Adding a menu item which points to an Article

This Article Needs Your Help

Adding a menu item that points to an article

The following tutorial will show you how to create a new item in the main menu that points to the article called Support and Documentation. Based on this information you will be able to add a new menu item to any of your defined menus pointing to any article you have previously created for your site.

First, you will need to login to the administration panel of your web site. To do so open a new browser window and type in the URL, which will be similar to htt://www.your_site_name_here.com/administrator. Here you will have to log in as a Super Administrator (it is usually linked to the user called admin).

Now that you are inside the site administration panel choose Menus -> Main Menu. Please note that you can choose any other menu at this point without any change to the procedure here-after.

On the newly opened page, add a menu item (link) by pressing the New button in the upper-right corner (the green icon with the plus sign). On the next page choose Articles under the Internal Link section by clicking on it. Next choose Article Layout under the previously selected Articles section.

We are getting really close. Hold on! On the new page fill in the different fields like this:

Menu Item Details

Title - this will be the text displayed for the newly added menu item. For this particular case let's use the word Documentation.

Alias - usually, you will leave this empty and Joomla! will fill this in for you automatically. The content of this field will determine the page URL when SEF is activated.

Display in - this should already be set to Main Menu (or the menu you have previously chosen ). Here you have the possibility to move the item to another menu if you wish. This field is quite useful when you decide to change the item location later. Parent Item - here you can specify where to place the new menu item. You can make it a top item or a sub-item of an already existing item. We will choose Top.

Published - if you wish your new item to be shown on your site, set this to Yes. If you would like to remove this menu item from the site, simply set this to No. It will not delete the item but will make it invisible to your visitors.

Access Level - this option will specify whether this new item will be visible for all visitors (Public), registered users only (Registered) or site administrators and managers only (Special)

On Click, Open in - here you can specify how to open the article. It can be the same browser window (Parent Window with Browser Navigation), a new browser window (New Window with Browser navigation) or a pop-up window (New Window without Browser Navigation)

Now, let's get to the right side of this page...

Parameters (Basic)

The most important part in this section is the Parameters (Basic) setting. Here you can specify the article that will be opened when the user clicks the newly created menu item. For this press the Select button near the Select Article input box. In the pop-up window Support and Documentation from the list of articles by clicking on the article name. Please note that you can choose any of the existing articles at this point.

Parameters (Component)

Here you will find different options to help you customize the way your article will be displayed. Normally, you won't need to change anything in this section. If you decide to explore it, you will find good help in the tool tips that appear when you move your mouse over the labels (Show Unauthorized Links, etc)

Parameters (System)

This section will let you customize the way the page containing the article gets downloaded and displayed. Page Title - this parameter sets the text displayed in the browser window's title bar. You should use this if you would like to over-ride the page title set in the article. Don't forget! Page titles are one of the most important points when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO)! Use them wisely.

Show Page Title - display (Yes) or not (No) the page title set in the previous parameter

Page Class Suffix - this allows you to generate unique CSS classes for this page. This comes in usefull when you would like to change the look of the page to differentiate it from the rest of the site. If you don't need this, simply leave the field empty.

Menu Image - let's you choose an image to be displayed along with this item in the menu. The image you would like to associate with the item must be stored in the images/stories folder. You can upload your own image using the Media Manager or by FTP.

SSL Enabled - here you can specify whether the page will be displayed as a secure page (On), as a standard page (Off) or if it will be displayed as the other pages - secure or not - (Ignore).

Once you are done, click the Save button in the upper-right corner (the floppy disk icon). This will save the new item and place it as the last element (or sub-element, in case of sub-menu items) in the menu. You can use the green arrows in the Order column to change the item position within the menu.

Now, get back to the front-end and refresh the page. Voilà! The new menu item is shown. Please note that you might need to log in as a registered user or administrator to view the new item. It all depends on the Access Level you have set (see above). Whewn you click the new item, the article will be opened.