[Tutorial] Add Dropdown Menu in WordPress Theme from scratch

Sometimes HTML version of the theme doesn’t come with dropdown menu in menu bar, here is a simple way to add dropdown menu to your HTML:

Add the following HTML to your markup

<nav>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">WordPress</a>

            <!-- First Tier Drop Down -->
            <ul>
                <li><a href="#">Themes</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Plugins</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Tutorials</a></li>
            </ul>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Graphic Design</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Inspiration</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
    </ul>
</nav>h

Note that dropdown is simply adding <ul> into <li> of the first level.

After that, here is the explanation of the following CSS:

• Hide ul ul in menu (which is dropdown level)
• Show hidden dropdown menu in ul li:hover ul
• Adjust the dropdown menu width with ul ul li
• Position 2nd+ tier dropdown with ul ul ul (Untested)

You can see my code below. Feel free to adapt to your own menu.

/* Normal Menu CSS */
#nav-wrapper ul {
    float: none;
    margin: 0 auto;
    text-align: center;
}

#nav-wrapper ul li {
    float: none;
    display: inline-block;
    text-align: center;
    margin-right: 35px;
}

#nav-wrapper ul li a {
    color: #404040;
    font-size: 15px;
}

/* Dropdown Menu CSS */
#nav-wrapper ul ul {
    display: none;
    position: absolute;
    top: 100%;
    left: 0;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

#nav-wrapper ul li {
    position: relative;
}

#nav-wrapper ul li:hover > ul {
    display: block;
}

#nav-wrapper ul ul li {
    min-width: 170px;
    background: #fff;
    margin-right: 0;
    padding: 10px 15px;
    display: block;
    text-align: left;
}

#nav-wrapper ul ul li:last-child {
    padding-bottom: 20px;
}

#nav-wrapper ul ul ul {
    position: absolute;
    top:0;
    left:100%;
}

Credit: HTML is from https://webdesignerhut.com/css-dropdown-menu/ and my CSS code is adaptation of the code in this tutorial.

Originally published at Woratana Perth.