Link a menu item to a board's announcements

This page shows you how to turn a WordPress menu item into a small announcements dropdown. When a visitor clicks the menu item, a panel opens right under it and shows the latest announcements from one board. The visitor stays on the page they are reading. Use this for site-wide "What's new" links in your header menu.

Before you start

• SimpleBoards Pro is active and your license is in the Active state.
• You have at least one board with announcements enabled. See Turn on the announcements tab for a board.
• You use the classic Appearance > Menus screen. (Block themes use the Navigation block, covered at the end of this page.)
• You already have a menu set up. The menu item can be a Custom Link with a placeholder URL like #, or any normal menu entry.

Step by step

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Appearance > Menus.
2. Pick the menu you want to edit.
3. Click the menu item you want to turn into an announcements dropdown. It expands to show its settings.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the item's settings. You will see a new field labeled SimpleBoards board for Announcement.
5. Click the dropdown next to that label. It shows:
   • Disabled (regular menu link): keep the item as a normal menu link. This is the default.
   • The title of every board on your site.
6. Pick the board whose announcements should open from this menu item.
7. Click the Save Menu button at the top right.

What changed

The menu item now behaves like an announcements dropdown on the front of your site:

• The label of the menu item stays the same. You wrote it in the Navigation Label field, so call it What's new, Updates, or anything else that fits.
• When a visitor clicks the item, the menu item opens an inline announcements panel instead of going to a new page.
• The panel shows the latest five announcements from the board you picked, in the same style as the widget's Dropdown mode.

If you ever want to turn the dropdown off, open the menu item again, set SimpleBoards board for Announcement back to Disabled (regular menu link), and save. The menu item goes back to being a normal link.

A note on block themes

If your theme is a block theme and you build menus with the Navigation block, use the SimpleBoards Announcement block instead. Open your header in the Site Editor, click the Navigation block, then click the + button inside it to add a child. Search for SimpleBoards Announcement and add it. Set the Board, Label, and Limit in the block's sidebar.

See also

• Turn on the announcements tab for a board
• Write your first announcement
• Show the announcements widget in a sidebar

Last updated

2026-05-23 · SimpleBoards Pro 1.0.1