How to change navwalker's dropdown mark-up?

[robertandrews]

I am using Bootstrap 4 Navwalker to step through my WordPress menu items and generate a navbar, like...

Single level - works

    <?php
    wp_nav_menu([
      'menu'            => 'primary',
      'theme_location'  => 'primary',
      'container'       => 'nav',
      'container_class' => 'sidebar-nav',
      'menu_id'         => 'sidebarnav',
      'depth'           => 2,
  'fallback_cb'     => 'WP_Bootstrap_Navwalker::fallback',
  'walker'          => new WP_Bootstrap_Navwalker(),
    ]);
    ?>

This correctly generates a navbar like ...

<nav class="sidebar-nav">
    <ul id="sidebarnav" class="menu">
        <li id="menu-item-3" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom current-menu-item current_page_item menu-item-home menu-item-3 nav-item active">
            <a title="Home Page" target="_blank" href="/" class="nav-link active" aria-expanded="false">
                <i class="icon-speedometer"></i>Home Page
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-4" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom menu-item-4 nav-item">
            <a title="Example Page" target="_blank" href="http://example.com/" class="nav-link" aria-expanded="false">
                <i class="ti-layout-grid2"></i>Example Page
            </a>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-5" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom menu-item-5 nav-item">
            <a title="Custom Page" target="_blank" href="http://example.com/custom/" class="nav-link" aria-expanded="false">
                <i class="ti-palette"></i>Custom Page
            </a>
        </li>
    </ul>
</nav>

Multi-level - preferred

The problem happens when it comes to drop-down/sub-menu items...

My theme handles those like this...

<nav class="sidebar-nav">
  <ul id="sidebarnav">
      <li class="selected">
            <a class="has-arrow waves-effect waves-dark" href="javascript:void(0)" aria-expanded="false">
                <i class="icon-speedometer"></i>
                <span class="hide-menu">
                    Dashboard <span class="badge badge-pill badge-cyan">4</span>
                </span>
            </a>
            <ul aria-expanded="false" class="collapse">
              <li><a href="index.html">Minimal</a></li>
              <li><a href="index2.html">Analytical</a></li>
              <li><a href="index3.html">Demographical</a></li>
              <li class="active"><a href="index4.html" class="active">Modern</a></li>
              <li><a href="index5.html">Cryptocurrency</a></li>
          </ul>
      </li>
      <li>
          <a class="has-arrow waves-effect waves-dark" href="javascript:void(0)" aria-expanded="false">
                <i class="ti-layout-grid2"></i>
                <span class="hide-menu">Apps</span>
          </a>
          <ul aria-expanded="false" class="collapse">
              <li><a href="app-calendar.html">Calendar</a></li>
              <li><a href="app-chat.html">Chat app</a></li>
              <li><a href="app-ticket.html">Support Ticket</a></li>
              <li><a href="app-contact.html">Contact / Employee</a></li>
              <li><a href="app-contact2.html">Contact Grid</a></li>
              <li><a href="app-contact-detail.html">Contact Detail</a></li>
              <li><a href="javascript:void(0)" class="has-arrow">Inbox</a>
                  <ul aria-expanded="false" class="collapse">
                      <li><a href="app-email.html">Mailbox</a></li>
                      <li><a href="app-email-detail.html">Mailbox Detail</a></li>
                      <li><a href="app-compose.html">Compose Mail</a></li>
                  </ul>
              </li>
          </ul>
      </li>
    </nav>

... That is, it:

• adds a <span> with .hide-menu inside the top-level link <a>
• adds an <ul> unordered list afterward.

This is the approach I want to stick to.

Multi-level: what navwalker gives

However, when using the navwalker, I get...

<nav class="sidebar-nav">
    <ul id="sidebarnav" class="menu">
        <li id="menu-item-3" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom current-menu-item current_page_item menu-item-home menu-item-has-children menu-item-3 nav-item dropdown active">
            <a title="Home Page" target="_blank" href="/" class="nav-link dropdown-toggle active" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-expanded="false">
                <i class="icon-speedometer"></i>Home Page</a>
                <div class="dropdown-menu">
                    <a href="/sample-page/" class="dropdown-item" aria-expanded="false"><i class="ti-palette"></i>Sample Page</a>
                </div>
        </li>
        ...
    </ul>
</nav>

That is, it...

• places a <div> with .dropdown-menu inside the <a>, instead of a <span> with .hide-menu
• for the sub-menu items, uses <a> elements

I'm sure this is standard Bootstrap 4 behaviour - in fact, I have happily used it this way on a different site. However, it's not what is needed by the Bootstrap 4 theme which I have purchased and am currently trying to turn in to a WordPress theme...

The question

How can I use the navwalker but in a way that will present drop-down/sub-menu items in a manner consistent with my theme... ?

[pattonwebz]

Hey @robertandrews,

I know it's been a very long time since you posted this and I am sorry for not getting around to responding. In it's current state the navwalker doesn't handle the situation you need very well (at all really) but I have been looking into adding filters/toggles for changing the markup here and plan to work on the updated walker very soon.

I realise this has come around much too late for your needs but I am going to work on something similar to this in the coming weeks and may use this issue to track some progress.

Thanks for opening this issue and I do hope you were able to get a solution for it back at the time.

[robertandrews]

Hi @pattonwebz - thanks for the reply :-)
I did not go ahead with implementing that specific theme and am currently building my own, which is essentially nothing much on top of Bootstrap 4.
I can't recall the specifics of my post, so not sure whether this was edge case for you anyway or something that would have been a useful inclusion.

Currently running https://github.com/dupkey/bs4navwalker during the build - maybe I should give this one a try, too.
Thanks for responding.