Introduction

The Menus are probably the most difficult concept to understand in Joomla. However, we will do our best to explain everything as simple and clear as possible. Once you understand the menu system scheme, it will all make sense, and you will be able to manage your Joomla website with ease.

In Joomla, menus consist of menu items used for navigation through the website. Each of these menu items represents a URL for a specific page on the website and contains the settings that control the content (article, items, category lists, etc.) and styles (layout, modules, etc.) of the given page.

This will be the main focus of our guide - to explain the menu concept and guide you on how to create and manage your website menus.

Accessing the Menus page

For a start, please log in to your Joomla Admin Dashboard and click on the “Menu(s)” shortcut button located on the left-hand side of the Home page.

Once this is done, you will be redirected to the “Menus” page, where you will see a list of all your menus. In order to add a menu, you will need to click on the green “New” button at the top left corner of the page.

Alternatively, you can navigate through the top menu bar to Menus > Manage > Add New Menu.

Creating a New Menu

Now, on the “New Menu” page, you will need to specify the menu details.

• Title - In this field, you will need to enter the name of the menu as it will be displayed on your website frontend.
• Menu Type - This is the system name of the menu. While entering it, please make sure to replace all spaces with dashed (-) and use only lower case letters.
• Description - The description is only for your reference, and it is optional. Therefore you may leave it blank.
• Client - This setting controls the scope of the menu. In other words, if the menu will be used for the entire website (“Site”) or for the backend (“Administrator”) only.

From the following “Permissions” tab, you will be able to modify the permission specifically for this menu. Note that this will override the Global Permissions we have previously reviewed in our How to configure Permission Settings in Joomla guide.

When you are ready, please do not forget to click on the “Save” button to finalize the creation of your new menu.

Now, your menu is successfully created. However, in order to display it on the frontend, it needs to be assigned to a position in the template you are using for your website. Here comes the part of creating secondary content or the such called Joomla Modules.

Adding Module to a Menu

Now, let’s direct Joomla where to display your new menu on the website frontend. As we have mentioned above, this is done using Joomla modules.

Back at the “Menus” page, you will see an “Add a module for this menu” button displayed next to your new menu, and you will have to click on it.

Once this is done, you will be prompted with the “Add a module for this menu” dialog, where you will need to specify the module details. The “Menu Module” consists of various components, although, for the purpose of creating a menu and assigning the module to it, we will review only the main components you need to be concern about at this point.

First, you will need to enter the “Title”, which will represent the menu on the website frontend. The “Select Menu” option indicates the menu which will be displayed in the module. It is already preselected. Therefore, please leave it as it is.

The last thing you need to pay attention to is the “Position” (located at the right end of the dialog). From this dropdown menu, you need to select the position of the template which will hold this menu. Please bear in mind that the available positions are determined by the template you are using, therefore, they may vary. Usually, when you purchase a Joomla template, it contains information about the positions in its documentation. In case you were not provided with such information, you can find detailed instructions on How to display module positions in Joomla.

Once you are ready, please click on the “Save & Close” button.

You are all set! Now it is time to go ahead and see how everything appears on your website frontend.

And there you go. Your new menu appears on your website frontend.

As we previously mentioned, this is one of the most confusing concepts of Joomla. Therefore, you deserve one huge ”Congratulations” on covering it.

To recap, you have learned how to create new menus in Joomla and how to assign modules to them in order to display them on your website frontend. We hope our guide helped you clear up things and better understand how Joomla works. In case you have any additional questions, feel free to contact our Support Team.