MenuForge — WordPress Mega Menu

A WordPress mega menu built where you already edit menus

Stores and content sites outgrow simple dropdowns fast. MenuForge adds a WordPress mega menu to the menu you already have: open Appearance > Menus, open a top-level item and click its MenuForge button, switch on Show sub-items as a mega menu and choose 1 to 6 columns. The structure follows the menu tree: the top-level item is the bar entry, its direct sub-items become column headings, and their sub-items become the links in each column, with deeper levels indented. A top-level item whose link is # simply opens its panel. Click Apply in the modal, then Save Menu, and the panel is live.

Panels, icons and images

Each mega panel can be Wide (centred on the screen up to a maximum width you set, 1200px by default), the same width as the menu bar, or fit its content under the item. Every item can carry one of 18 built-in line icons, drawn as inline SVG so no icon font is loaded, with an icon-only option that keeps the label for screen readers. Pick an image from the Media Library: on a column it shows as a banner at the top, on a deeper link as a small thumbnail. Items you leave as normal parents keep classic multi-level fly-out dropdowns that flip left when they reach the edge of the screen.

Accessible by design

Menus are the one thing every visitor uses. Every sub-menu is opened by a real button that reports whether it is expanded. Enter or Space opens and closes, Arrow Down moves into the panel, Arrow Left and Right move between top-level items, and Escape closes the panel and puts focus back on its button; moving focus out of a panel closes it. On phones the menu becomes a modal dialog: focus moves to its Close button, Tab stays inside it and Escape closes it. Without JavaScript, panels still open on hover and keyboard focus, and animations are switched off for visitors who prefer reduced motion.

• Hover (click and keyboard still work) or click-only for touch-first sites
• Mobile breakpoint you choose (default 960px, 0 never switches)
• Mobile menu slides in from the left or right, with your own button label
• One small deferred script and three small stylesheets, loaded only where a MenuForge menu is used

Placement on classic and block themes

Appearance > MenuForge lists your theme's menu locations with the menu assigned to each; tick a location to let MenuForge render it, untick it to hand it back to the theme. On activation the theme's main location is ticked for you. Block themes have no classic locations, so MenuForge switches on the Appearance > Menus screen for them and gives you the MenuForge Mega Menu block to drop into the header template part in place of the Navigation block, with a menu picker and an optional accessible name. Anywhere else, use the shortcode [menuforge menu="main-menu"], which accepts a menu slug, name or ID; the settings screen lists the shortcode for every menu.

Show products and content in the menu (Pro)

Pro opens a panel layout builder with one card per column, where you set how many grid columns it spans, whether it starts a new row and what it contains: its links, WooCommerce products, a synced block pattern or one of four MenuForge widget areas. A product column shows 1 to 8 products — Newest, On sale, Featured, Best sellers or from a category — and the list is refreshed whenever a product is saved. Panel style can also be Tabs or Vertical tabs, where each direct sub-item becomes a tab with its own columns inside; tabs follow the ARIA tabs pattern and stack as sections in the mobile menu.

Badges, roles and styling (Pro)

Add a New, Sale or Hot badge after any label. Choose who can see an item — everyone, logged-in visitors, logged-out visitors or chosen user roles such as wholesale customers — and hidden parents hide their children too; this applies to every menu on the site, not only MenuForge locations. Style presets (Light, Dark, Midnight bar, Warm and Minimal) set the look in one click, five colour fields override the menu bar, panel and accent colours, and the sticky menu bar keeps the menu pinned to the top on desktop while visitors scroll, allowing for the admin bar.

Who MenuForge is for

It suits online stores with many categories that want shoppers to see the range at a glance, magazines and content sites with deep section trees, agencies building client sites who want menus clients can edit in the familiar screen, and B2B catalogues that show trade-only sections to chosen roles. The free edition is a complete, accessible mega menu; Pro is for sites that want products, tabs and styling inside the menu.

Compatibility, requirements and honest limits

MenuForge needs WordPress 6.4 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer, and works without WooCommerce — the product column option only appears when WooCommerce is active. Our end-to-end tests ran on WordPress 7.1 with the classic Twenty Twenty-One theme, for both Free and Pro. MenuForge still runs the core menu filters, so other plugins that change menu items keep working. The free plugin makes no outside calls; Pro only contacts coodecraft.com for the licence.

• The block-theme path (block and header placement) is built in but has not yet been tested end to end
• Horizontal tabs, block-pattern and widget columns, style presets and custom colours are code-reviewed but not covered by the automated test
• Themes that print their own mobile toggle may need one CSS line to hide it (done automatically for Twenty Twenty-One)
• Item settings are edited in Appearance > Menus only, not in the Customizer
• Widget-area columns need Appearance > Widgets, which block themes do not show — use block patterns there
• Product lists can be up to 6 hours old if products change without a product save