Remove unusable metaboxes in nav menu management screen

1 comment

1. There are two important global variables in wp-admin/nav-menus.php:

   • $nav_menus is an array of all available menus, filled with wp_get_nav_menus().
   • $wp_meta_boxes['nav-menus'] is an array of all available metaboxes for this screen.

   We can hook into admin_head-nav-menus.php, an action called after the first variable has been set up, and change the second variable:

   add_action( 'admin_head-nav-menus.php', 't5_hide_dead_menu_metaboxes' );
   
   /**
    * Remove metaboxes for menu items when no menu exists.
    *
    * @wp-hook admin_head-nav-menus.php
    * @return  void
    */
   function t5_hide_dead_menu_metaboxes()
   {
       empty ( $GLOBALS['nav_menus'] )
           and $GLOBALS['wp_meta_boxes']['nav-menus'] = array ();
   }
   

   Download as plugin T5 Hide dead menu metaboxes from GitHub.

   Additional Information:

   After removing meta boxes the screen is looking a bit odd. We could change a bit initial hook and add some styles to make it looking better. So our hook could be:

   /**
    * Remove metaboxes for menu items when no menu exists.
    *
    * @wp-hook admin_head-nav-menus.php
    * @return  void
    */
   function t5_hide_dead_menu_metaboxes()
   {
       if ( empty( $GLOBALS['nav_menus'] ) ) {
           $GLOBALS['wp_meta_boxes']['nav-menus'] = array ();
           echo '<style> #nav-menus-frame { margin-left: 0 !important; padding-top: 20px; } </style>';
       }
   }
   

   Then the screen will look more natural:

   

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