Salient 13 turns the header and its menus into something you configure instead of something you accept. The centrepiece is Salient Menu Options, a suite of per-item controls in Appearance > Menus that builds mega menus, adds icons to menu items, and puts background images behind them. Around it sit new theme options for how dropdowns behave and look, extra settings for the Menu Bottom Bar layout, a field for arbitrary header text like a phone number, and a choice of mobile menu layout.
This is a major release, so it also carries a round of performance and accessibility work and more than twenty fixes. None of it changes what you have already built: the new controls are opt-in, and your current menus and header keep rendering as they did. If you build client sites with navigation more complicated than a single row of links, this is the update to make.
Salient Menu Options: mega menus, icons, and images per menu item
Salient 13 adds Salient Menu Options, a set of controls attached to every item in Appearance > Menus. Expand any menu item and a Salient menu item options button opens a panel for that item alone.
A top-level item can be switched into a mega menu, turning its dropdown into a full multi-column panel instead of a single list. From the same panel you can set a background image behind the mega menu or behind an individual column, adjust a column’s width, and give any item an icon. The icon itself can be:
- A bundled icon font, either Font Awesome or Iconsmind, the two Salient already ships.
- A custom image you upload for that one item.
- An emoji, typed straight into the field.
Each icon sits next to the label or above it. A multi-column dropdown used to mean custom CSS or a dedicated mega-menu plugin. Now it is a set of fields on the item itself. The Salient Menu Options documentation walks through the panel, and the mega menu guide shows the column structure in practice.
Configure how dropdowns behave and how they look
The theme options gain a Dropdown/Megamenu area under Header Navigation, and three settings live there:
- Header Dropdown Display Descriptions prints the Description field WordPress already gives each menu item as a line of subtext under the link.
- Header Dropdown Positioning anchors a dropdown either from the bottom of the whole navigation bar or directly beneath its own menu item.
- Header Dropdown Roundness and Header Dropdown Box Shadow style the dropdown itself: corners rounded from 0 to 20px, and a shadow set to Small, Large, or None.
Together they let a dropdown match the rest of a site’s design without a line of CSS. Descriptions turn a plain link list into something closer to a small directory, and the roundness and shadow settings make a dropdown feel like part of the page rather than a browser default. The Header Navigation options documents each control.
New options for the Menu Bottom Bar layout
Salient’s Menu Bottom Bar header, the layout that holds the logo and top elements on one row and drops the menu onto a bar beneath, gets two controls of its own in Header Navigation.
Menu Bottom Bar Alignment sets how that lower menu sits: Center, Left, or a split arrangement that keeps the top row left-aligned while centring the menu below it. Menu Bottom Bar Separator adds a line between the two rows, so the header reads as two deliberate tiers rather than one tall block. Both settings appear only when the header format is set to Menu Bottom Bar, so they stay out of the panel for anyone on a different layout.
It is a small pair of switches, and it is the difference between a bottom-bar header that looks arranged and one that looks stacked.
Put a phone number or address in the header
A new Text To Display In Header field, also under Header Navigation, adds a small editor for a line of text that belongs in the header but is not a menu item: a phone number, a store address, opening hours. Type it in and it appears in the header alongside the navigation.
The field is a real editor rather than a plain text box, so it takes basic formatting and shortcodes. That means a click-to-call link, or a value pulled in by a shortcode, works as well as static text. It is the kind of thing that used to send you into a child theme. Now it is one option in the panel.
Choose a mobile menu layout
The last of the header additions is a Mobile Header Layout option, under Header Navigation’s mobile settings. It offers two arrangements for the header below the mobile breakpoint: the Default layout, and a Centered Menu layout that centres the logo in the mobile header.
One setting, two values, and it decides the first thing every phone visitor sees. Reach for Centered Menu when a centred logo is part of the brand and the default left-aligned header works against it.
Everything else in this release
Being a major, 13 does more than the headline features. The front end is lighter: smaller CSS, better asset loading, smoother parallax and mobile scrolling, and a better Cumulative Layout Shift score. Accessibility gets a pass too, with a skip-to-content link, screen-reader text for icon-only controls, and ARIA attributes in the header. Developers get new hooks, including filters to switch the transparent-header effect and its colouring in code (nectar_activate_transparent_header and nectar_transparent_header_coloring) and an action for injecting items into the mobile header. The release also clears more than twenty bug fixes, most of them in page builder elements and WooCommerce templates; the full 13.0 changelog has every line.
How to update
Update the theme and its bundled plugins together, and because this is a major version jump, do it on a backup or a staging copy first. In the WordPress admin, update the Salient theme, then let it prompt you for the bundled plugins, or run them from the Salient control panel. 13.0 ships an updated Salient WPBakery Page Builder at 6.6 and Salient Core at 1.8, alongside refreshed Nectar Slider, Portfolio, and the other bundled plugins; moving them as a set keeps the builder and the front end in sync. The release is tested against WordPress 5.7. The standard update steps cover the mechanics if it has been a while.
Update, then rebuild that menu
Salient 13 is a header release. If your client work keeps running aground on navigation, menus that need more than one column, a phone number that belongs up top, a mobile header that fights the brand, this is the update that clears it. Update on staging, then go rebuild the one menu you have been apologising for.
Frequently asked questions
Will updating to Salient 13 change how my existing menus and header look?
No. Every control this release adds is opt-in and starts off or empty. Mega menus are off until you enable one on a specific item, the dropdown description and styling options are switched off by default, and the header text field is blank. Your current menus and header render exactly as they did until you open the new panels and change something.
Which menu items can become mega menus, and where do the columns come from?
A mega menu is set on a top-level menu item. Its direct child items become the columns of the dropdown, and any items you nest under those children fill each column as links. So a mega menu needs at least one level of nesting in Appearance > Menus; a top-level item with no children beneath it has nothing to lay out as columns.
Can I add an icon to a menu item without turning it into a mega menu?
Yes. The icon setting is attached to the individual menu item and is independent of the mega menu switch, so an ordinary top-level link can carry an icon while staying a normal menu item. The same is true on regular dropdown items and across the different header layouts.
Where does the header text option display a phone number or address?
Its position follows the header layout you have selected rather than being fixed, so the same line sits in one place on a Left Header and another on the Menu Bottom Bar. If you need it in a particular spot, choose the header layout that puts it there.
