Closed Header sub-navigation empty and looks broken if non-default main tabs are used.

Alpha1

Alpha1

Well-known member
Licensed customer
Affected version
2.3.8
By default XF has various default main tabs that include:
  • Forums
  • Media
  • Resources
  • Members
Each of those tabs has various links in the secondary navigation.
Major addons will add more tabs. I have 13 such addons, which by default leads to a massive number of tabs, hidden by horizontal scroll. To avoid this issue its needed to move most of these tabs to a new parent.

When we use the navigation manager to make our own main tabs and make those the parent of the the aforementioned tabs, then I would expect those navigation entries to become visible on the secondary navigation. But this is not the case. Instead the secondary navigation is empty and only displays as a tiny empty bar.
Forum.webp

-1-What-s-new-Forum.webp
In the default style, its visually not too prominent because its a white bar on grey background. But on a custom style with different colors it jumps out prominently. The main issue is that you would expect to see links there no matter which tab is active. Now it only displays links in sub navigation if a default tab is active. Clicking back and forth between such main tabs makes it seem broken.

From my view this is unexpected and unwanted behaviour. Its probably somewhere inbetween a bug/issue report and a suggestion. But it would be mighty nice if this issue would be resolved. Because its a header issue, all site users see it and it looks broken to the average user.
 
Automated triage: As designed

Thank you for reporting this issue. The navigation only highlights a tab when the current page's section is itself a top-level tab. When that entry is nested under another tab, the home entry's links are used instead, and the bar is left empty when that entry has no visible links. Selecting the parent tab would be a change to how navigation works and is better raised as a suggestion.

This is an automated assessment. A member of staff may review and update it.
 
I also raised this issue in one of the HYS threads and IIRC @Jeremy P mentioned the issues with content tabs are on the radar as part of better content discovery. This isue is just one of many issues with content discovery which make it really hard for users to find their way. If a website uses many content types, then xenforo can only display a long horizontal row of menu tabs that no one will click. Putting multiple content types / addons under the same tabs is a normal widely used approach in website setup. An approach Google and users expect, but it leads to the issue in the current thread.

I disagree that its better raised as a suggestion. Thats not how suggestions work on xenforo. It would never get voted on because its a software design issue, the thread would be automatically binned after a bit.
 
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