How To Change Sort Order of Links In The Thesis Navigation Bar

Adding links to the Thesis navigation bar is a very simple process using existing Thesis options. This post does not describe how to add links in the traditional way. What you’ll find is that it may be easy to add links to the Thesis navigation bar, but it is not very easy to order those links in the sort order of your choice. It isn’t as if you can just drag and drop the links like you do with pages. The upcoming WordPress 3.0 will most likely make this tutorial obsolete because of the new feature where you have full control over the navigation. Also, if you’ve just upgraded to Thesis 1.7 or you’re running that version, then just use the Thesis 301 redirect option and skip to step 3 below.

Regardless of that, I decided to post a very simple solution here that I have been using for some time now. Let’s say you have a need to add either and internal, or external URL link in your Thesis theme navigation bar. And you want to control where the link or links appear in the bar. Here are the simple steps to follow:

Step 1:
Create a template file by opening your favorite text editor and paste the following text into a blank page:

/*
Template Name: Outside Link Name
*/
header("Location: http://www.yourlinkgoeshere.com");


It doesn't matter what you call the template, but give it a name that makes sense for your link. Then enter the actual URL for the link as shown above. Now save this file and give it any name you want. I usually make it the same name as the name I used above in the template file. Make sure you save it with the .php file extension. Now upload the file to your Thesis theme directory. Not the custom folder, the actual Thesis theme folder. I do want to point out that I prefer not to save any files outside the custom folder. I tend to make an exception with this one and there's probably another workaround that I'm not aware of. Just remember that if you are upgrading Thesis that you have to move the template file as well.

Step 2: Now create a new page in WordPress and give it the name of your link. At this point, go down to the right side where it says Template and from the drop down list, select the template name you just created. Now save the page.

Step 3: For the final step, just go to your Thesis Site Options and in the Pages section, check the page you just created and you can place it in any position in the navigation bar that you like. You treat it just like any other page.

Tagged as: Thesis Navigation, thesis tips