Joomla Menus
Joomla menu manager is used to create custom menus for the site and allows easy navigation through the site. Check out the following steps to get a better understanding of features available in Joomla Menu Manager:
Step 1
Navigate to the “Structure – Menus” from the left sidebar in Joomla Administrator Control Panel, and you will get the following screen:
You will get an option for Menus and Menu Items, as shown here. This screen can also be accessed via the “Menus – Manage” option from the Joomla Taskbar.
Step 2
If you want to add a new menu to your site, simply click on the “New” button or go through “Menus – Manage – Add New Menu” from the taskbar.
After clicking on the ‘New’ button, you will be directed to the following screen:
Here, you can create new menus by filling the following details:
| Title | Write a title for the menu. It is a required field to create a menu. |
| Menu-Type | Select the type of a menu, either the main menu or a user menu. |
| Description | Write a short description of the created menu. |
| Client | Choose Client type, either Site or an Administrator. |
Type these basic details, set permissions for the menu, and click on the Save button. You can check the created menu from the ‘Joomla Menu Manager’.
Step 3
After you have created a menu, you are now required to create ‘Menu Items’. Each menu may include multiple menu items. Menu items are used to determine the range of the content that may be placed in the main area of the page. To create the menu items, navigate to the “Menus – [Choose Your Created Menu] – Add new menu item” from the Joomla Taskbar.
You should get a form with several tabs like this:
On the top of the page, you have two main fields-
| Menu Title | Type the title for the menu item, which will be displayed in the menu. |
| Alias | It is automatically generated from the title. It is used as a SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URL and produces UTF-8 aliases. It does not support spaces and underscores. |
The given form consists of several other sections, such as details, link type, page display, metadata, and module assignment. Each section contains many options to be filled so that you can modify the settings for each menu item properly.
Details
The ‘Details’ section in “Add New Menu Item” looks like the below screen:
This section contains the following options:
| Menu Item Type | It is used to specify the type of menu item such as articles, tags, web links, system links, contacts, etc. |
| Link | It is used to determine the link in the menu. |
| Target Window | It contains three options: parent, a new window with navigation, and new without navigation, which target the browser’s window when the menu is clicked. |
| Template Style | It is used to select the template style for your website. You can select the default template or custom installed template from the drop-down menu. |
| Menu | It is used to specify the menu on which link will appear, either the main menu or user menu. |
| Default Page | It is used to set the menu item as default or home page of the site. It includes only Yes or No buttons. |
| Access | It is used to select who can access or view the menu item. You can provide access to Guest, Public, Registered users, Special or Superusers. |
| Language | It is used to select the language for the menu item that will be displayed on the site. |
| Note | It is used to enter text information. |
Link Type
The next section in “Add New Menu Item” is “Link Type”, which looks like the below screen:
This section includes the following options:
| Link Title Attribute | It is used to specify a description for the title attribute of the given hyperlink. |
| Link Class | It is used to define a class for the hyperlink. |
| Link Image | It is used to use an image with the hyperlink. |
| Image Class | It is used to define a class for the image. |
| Add Menu Title | It is used to add the menu title next to the image. It contains ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ buttons for the selection. |
| Display in Menu | It is used to select whether an image should be displayed in the menu or not. |
Page Display
The next section in “Add New Menu Item” is “Page Display”, which looks like the below screen:
It contains the following options:
| Browser Page Title | It is used to specify the description of the browser page title. |
| Show Page Heading | It is used to show the page title in the page heading. You can turn it on/off using the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ button. |
| Page Heading | It is used to type texts for the page heading. |
| Page Class | It is used to define the optional CSS class so that the elements on the page can be made stylish. |
Metadata
The ‘Metadata’ section in “Add New Menu Item” looks like the below screen:
This section includes the following options:
| Meta Description | It is used as an optional paragraph that contains a description of the page. It is displayed in the search results of the search engines. |
| Meta Keywords | These are the optional keywords that are used in the html page. |
| Robots | It is used to specify the robot instructions such as Global, Index, Follow, No Index, No Follow. It controls the way for tracking the data by the search engines from the site. |
| Secure | It is used to define whether a link should use SSL or Secure Site URL. It contains three options (e.g., On, Off, and Ignore). |
Module Assignment
The ‘Module Assignment’ section in “Add New Menu Item” looks like the below screen:
This section contains options to show/hide unassigned modules and unpublished modules.