With submenu, main navigation button doesn't work

I hope that this feature will be added in the new version of Customizr, but until then you can use this snippet.

This is NOT a feature add like something nice. This is a BUG, a GLITCH, an error in how the code is written in Customizr. I have six WordPress sites running 5 different themes. None of the other four themes have this problem. Further, whenever I state a problem in a forum like this on the other themes, I get answers from the developer including the corrected code. I don’t want to change the behavior of the menu. The drop down is appropriate. But there is absolutely no reason why with that drop down that the main navigation bar item Press Kit does not take one to the Press Kit page.

@donshapiro – this theme was coded that way – see this thread:

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/main-nav-menu-not-linking?replies=9

Thanks for sharing the link with me on that thread.

Saying it doesn’t make it so as the old saying goes.

Just because the Theme Developer says this was done by design doesn’t mean it’s okay and it’s not a coding error.

When there is a main navigation bar item, people except that to take them somewhere 100% of the time. This is the universal law of website design. An individual designer does not have the choice to do it otherwise and say it is okay. He says that people don’t expect that to go anywhere. This is not true. Where is his evidence.

If there is a navigation bar item, people absolutely expect it to go somewhere every time. When it doesn’t, they think the website is broken. This is what the visitor thinks. The Developer saying it’s by design doesn’t stop all these people from thinking somethings wrong with the website. The developer is out of touch with the way the average non-techie visitor experiences websites.

A coding error is an error is an error. Calling it by design doesn’t make it so. It’s 100% wrong and very bad coding. Nothing to debate here. It’s just plain wrong.

Further, whenever I state a problem in a forum like this on the other themes, I get answers from the developer including the corrected code.

That really comes across as rather rude – I hope that was not your intention. This theme has excellent support from the both developer and because of many very generous volunteers who have contributed to the theme’s documentation and who answer forum questions.

When there is a main navigation bar item, people except that to take them somewhere 100% of the time.

That’s not true – we get people all the time asking how to unlink a top navigation menu item so that it functions the way this theme does. It was a choice by the developer.

If you don’t like the way it’s coded, use the modification posted above.

I don’t mean to be rude. I’m a nice guy.

I know there is a lot of good support here but this issue bothers me.

Let’s be clear about navigation bar buttons and any button that appears to be clickable on a website. The people that have asked for this to be unlinked are WordPress Theme users, not everyday Joe and Mary website visitors. What I’m hearing is that the Website administrators and developers have lost touch with how Joe and Mary think. They may like the idea of unhooking that for some reason but they haven’t thought out how this affects non-techie, non WordPress backend people.

I don’t care if everyone who uses this theme asked for it to be unhooked. That’s not what Joe and Mary want. I focus on how non-techie, everyday web visitors experiences things. If some of the administrators wanted this unhooked, that should have been a special added feature for them instead of taking it away from the rest of us who simply want to satisfy Joe and Mary.

One of the biggest problems in the world of technology is that website designers and coders become out of touch with the non-techie people who actually experience this software on a daily basis. This is a classic example of that.

Why are you assuming that no one else has thought about how “non-tech users use websites? That’s rather insulting to a lot of people who DO care and think about it.

If you think your site should be different from how the theme is set up, change it – the work-around is posted above.

I am not assuming anything. I never said that you and all the others don’t care a lot. I know you do care. You shouldn’t get insulted or anyone else when someone points out a perspective issue between those “in the know” and the average user. I’ve worked with thousands of people who care about customers and visitors like you do. But that caring does not necessarily mean that you and others have clear knowledge of how the average non-techie actually experiences websites 100% of the time.

Everyday companies, websites, products and more do things that customers and visitors don’t like. The people who created all these things do care. They care a lot. They do a lot of research. They try to listen to visitors and learn from them. Even with all that, they still don’t get it right all the time.

The reality is that high levels of technical expertise and continual involvement in the behind the scenes of things like WordPress can easily cause people to not be aware of all that customers experience. They may think they know. They want to know. They care. But human nature causes them to not always see the world through the same eyes as the average visitor or customer.

I’ve been studying this phenomena for a few decades now. I have observed it in all types of people and all sizes of organizations both with technology and other types of products. Be very careful not to confuse caring and actually being able to walk in the website visitors shoes.

I can personally tell you that on a daily basis I discover things about websites that bother me. When I tell the company about it, they are usually pleased to learn this so they can do something about it. No matter how much you and others care, you can’t always see things the way the web visitor does. I happen to have a unique wiring that allows me to experience everything as if I knew nothing about the thing I’m dealing with. I still experience WordPress websites and other websites as if I knew absolutely nothing about how they operate. Very few people have this ability once they acquire a significant amount of knowledge about something.

So please do not be insulted because I’m trying to help you and others see through the eyes of the customer. Open your mind to the reality that it is very difficult to walk in the shoes of non-techie, everyday web visitors. No matter how much you may think you think like them, you don’t. This isn’t about caring. It’s called being human. And that’s why we need to listen carefully to the perspective of others instead of getting insulted by it.

Blessings!

Whether you agree or not, this method of handling menus is a valid design choice – not a bug. Personally, it is not my preferred method of handling dropdowns but I appreciate that others do endorse this kind of menu behaviour and actively prefer dropdowns that are configured in this manner (we deal with requests for this every day). Having examined the menu from a usability and accessibility pov (both areas that I specialise in professionally), I cannot see anything that would pose an issue or barrier.

If the theme is not suitable for your needs, then one choice open to you is to consider changing to another theme. Or you could create a child (or forked) theme with modified menu behaviour. But please do not shout “bug” because the original theme does not conform to your personal preferences. As you’ve said yourself, it is not the current situation that matters but how you deal with it. Effectively insulting the theme’s developer by claiming this is a “coding error” really isn’t the best way to approach this particular situation.

Hi @donshaphiro, this theme is a proposition. My design choices are not the bests of course, I would never pretend so. I have tried to make a theme I would love to use.

When it comes to menus, I kept the Twitter Bootstrap logic which is to make not clickable the parent menu. I rarely click the parent menu so I figured that other people would not do as well.
Besides, Twitter Bootstrap is one of the most(if not the most) used HTML5 framework in the world. I was then pretty confident that this choice would not be the worse.

Customizr has been designed to be as much customizable as possible, you can then easily change this menu feature with the snippet mentionned by @tomaja : https://www.themesandco.com/snippet/menu-hover-dropdowns-parent-links-mobile-friendly/.

I regret that this discussion has been a bit rude at some point, but your feedback is really interesting to me though, because I realize that such a choice (which I considered quite minor at first) can have a really important impact on the user experience and feeling, and can even determine him to use the theme or not.

Bests regards and have a nice day everyone!