Twenty Fifteen: display a default menu when no custom menu was created

[jeherve]

Twenty Fourteen displays a default menu (wp_page_menu) when the site owner didn't create any custom menu. I think Twenty Fifteen should do the same, for the primary menu.

See attached patch.

[jeherve]

Display a default menu when no custom menu was created

[iamtakashi]

We've had the fallback for the past default themes but I don't think we have to have a menu when a design accommodates not to have a menu. Past default themes (except Twenty Twelve) demand to have a menu because of the "bar" but Twenty Fifteen doesn't.

The fallback results to have empty nav and div elements when there is no page in a blog. With the fallback, people will need to create a blank menu to not to have a menu which is "hacky" in my opinion. Not to mention the blank menu also results to have a blank nav element.

Twenty Fifteen is a blog focused theme and more often than not a personal blog don't need a menu, and it's nice to not force users to have a menu when they don't need.

I suggest wontfix.

[jeherve]

Past default themes (except Twenty Twelve) demand to have a menu because of the "bar" but Twenty Fifteen doesn't.

That makes sense.

Twenty Fifteen is a blog focused theme and more often than not a personal blog don't need a menu, and it's nice to not force users to have a menu when they don't need.

I would argue that a blog often has at least a couple of pages : About, and Contact. These 2 pages make sense on a blog imo, and "About" is there by default on every new WordPress site.

I like the fallback because it also shows what the theme can do. Without it, new bloggers may wonder how they can add a list of pages to their sidebar, and may end up using the Pages widget, which doesn't look as good as a menu.

[iamtakashi]

Replying to jeherve:

I would argue that a blog often has at least a couple of pages : About, and Contact. These 2 pages make sense on a blog imo, and "About" is there by default on every new WordPress site.

We only can speculate whether a blog owner wants to have a page or not, but my point is that a theme shouldn't force them to have one when they don't want to. Nor leading them to have a hacky solution with empty html tags.

I like the fallback because it also shows what the theme can do. Without it, new bloggers may wonder how they can add a list of pages to their sidebar, and may end up using the Pages widget, which doesn't look as good as a menu.

Educating users remains as our challenge but we need to keep doing that so that they use the right tools for the purpose the tools are designed for. Instead of forcing some users to have something when they don't want to. We can totally add a custom menu instruction to readme.txt.

[celloexpressions]

I agree with Takashi that there is no need for a fallback menu in this case. Education on how to use menus and widgets is preferable over having to handle support requests for users wanting to get rid of menus (or not knowing where it's coming from at all). And if the design accommodates no menu, why not strive for simplicity and not have a menu by default?

[iandstewart]

+1 to no need for a fallback menu here.