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Site Builder
Indiana University
Configure Your Site

Navigation

Configure your site's primary and sidebar navigation

Overview

Site Builder automatically builds your site's navigation from your folder and page structure in the WCMS.

Your site includes two types of navigation:

  • Primary navigation appears in the site header and links to your site's top-level sections.
  • Sidebar navigation appears within individual sections (e.g., Admissions) and helps visitors navigate between related pages.

In most cases, you don't manually create navigation menus. Instead, navigation updates automatically as you create, move, rename, reorder, or hide pages and folders.

Navigation is based on your site's structure
The way you organize folders and pages in the WCMS determines how navigation appears on your published site. Keeping your site organized makes navigation easier for visitors to understand.

Primary navigation

The primary navigation displayed in the site header is built from the content at the top level of your site.

Navigation items include:

  • Pages located directly in your site's top-level folder
  • Top-Level Publishable Folders

Pages inside a Top-Level Publishable Folder appear as dropdown menu items beneath that section in the primary navigation.

Navigation labels use each page's or folder's Display Name.

Add item

To add a new primary navigation item:

  1. Create a new page in your site's top-level folder, or create a new Top-Level Publishable Folder
  2. Enter a descriptive Display Name
  3. Ensure Show in Navigation is checked
  4. Republish _includes/header

Remove item

To remove an item from primary navigation:

  • Hide the page or folder from navigation,
  • move it into _archive, or
  • delete it if it is no longer needed
Republish required

If you add, rename, move, reorder, hide, or delete a top-level page or folder, be sure to republish _includes/header.

Publishing to SiteKube Test will update the primary navigation in the WCMS preview. Publishing to SiteKube Production will update the primary navigation on your live site.

Screenshot of _includes/header asset in the WCMS

Sidebar navigation

Each publishable folder contains a _side-nav asset that generates navigation for that section of your site.

The sidebar displays:

  • The section landing page
  • Child pages within the folder
  • Child folders that are shown in navigation

Pages and folders appear using their Display Name and in the order they are arranged within the folder.

Republish required

If you add, rename, move, reorder, hide, or delete pages or folders within a section, be sure to republish that section's _side-nav asset. You do not need to republish each individual page within a folder.

If content moves between sections, republish the _side-nav asset in both the old and new parent folders.

Publishing to SiteKube Test will update the sidebar navigation in the WCMS preview. Publishing to SiteKube Production will update the sidebar navigation on your live site

Screenshot of folder _side-nav asset in the WCMS

Navigation visibility

Whether a page or folder appears in navigation is controlled by the Show in Navigation setting.

For pages, this setting is located in Page Settings.

For folders, this setting appears on the folder's Edit screen.

Navigation order

Navigation items appear in the same order as pages and folders within the WCMS.

To change the order:

  • Open the parent folder.
  • Sort by clicking the Order column header.
  • Drag items into the desired order.
  • Republish the affected navigation asset.

Keep index and _side-nav at the top of each publishable folder.

Troubleshooting

Navigation assets are published separately from pages.

If you've made changes to your site structure:

  • Republish _side-nav for the affected section
  • Republish _includes/header if you changed top-level navigation
  • Refresh your browser or open the page in a private browsing window to rule out cached content