AppBridge NavigationMenu active state not functioning correctly

Other Questions Shopify
1

I’m encountering issues with the Shopify AppBridge NavigationMenu where the active state isn’t being set as expected. Here’s the code I’m using:

const productsLink = AppLink.create(app, {
  label: 'Products',
  destination: '/products',
});

const configLink = AppLink.create(app, {
  label: 'Configuration',
  destination: '/config',
});

const mainMenu = NavigationMenu.create(app, {
  items: [productsLink, configLink],
  active: configLink,
});

Previously, this setup worked seamlessly for highlighting menu items linked to subpages. However, currently when I visit subpages, the parent menu item isn’t being highlighted.

I was implementing the following:

window.mainMenu = NavigationMenu.create(app, {
  items: menuLinks
});

// Later setting an active menu
window.mainMenu.set({active: selectedMenuItem});

This method was effective before, but now it seems to be malfunctioning. I’m not sure if there was a recent update to AppBridge that altered this feature. Has anyone else faced this problem?

2

I had the same issue recently - turned out to be a timing problem. The NavigationMenu’s active state wasn’t updating because I was calling the set method before the menu fully initialized. I fixed it by wrapping the active state update in a setTimeout, or better yet, listening for the navigation menu’s ready event. Also make sure you’re using the latest AppBridge version. Version 3.x had a major update for active state management that moved away from the set method. Instead of window.mainMenu.set(), try recreating the NavigationMenu with the new active item each time you need to change it. This approach has been way more reliable for me.

3

Yeah, this caught me off guard too when I moved to AppBridge 3.x last month. The framework changed how it handles route matching for active states. My issue was that AppBridge wasn’t matching nested routes to their parent menu items properly. I fixed it by explicitly setting the active item with a useEffect hook that watches route changes. Also had to make sure the destination paths in my AppLink objects matched the actual route patterns exactly - even trailing slashes matter now. One more thing - check if you’re initializing NavigationMenu after the app context is fully ready. If you do it too early, the active state detection fails silently.