Adding parent class to menu item

To target all the topmost menu items, I think you can use direct children selector ( or whatever it’s called ).

Like this

.nav-menu > ul > li > a { color: red; }

To target only top menu items that have sub items, you have to put in custom class name.
Appearance > Menus and pull down Screen Options tab

Hello Paul,

thanks for reply, the second one is indeed a solution that works. Yet i would like to avoid using the custom menu and keep it automated, so the search continues for a solution to make WP itself add a class to all menu items that have children, as some themes are doing it (graphene or the elegantthemes.com themes).

Actually this should have been solved multiple times and i found some posts and descriptions in the net, but i couldnt find a clear outcome there and my programming knowledge keeps me in need of a step-by-step explanation (i can add a function but i cannot program it by myself).

Any further ideas?

Hi Sofian777, this should do it

How to add a parent class for menu item
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/wp_nav_menu#How_to_add_a_parent_class_for_menu_item

Thanks for this, i tried it out but i couldnt get it to work. I copied it into my functions.php like this, is there anything else i should have done? (creating the childtheme i have done right since the css also worked. the file is named correctly, so i cannot find where i made my newbie mistake:)

<?php
add_filter( 'wp_nav_menu_objects', 'add_menu_parent_class' );
function add_menu_parent_class( $items ) {

    $parents = array();
    foreach ( $items as $item ) {
        if ( $item->menu_item_parent && $item->menu_item_parent > 0 ) {
            $parents[] = $item->menu_item_parent;
        }
    }

    foreach ( $items as $item ) {
        if ( in_array( $item->ID, $parents ) ) {
            $item->classes[] = 'menu-parent-item';
        }
    }

    return $items;
}
?>