Customize option with this theme

Hi @keress

I tried checking the same theme on my site and it only has the options listed below under Appearance as shown in this screenshot:

– Themes
– Editor (Beta)
– Customize
– Additional CSS

The other options you are seeing might be coming from a plugin, you can check this by temporarily disabling all the plugins you have on the site to see if the other options under Appearance remain.

Turned off all plugins. No change. Didn’t expect any change since the customize and css links were present on the new site before I’d installed any plugins.

Then I removed the 2022 theme from my themes folder and installed it fresh from WordPress. Still no change. It must be in the database.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by keress.

Actually, I took a second look at what you wrote. You are seeing what I am seeing on a brand new installation of 2022. The earlier installations have only two:

Themes
Editor (BETA)

I’m trying to find out how to get the four to show up on those earlier installations:

– Themes
– Editor (Beta)
– Customize
– Additional CSS

I’ve tried everything I described above, with no luck.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by keress.

The “extra” links are from plugins. Checking the two “sandbox” sites I only see Themes and Editor (BETA). Once I start enabling the plugins I get other links depending on what plugins are used.

Which plugins?

I installed “ShiftNav” plugin and those items appeared.

Just going to jump in here and explain what causes “Menus” and “Widgets” to appear in the “Dashboard – Appearance” submenu.

Although it would seem like it’s done by plugins, it’s actually WordPress core reacting to the plugins as follows …

If a plugin (or child theme) creates a classic menu location then “Menus” will appear.

If a plugin (or child theme) creates a classic widget area then “Widgets” will appear.

Similarly, if either of the above are true then the “Customize” link should appear in the “Dashboard – Appearance” submenu and the admin bar.

There was a bug in older WordPress v5.9 which broke this behaviour because items of the “Dashboard – Appearance” menu were using the same IDs and were then overwritten. I made a plugin which fixed this bug and normally I’d link to it but I’ve been told I’m not allowed to do that in this forum. Sorry.

Anyway, that’s why you are seeing different sub menu items on older versions of WordPress when you have certain plugins active.

Oliver

Thanks for the explanation. I really miss the old menu UI. I have not gotten the hang of the FSE routine. It seems lacking. I am still making child themes of the default, in this case 2022, and still need to use CSS to style my sites, though they are getting much shorter. I don’t see how anyone could really live without that. I don’t need the ‘Additional CSS’ link, but I would think anyone just customizing the default without making a child would still always need to add some CSS. My vote is to have those ‘customize’ items readily available to everyone.

I am aware that adding ‘/wp-admin/customize.php restores some items, but menu isn’t one of them. Is there perhaps something I could add to functions.php that would cause the menu items to appear? Or perhaps I’m missing something about how I should now be creating menus.

@keress,

I don’t need the ‘Additional CSS’ link, but I would think anyone just customizing the default without making a child would still always need to add some CSS. My vote is to have those ‘customize’ items readily available to everyone.

The Additional CSS section is missing on your parent or child theme?

I’m not quite sure about what you are seeing on your site but Additional CSS should be available under the Appearance menu. Another way of getting that section would be to open Customiser https://elimcf.org//wp-admin/customize.php

Or perhaps I’m missing something about how I should now be creating menus.

You can create a header for your site using the theme templates Appearance > Editor. Within this header template, you can decide where you want your menu and logo to go. This is very different from the way the menu’s where being created previously, I would suggest you go over the following guides. They might be of help.

Twenty Twenty-Two Theme and the various full site editing features it unlocks.

Block Themes and how they allow you to edit all parts of your site with blocks.

Take a course on Learn WordPress

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by thelmachido a11n.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by thelmachido a11n.

In 2022 theme, the Appearance menu has only “Themes” and “Editor” choices. As was discussed above, particularly by Oliver Campion, other choices appear when various plugins or themes are installed.

None of those links have any information on how to form menus when the dedicated menu section is missing.

I do know about using https://elimcf.org//wp-admin/customize.php, but I think that’s a bit much to be expecting the general user to have to find out about. Plus, there is still no access there to the old dedicated menu area which allowed the drag and drop building of menus.

I’ve designed over 100 WordPress sites in the past 15 years. “Learn WordPress’ would likely seem redundant to me.

@keress Sorry, to clarify, the dedicated menu section is not “missing” it’s simply not required as full site editor themes don’t use it.

The full site editor way is the Navigation Block which is explained here.

Any plugin and / or child theme that adds a classic menu location to the theme using register_nav_menus() function will automatically enable the classic menu system (and links to it) as I mentioned above.

In this situation, the way the menu is injected into the page would depend on the plugin / child theme (whose developers should be contacted as to how if it is not immediately obvious) but likely to be a custom block or (as we have done with SideMenu plugin) a shortcode.

Take a look at https://ryesussex.uk where we use the classic menu system with Twenty Twenty-Two. We had to use the classic menu system rather than the Navigation Block because we needed to be able to filter the menu items and add “Log Out” etc items for users who were logged in.

Hope that helps!

Oliver

Hi @keress

Sorry, for not being clear in my response earlier as @domainsupport mentioned the theme is using Full Site Editing.

The links Learn WordPress using Full Site Editing, Twenty Twenty-Two Theme, and Block Themes I shared earlier show how you can customize your site if the site uses a Full Site Editor.

Yeah, thanks. I’ve figured out how to use the FSE. I still need to write some CSS. Not nearly as much as in the past, but it’s still necessary here and there to get the control I need.

I’m missing the drag and drop menu tool. I don’t get how we’re supposed to be creating menus as readily as that. It’s to the point I’m tempted to switch to an old theme, make my menus, then switch back to my 2022 child.