Main menu position in Elemental and Atomik Themes

I have recently set up a new website and installed the latest version of Concrete (preumably 9) and have nagged the Hosting Service to load the latest version of PHP. I note that there seems no way to quickly check what version of Concrete or PHP one has.

The problem is that V9 does not put the main navigation menu in the centre of the heading on the Home page as happened in previous version that I have used. With the two defult themes, Elemental and Atomik I get different results. Atomik provides no navigation menu at all and there seems to be no obvious way to install one. No doubt that is hidden away deep in parameter land. Elemental dumps the navigation items in the top right quadrant of the heading. They also seem to be proofed against the user trying to change their font or colour.

Could any kind person point me in the direction of support documentation or provide a few instructions please?

Thanks

Pete

Dashboard > System & Settings > Environment > Environment Information

Hi ConcreteOwl and fellow coders

Thanks for that tip. I must admit that I have never worked my way through all the entries on the Dashboard. Anyway it seems I have Concrete Version 9.1.2 and the Server gents have loaded PHP v 7.3.33

Regards

Pete

Thanks ConcreteOwl for the link to the Documentation. Unfortunately I have yet to find the section in it which goes into detail about the two default themes, Elemental and Atomik. Clearly there must be a way to ‘tweek’ them but that is not obvious to the sort of user like me who is happy to leave the theme alone if it works. However, in this case I don’t feel it does which is why I am look for a ‘way in’.

Regards

Pete

Hi Everybody

It seems that menu listings are going to bug me for a while. I have added a grandchild page (3rd level) and published it but the menu has not updated, showing only the first and second level pages. I guess that a ‘fix’ would be never to go that many pages down but I rather feel that should not be a constraint.

Your advice would be appreciated.

Regards

Pete

Hi Pete,

I can’t speak for Atomik, but I’m pretty sure elemental doesn’t go to a third level, I raised the same issue on GitHub a while back, and I think the answer I got was that this was intentional.

Our theme Modena does have a third level and beyond Modena - Concrete CMS if you are interested in going with a different theme.

Best Regards,

David.

Hi David

Many thanks for your post and the information about Elemental. I guess I should have thought about it - the clue is in the name!

I have looked at your Modena site and would like to commend you on clearly showing and explaining what the theme can do. Having worked though all your details it looks as if it is a theme that would suit us, but we had not planned on spending cash on this venture. We are just two old wrinklies trying to spread the word about an excentric interest. However I will confer with John and we may come back to you.

Best wishes

Pete

Hi Pete,

Not a problem, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to shoot us a message.

Best Regards,

David

Hi Everybody

Can I just add a follow up to this question to help other Newies to Version 9 who are having trouble with menus.

I have reverted from Elemental theme to Atomik on the Home page. The first horror was that the menu disappeared. However careful examination of the page on a big screen showed that the top of the page in faint characters Empty Sitewide Header area and below it Empty Page Header Area. Being elderly and of not brillian eyesight I had not registered these two earlier.

Choose to edit the Sitewide Header Block and then in the available blocks choose Top Navigation Block. The window that comes up will allow you to choose drop down menu items for sub pages. The Option for Text Branding is probably best changed from the site URL to Mysitename Home.

That will provide the style of menu that was available in earlier versions. The Empty Page Header Area can be used for whatever banner or fancy heading you want for the page, just as we were able to do in earlier versions.

Of course that may be all terrible out of date now, but then some of us are just old fogies…

Regards

Pete