Using WordPress ‘add_submenu_page()’ PHP function

by

The add_submenu_page() WordPress PHP function adds a submenu to an existing menu item in the WordPress admin interface. It requires a set of parameters to determine the parent menu, text to be displayed, user capability to view the menu, and the slug name for the menu.

Usage

Here’s a basic example that adds a “Custom Submenu” under the “Tools” parent menu:

add_submenu_page(
    'tools.php', // Parent slug
    'Custom Submenu Title', // Page title
    'Custom Submenu', // Menu title
    'manage_options', // Capability
    'custom-submenu-slug', // Menu slug
    'display_custom_submenu_content' // Callback function
);

In this example, ‘display_custom_submenu_content’ is a function that you would define elsewhere in your code to display the content of your new submenu page.

Parameters

  • $parent_slug (string) – The slug name for the parent menu, or the file name of a standard WordPress admin page.
  • $page_title (string) – The text to be displayed in the title tags of the page when the menu is selected.
  • $menu_title (string) – The text to be used for the menu.
  • $capability (string) – The capability required for this menu to be displayed to the user.
  • $menu_slug (string) – The slug name to refer to this menu by. Should be unique for this menu and only include lowercase alphanumeric, dashes, and underscores characters to be compatible with sanitize_key().
  • $callback (callable) – The function to be called to output the content for this page. Optional.
  • $position (int|float) – The position in the menu order this item should appear. Optional. Default: null.

More Information

See WordPress Developer Resources: add_submenu_page()

Examples

Adding a Submenu Page under Posts

This example adds a submenu page under the “Posts” menu.

function my_custom_submenu_page() {
    add_submenu_page(
        'edit.php', // Parent slug
        'My Submenu Page', // Page title
        'My Submenu', // Menu title
        'manage_options', // Capability
        'my-submenu', // Menu slug
        'display_my_submenu_page' // Callback function
    );
}
add_action('admin_menu', 'my_custom_submenu_page');

function display_my_submenu_page() {
    echo 'Hello, this is my submenu page!';
}

Adding a Submenu Page under Settings

This example adds a submenu page under the “Settings” menu.

function my_settings_submenu_page() {
    add_submenu_page(
        'options-general.php',
        'My Settings Submenu Page',
        'My Settings Submenu',
        'manage_options',
        'my-settings-submenu',
        'display_my_settings_submenu_page'
    );
}
add_action('admin_menu', 'my_settings_submenu_page');

function display_my_settings_submenu_page() {
    echo 'Welcome to my settings submenu page!';
}