Adding Custom Menu Items in WordPress Admin Menu

Posted on 20th June 2023

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Adding Custom Menu Items in WordPress Admin Menu

As a WordPress plugin developer, you may find yourself wanting to add custom menu items to the WordPress admin menu. Doing so can provide a better user experience for your plugin users, as it can help them find the plugin settings more easily.

In this article, we’ll show you how to add custom menu items to the WordPress admin menu. We’ll also cover some best practices for plugin development, so that you can make sure your plugin is as user-friendly as possible.

Adding Custom Menu Items

The first thing you need to do when adding custom menu items is to hook into the ‘admin_menu’ action. This action is fired when the WordPress admin menu is being displayed.

Inside the my_plugin_add_menu_items() function, you can use the add_menu_page() function to add a top-level menu item.

The add_menu_page() function takes a few arguments. The first is the page title. This is the title that will be shown in the browser window when the page is loaded. The second is the menu title. This is the title that will be shown in the WordPress admin menu.

The third argument is the capability. This is the user role that is required to view the page. In most cases, you will want to use the ‘manage_options’ capability, which corresponds to the WordPress administrator role.

The fourth argument is the menu slug. This is the unique identifier for the menu item. It is used in the URL for the page.

The fifth argument is the function to run when the page is loaded. This is the function that will output the HTML for the page.

The sixth argument is the icon URL. This is the URL for the icon to be used for the menu item. It can be a dashicons URL, or a URL for a custom icon.

The seventh argument is the position. This is the position of the menu item in the WordPress admin menu. Lower numbers correspond to higher positions.

After you’ve added the top-level menu item, you can use the add_submenu_page() function to add sub-menu items.

The add_submenu_page() function takes the same arguments as the add_menu_page() function, with the exception of the first argument. The first argument for the add_submenu_page() function is the parent menu slug. This is the slug for the top-level menu item.

Best Practices for Plugin Development

When you’re developing a plugin, there are a few things you can do to make sure it’s as user-friendly as possible.

First, you should use a unique prefix for all of your plugin’s functions, classes, and constants. This will help to avoid conflicts with other plugins and themes.

Second, you should use the WordPress Settings API when creating your plugin settings pages. The Settings API is a standardized way of creating settings pages, and it will help to make sure your pages are compatible with the WordPress admin UI.

Third, you should use the WordPress Transients API to store any data that doesn’t need to be stored in the database. The Transients API uses the WordPress database to store data, but it automatically expires data after a specified period of time. This can help to improve your plugin’s performance.

Finally, you should make sure to test your plugin thoroughly before releasing it. Testing will help to ensure that your plugin is compatible with all of the different WordPress configurations out there.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve shown you how to add custom menu items to the WordPress admin menu. We’ve also covered some best practices for plugin development. Following these best practices will help to make sure your plugin is as user-friendly as possible.

If you want to add a custom menu item to the WordPress admin menu, there are two ways to do it. You can either use a plugin or edit the code yourself.

Using a Plugin

There are a few plugins that will let you add custom menu items to the WordPress admin menu. One of the most popular is Custom Admin Menu Editor.

To use this plugin, install and activate it. Then, go to Appearance > Menu Editor to edit your menu.

Adding a custom menu item is easy. Just click on the Add Item button and enter the name, URL, and icon for your menu item. You can also choose where you want the menu item to appear and what permissions users need to have to see it.

Editing the Code

If you don’t want to use a plugin, you can also add custom menu items to the WordPress admin menu by editing the code.

First, you need to create a function to add your custom menu item. This function will use the add_menu_page() function to add a top-level menu item.

function my_custom_menu_item(){
add_menu_page(
‘My Custom Menu Item’,
‘My Custom Menu Item’,
‘manage_options’,
‘my-custom-menu-item’,
‘my_custom_menu_item_callback’,
‘dashicons-admin-customizer’,
6
);
}
add_action( ‘admin_menu’, ‘my_custom_menu_item’ );

This function will add a top-level menu item with the title “My Custom Menu Item”. The URL for this menu item will be “my-custom-menu-item” and the icon will be the dashicons-admin-customizer icon.

Next, you need to create a callback function for your custom menu item. This function will display the content for your menu item.

function my_custom_menu_item_callback(){
echo ‘This is the content for my custom menu item’;
}

Finally, you need to add a capability to your custom menu item. This will let you control who can see the menu item.

function my_custom_menu_item(){
add_menu_page(
‘My Custom Menu Item’,
‘My Custom Menu Item’,
‘my_custom_menu_item_capability’,
‘my-custom-menu-item’,
‘my_custom_menu_item_callback’,
‘dashicons-admin-customizer’,
6
);
}
add_action( ‘admin_menu’, ‘my_custom_menu_item’ );

Replace “my_custom_menu_item_capability” with a capability that you want to use. For more information on capabilities, see the WordPress Codex.

Now, when you go to the WordPress admin menu, you should see your custom menu item.