Add different span class to wp nav menu - html

Question

Here is my html for the menu:
<div id="main-menu-container">
<ul id="main-menu">
<li><span aria-hidden="true" class="icon-home"></span>Home</li>
<li><span aria-hidden="true" class="icon-briefcase"></span>Portfolio</li>
li><span aria-hidden="true" class="icon-cog"></span>Services</li>
</ul>
</div>
& the WordPress nav code:
<?php
wp_nav_menu(
array(
'theme_location' => 'primary',
'container_id' => 'main-menu-container',
'menu_id' => 'main-menu',
)
);
?>
As you can see, the problem is, I have different span class added to each list item. I can not use link_before & link_after, because the span classes are in between the link, not after & before.
Is there any solution to convert this kind of html menu to WordPress?

Answer 1

You need to use a Custom Walker. You can see a tutorial with several sample code sources here or a more general version below.
Add to functions.php
class description_walker extends Walker_Nav_Menu
{
function start_el(&$output, $item, $depth, $args)
{
global $wp_query;
$indent = ( $depth ) ? str_repeat( "\t", $depth ) : '';
$class_names = $value = '';
$classes = empty( $item->classes ) ? array() : (array) $item->classes;
$class_names = join( ' ', apply_filters( 'nav_menu_css_class', array_filter( $classes ), $item ) );
$class_names = ' class="'. esc_attr( $class_names ) . '"';
$output .= $indent . '<li id="menu-item-'. $item->ID . '"' . $value . $class_names .'>';
$attributes = ! empty( $item->attr_title ) ? ' title="' . esc_attr( $item->attr_title ) .'"' : '';
$attributes .= ! empty( $item->target ) ? ' target="' . esc_attr( $item->target ) .'"' : '';
$attributes .= ! empty( $item->xfn ) ? ' rel="' . esc_attr( $item->xfn ) .'"' : '';
$attributes .= ! empty( $item->url ) ? ' href="' . esc_attr( $item->url ) .'"' : '';
$prepend = '<strong>';
$append = '</strong>';
$description = ! empty( $item->description ) ? '<span>'.esc_attr( $item->description ).'</span>' : '';
if($depth != 0)
{
$description = $append = $prepend = "";
}
$item_output = $args->before;
$item_output .= '<a'. $attributes .'>';
$item_output .= $args->link_before .$prepend.apply_filters( 'the_title', $item->title, $item->ID ).$append;
$item_output .= $description.$args->link_after;
$item_output .= '</a>';
$item_output .= $args->after;
$output .= apply_filters( 'walker_nav_menu_start_el', $item_output, $item, $depth, $args );
}
}
your wp_nav_menu code
wp_nav_menu( array(
'container' =>false,
'menu_class' => 'nav',
'echo' => true,
'before' => '',
'after' => '',
'link_before' => '',
'link_after' => '',
'depth' => 0,
'walker' => new description_walker())
) ;
code extracted from Kriesi