5+ and U1+, the content items and categories that use display pages replace the Display Page type.