MenuBuilder

Improved menu item labels and page linking, with several editor, quick-add, and UI fixes.

Added

• Added a globe icon to menu items with a valid front-end page link, opening the page in a new tab.
• Linked elements now appear as Title field placeholders when adding or editing menu items.
• Fields coming from the menu's field layout are now badged as custom fields in the item editor.

Fixed

• Fixed the Upgrade to Pro link.
• Improved menu item naming using the linked element's title.
• Fixed the Nest under list updating after menu reordering.
• Fixed 0 being displayed as (untitled).
• Fixed drag-and-drop failures making Edit and reordering unresponsive.
• Fixed Edit using an outdated parent after dragging.
• Fixed Craft controls such as lightswitches, checkboxes, and action menus in the item editor.
• Fixed the Menus table overlapping the edition information.

Fixes plugin installation. MenuBuilder 1.0.0 could not be installed from the Plugin Store or the command line; this release corrects the plugin handle and everything Craft derives from it.

Fixed

• Corrected the Craft plugin handle to menubuilder, matching the Plugin Store listing. MenuBuilder 1.0.0 declared menu-builder in composer.json, so php craft plugin/install menubuilder and Plugin Store installation both failed with Invalid plugin: No plugin exists with the handle "menubuilder".
• Updated everything Craft derives from the handle: control-panel routes and URL rules, controller action routes, the template root, the translation category, the control-panel navigation item, and the project-config key (now plugins.menubuilder.edition).
• Unified the internal cache, cache-tag, mutex, and API rate-limit key namespaces under menubuilder:.
• Updated the documentation to use the corrected handle, including the installation command, the control-panel routes, and the plugin configuration filename.

First stable release of MenuBuilder for Craft CMS 5.

Added

Menus

• Create and manage multiple named menus with handles, descriptions, enable/disable status, and ordering.
• Free edition supports one menu; Pro supports unlimited menus.
• Configure maximum menu nesting depth from 1–10.
• Restrict menus to specific sites.
• Configure menu CSS classes and validated HTML attributes.
• Duplicate complete menus, including their settings and menu items.
• Reorder menus using drag-and-drop or keyboard controls.

Menu Items

• Eight menu item types:

  • Entry
  • Category
  • Asset
  • Custom URL
  • Anchor
  • Non-clickable heading
  • Separator
  • Dynamic navigation
• Live element-link resolution per request and site.
• Configurable fallback behavior for unavailable linked elements.
• New-tab targets with automatic rel="noopener" handling.
• Preset and custom rel attributes.
• Icons, badges, descriptions, images, featured status, CSS classes, HTML IDs, and custom HTML attributes.
• Accessibility fields including ARIA labels and title attributes.
• Enable/disable and duplicate menu items, including their complete subtrees.
• Custom fields for menu items using Craft field layouts, including Matrix and relational fields.
• Field conditions and multiple field-layout tabs are supported.

Visibility, Mega Menus, Mobile & Dynamic Navigation

• Visibility rules for:

  • Logged-in users
  • Logged-out users
  • User groups
  • Sites
  • Date ranges
  • Environments
  • Always-visible items
• Combine visibility rules using AND logic.
• Mega menus with 1–6 columns and configurable child-item placement.
• Mobile-specific menu presentation settings without maintaining a separate mobile menu.

• Dynamic navigation generated from:

  • Entries by section
  • Categories by group
  • Assets by volume
• Dynamic navigation limits and supported ordering are validated server-side.

Control Panel

• Drag-and-drop hierarchical menu editor.
• Full keyboard alternatives for menu and item reordering.
• Slide-out item editor with full-page fallback.
• Quick-add panel.
• Search and filtering.
• Bulk enable, disable, and delete actions.
• Visual indicators for children, disabled items, and mega menus.
• Link-health indicators for internal links.
• Menu-wide link-health summary with direct navigation to affected items.
• Preview screen for saved menus across selected site, audience, region, and device settings.
• Preview of rendered markup.

Developer Features

• Twig API:

  • craft.menuBuilder.get()
  • .breadcrumbs()
  • .getGroup()
  • .getItem()
  • .iconAsset()
• MenuBuilderNode as the stable public navigation object.
• Breadcrumbs based on the menu hierarchy rather than URL segments.
• Optional Twig macros for trees and breadcrumbs.
• Optional navigation asset for enhanced mega-menu keyboard behavior.
• Navigation field for integrating MenuBuilder navigation with Craft field layouts.
• GraphQL queries for MenuBuilder navigation.
• REST API endpoints for read-only navigation access.
• REST API support for ETags, CORS allowlists, and rate limiting.
• Extension events for registering custom link types and visibility rules.

Editions

• Free and Pro editions using Craft's commercial plugin licensing system.
• Free edition supports one menu.
• Pro edition supports unlimited menus.
• All other MenuBuilder features are available in both editions.
• Edition limits are enforced server-side through the menu service.
• Existing menus and data are preserved when Pro access expires or is downgraded.
• Menu rendering and existing menu editing remain available after downgrade.
• Commercial licensing uses Craft's licensing infrastructure; MenuBuilder does not maintain its own license system.

Performance

• Resolved menu data is cached per menu, site, and configuration version.
• Visibility rules and active-state resolution are evaluated for each request.
• Targeted cache invalidation is used for menu, item, element, container, and site changes.
• Draft and revision saves do not unnecessarily invalidate menu caches.
• Element links and custom-field content are batch loaded.
• Menu trees use efficient flat queries and batch loading to maintain predictable query counts.

Security

• Five MenuBuilder permissions:

  • menuBuilder:view
  • menuBuilder:create
  • menuBuilder:edit
  • menuBuilder:delete
  • menuBuilder:manageSettings
• Server-side permission enforcement for all protected actions.
• All control-panel mutations require POST requests and Craft CSRF protection.
• Control-panel actions require valid control-panel requests.
• URL, HTML attribute, ID, and CSS class validation rejects unsafe values and executable schemes.
• Custom HTML attributes are validated during saving and filtered again during rendering.
• GraphQL and REST visibility resolution is performed independently of the caller's identity to prevent cached visibility decisions from leaking between users.
• REST API request and failed-authentication rate limiting.
• Rate limiting can be controlled through the plugin's rateLimit configuration.

Accessibility

• Navigation output uses named <nav> landmarks and semantic lists.
• Active links use aria-current="page".
• Separators use semantic <hr> elements.
• New-tab links provide a hidden accessibility hint.
• Mega-menu disclosures use native <details> elements.
• Menu management provides keyboard alternatives to drag-and-drop interactions.
• Custom HTML attributes are filtered during rendering to maintain safe output.

Known Limitations

The following limitations are accepted for the 1.0.0 release:

• Menu and item save/delete events are not currently provided. MenuBuilder exposes registration events for custom link types and visibility rules.
• There is no built-in menu import/export format or command.
• Navigation fields resolve their menu for the current request's site.
• Changes driven only by Craft entry postDate or expiryDate do not trigger an immediate menu cache invalidation; cache duration determines the maximum staleness.
• Third-party element types without a built-in MenuBuilder link type are not automatically supported.
• Custom link types registered through the extension API are responsible for invalidating affected menu caches when necessary.
• Orphaned menu items are reported rather than automatically repaired.
• Preview renders saved menu data and does not simulate future time-based changes.
• Some Craft-dependent behavior requires integration testing and manual verification in addition to unit tests.

For detailed architecture, implementation decisions, API documentation, testing procedures, and release guidance, see ARCHITECTURE.md and README.md.