Header & navigation
The header is one section with a lot in it. Most of what follows is optional, and a header with a logo and a menu is a perfectly good header.
Menus come from Shopify
The theme does not hold your menu. It reads the menus you build under Content → Menus, and how a menu is structured decides how it renders.
| Menu depth | Desktop | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| One level | A plain link | A plain link |
| Two levels | A dropdown | An accordion that opens in place |
| Three levels | A mega menu | A panel that slides in |
So the way to get a mega menu is to add a third level to that menu item in Shopify, not to find a setting in the theme.
Nesting deeper than three levels is possible in Shopify but the theme stops displaying at three. A menu that deep is usually a sign the top level needs splitting.
Mega menu
Once a menu item has three levels, extra controls appear on the header's mega menu block.
Maximum links per column defaults to six. Shopify menus grow over time, and a column with fourteen links pushes the promotional images below the fold — which is where the traffic you actually want usually is. Links past the limit stay reachable through the Shop all link at the foot of each column.
Images can be added per column. They are optional and the menu is faster without them.
The panel is capped at 70% of the screen height and scrolls inside that, so it cannot grow past the fold however long the menu becomes.
Search
The search bar can sit inline in the header or open from an icon. Inline takes room but gets used more.
Category dropdown. The selector beside the field can list all collections, your product types, or a menu. On a store with many collections, a menu is better: it is a short deliberate list rather than everything you have ever created, and shoppers scan it rather than scroll it.
Predictive search shows products as the shopper types. It runs on Shopify's search index, so nothing needs configuring, but it respects what you have set up in Search & Discovery — synonyms and boosted products apply here too.
The row layout
Five desktop arrangements, chosen under Layout: logo left with the menu beside it, logo left with the menu on a second row, logo centred, and so on.
The one worth knowing about is nav band, where the menu row takes its own background colour and spans the full width of the screen. It reads as a second bar under the header.
Utilities
Country and language selectors, an account link, a store locator link, order tracking. Each is a toggle.
A word on the country selector: the name of a country plus its currency is a long piece of text, and with a wide logo and an inline search bar the row runs out of room. If things look cramped, that block is usually where the space has gone. It shrinks before anything else does, but four utilities and a wide logo is a lot to ask of one row.
Sticky header
The header can stay in view while the page scrolls, or hide on scroll down and return on scroll up. The second is worth choosing on a store with long collection pages; it gives the products the full screen while still keeping the cart one gesture away.
Announcement bar
Its own section, above the header. It holds several messages that rotate, an optional countdown, and social links.
The countdown ends at a date you set. When it passes, the bar can hide itself or show different text — decide which before the date arrives rather than after.