Opened 5 weeks ago
Closed 3 weeks ago
#8233 closed enhancement (fixed)
Global Header: Reorder top items and consolidate dropdowns
| Reported by: |
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Owned by: |
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| Milestone: | Priority: | normal | |
| Component: | WordPress.org Site | Keywords: | has-patch |
| Cc: |
Description
The global header currently has eight top-level items and three conceptual dropdowns (Extend, Learn, Community). "Extend" in particular isn't language that appears anywhere in core or wp-admin. It sits between the visitor, and what they came for.
We've essentially buried some of the most critical parts of WordPress: Plugins and Themes.
From Matt in Making WordPress Slack:
https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C18723MQ8/p1776034303785159
people who make core, to get to plugins, themes, blocks, or patterns on
our homepage you have to click on extend, now pretend you are a wp-admin
user coming to .org to find those things... is there anywhere we say
extend as nav or even naming in core?
Proposed change: collapse Extend, Learn, and Community into two clearer umbrellas — Resources and About — while keeping every destination reachable. Move Showcase, Plugins, and Themes as the first three items in the global navigation.
No menu items are dropped. This is an information architecture change.
See GitHub for the patch and full before/after:
- PR: https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-mu-plugins/pull/739
- Previous discussion (2022): https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2022/08/18/navigation/
Change History (2)
This ticket was mentioned in PR #739 on WordPress/wporg-mu-plugins by @richtabor.
5 weeks ago
#1
#2
@
3 weeks ago
- Resolution set to fixed
- Status changed from assigned to closed
I'm closing this as https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress.org/issues/607 was closed and https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-mu-plugins/pull/739 was merged.
Simplifies the global header's information architecture by moving Showcase first, followed by Plugins and Themes, collapsing the Extend, Learn, and Community dropdowns into two clearer umbrellas — Resources and About — while keeping every destination reachable.
This PR does not remove items from the header navigation, or change styles.
https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8233
## Why
From Matt in Making WordPress Slack:
"Extend" isn't language that appears anywhere in core or wp-admin — it's org-specific jargon that adds a layer between the visitor and what they're actually looking for. "Learn" and "Community" had a similar problem: they were conceptual groupings that didn't map to the way visitors searched. Three narrow dropdowns also mean visitors have to guess which one holds what they want.
Consolidating into Resources (tools, docs, media libraries) and About (project + community) removes one layer of guessing, drops a label core users don't recognize, and opens room in the header — picking up part of #34 and echoing the 2022 make/meta discussion.
## What changes
<table>
<tr>
<th>Before</th>
<th>After</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">
</td>
<td valign="top">
</td>
</tr>
</table>
One rename: *Photo Directory* → *Photos*.
## Visual
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ad9e1396-e3cb-4fab-8460-c6ac5aa1ce85
## What does not change
No items are dropped. Every destination from the previous menu is still in the nav — just under a different parent. This is an IA change, not a pruning pass. That's a separate conversation worth having, but not here.
## Testing
Previewed on a sandbox. Verify on any site using the global header — the same structure renders everywhere.