Dynamic Location Menus

By Duppins Technology

A WordPress plugin that rewrites nav menu links on the fly based on the visitor's current location context. Build ONE master menu using generic service URLs; on city-specific pages, each link automatically swaps to that city's page. Everything — locations, URL patterns, and service slots — is admin-configurable.

How it works

1. You configure locations (city + optional region) in the settings page.
2. You configure service slots — each row maps a generic URL on your site to a slot name and an optional fallback URL.
3. You build ONE nav menu in Appearance → Menus using your generic service URLs.
4. When a visitor lands on a page that matches your configured URL pattern (default: /service-areas/{region}/{slot}/{city}/), the plugin detects the city and rewrites every matching menu link to that city's specific page. Items with no city version use the fallback (or are hidden — your choice).

Settings page

Settings → Location Menus with four tabs:

• Settings: URL pattern, missing-page behavior, locations repeater, slots repeater
• Coverage matrix: which cities have which custom pages (with manual rescan)
• URL preview: paste any URL, see what the plugin detects and how it would rewrite
• How it works: usage notes

URL patterns

Default: /service-areas/{region}/{slot}/{city}/

Tokens supported: {region} (optional), {slot}, {city}. Tokens may be merged inside a segment via the advanced "secondary pattern" feature, e.g., /locations/{region}/categories/featured-{city}/.

If region is left blank on a location, the plugin collapses the empty segment so you get /service-areas/{slot}/{city}/.

Service slots — how matching works

Each slot row has a URL path (the path the menu item uses, no slashes), a slot name (the segment that appears in the city URL pattern), and an optional fallback URL.

Slot matching is exact-depth. A configured slot of services/roadside-assistance matches only URLs at that exact depth — a deeper URL like services/roadside-assistance/battery-boost is treated as a sub-service and not rewritten. To swap a sub-service URL, add an explicit slot row for it.

Missing-page behavior

When a visitor is on a city page but a menu item doesn't have a matching city version, the plugin can:

• Fallback (default): use the configured fallback URL
• Leave: keep the menu item's original URL unchanged
• Hide: remove the item from the menu

File structure

dynamic-location-menus/
├── dynamic-location-menus.php
├── readme.txt                       WordPress.org-style readme (also used by the updater)
├── README.md
├── LICENSE.md
├── SECURITY.md
├── CHANGELOG.md
├── composer.json
├── assets/
│   ├── admin.css
│   └── admin.js
└── includes/
    ├── class-dlm-settings.php       Configuration storage and sanitization
    ├── class-dlm-pattern.php        URL template parser (regex + builder)
    ├── class-dlm-registry.php       Page-map cache + lookup helpers
    ├── class-dlm-context.php        Detect current location from URL
    ├── class-dlm-resolver.php       Decide each menu item's final URL
    ├── class-dlm-menu-filter.php    Hook into wp_nav_menu_objects
    ├── class-dlm-scanner.php        Walk pages, build registry
    ├── class-dlm-admin.php          Settings page
    └── class-dlm-updater.php        GitHub release update checker

Delivery and updates

This plugin checks GitHub for new releases and shows updates in Dashboard → Updates like a normal WordPress plugin.

Install on a site

1. Download the latest dynamic-location-menus-x.y.z.zip from GitHub Releases.
2. Upload and activate it in WordPress.
3. The installed folder must be named dynamic-location-menus.

Publish a new version

1. Bump Version and DLM_VERSION in dynamic-location-menus.php.
2. Update Stable tag in readme.txt and add an entry to CHANGELOG.md.
3. Commit and push to main.
4. Create and push a version tag:

git tag v1.0.1
git push origin v1.0.1

GitHub Actions builds a release zip (including Composer dependencies) and attaches it to the release. Sites with the plugin installed will detect the update automatically.

Private repository access

If the GitHub repository is private, add this to wp-config.php on each site that should receive updates:

define('DLM_GITHUB_TOKEN', 'ghp_your_read_only_token_here');

Use a fine-grained or classic token with read access to the repository only. Do not commit tokens to this repo.

Local development

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

The update checker library lives in vendor/ and is included in release zips automatically.

Filters

You can also override programmatically by storing the dlm_settings option from your own plugin/theme bootstrap.

Caching notes

wp_nav_menu output is cached by some plugins. Full-page caches that key on request URL work transparently. Fragment caches that cache menu HTML separately should vary on the request path.

Versioning

See CHANGELOG.md for release history. This is v1.0.0.

License

Proprietary — see LICENSE.md. Security reports: SECURITY.md.