Ryan Dohrn shows how to add a dropdown menu item in Joomla 1.5 by navigating to Menus → Main Menu, selecting a link type, and choosing between list and blog layouts. He covers configuring display settings, refreshing the front-end to verify the menu works, and how to unpublish or delete items via the Menu Manager.
Hi, this is Ryan Dohrn over at BrainSwell Media. Today we're going to talk about how to add a new menu dropdown item to your Joomla website. So you'll notice here under Hire Ryan to Speak, there's 3 dropdown menus. Let's just say that we want to add one more menu item and we want to link over to a particular section or category of articles on our website. All we're going to do is go to the Joomla backend for the website and log in. Then what we're going to do from the top menu is choose Menus, Main Menu. In most cases, your top menu is your main menu, so if you're making changes and it's not working, perhaps you've chosen the wrong menu. It's important to note that you have a hierarchy— parents and children, if you will— within the menu structure. So, for example, if we look down here, you know, under Hire Ryan to Speak, Okay, you'll notice that we have a main item and then we have several items underneath. Okay, if you notice on the site, you've got a main item here and several items underneath. You can also change the order of those items underneath the menu by changing their order here, 1, 2, 3, 4. Alright, let's just go ahead and say we'd like to add a new one. So we'll go to the top right and we're going to click New. Now there's several things you can do. You can link to articles, you can link to news feeds, polls, etc. Let's go ahead and link to a certain category of articles. So here you've got an article, so if you want to link to a single article, this is the one you choose. If you want to link to a category, you choose one of these 2 options. If you want to link to a section, you choose one of these 2 options. Right now, let's go ahead and link to a category. Now we have 2 choices. Do we want it to lay out like a blog, or do we want to lay it out as a list? Let's choose a list. Okay, a list is just going to give us, just what we've said, a list of items. So, I'm just going to call this menu Test Ryan. Okay, and where do I want that to appear? I want it to appear in the hierarchy on the menus. I want it to appear under Hire Ryan to Speak, so I'm going to choose Hire Ryan to Speak. Which category do I want it to link to? Let's go ahead and choose my blog. How many links do I want to appear? 10. Here's some other formatting options here. 10 of them, I want 10 of them to appear. Let's click Apply. Now we'll need to go over to the main site and we will need to refresh the page. Very important to refresh the page. You'll notice now that under my menu I have one called Test Ryan. When we click on it, it should then give us a list, and it does, of the various items within that particular category. Now the category list is one option. Let's look at a blog list, okay? So if we want to change it from a regular list to a blog list, we simply click Change Type, and then we're going to do is we're going to choose a blog layout. Okay, now what is the difference? Well, I'll show you. A blog layout actually looks more like a layout of sort of a magazine, if you will. So let's go ahead and click back and let's refresh. And what you're going to see— whoops, I'm sorry, we're going to need to refresh and go back Sorry, let me move that back. We're going to need to go actually to Test Ryan, and there we go. Now you'll notice it's giving us, you know, the title, a little bit of information that's above the Read More in the article, and it gives us a bit of a blog layout as opposed to a list layout. So remember, you have 2 options in setting it up, okay, and for each one. So you can choose a list layout, which is the first one I showed you, or you can choose a blog layout. Remember, if you want to link to an article, you just choose Article Layout. If you want to, you can click on it then, and then all you'll do is simply choose the article that you want to link to. Then in this case, if I clicked Apply, I'd go back over to the website and I would click Refresh. You'll notice it doesn't refresh the page I'm on, it's refreshing this menu. So I'm going to click Test Ryan. Lo and behold, it links over to an article. That means what? Now, if I want to go and if I want to turn it off, then what I'm going to do is go back to the Menu Manager. I'm going to click Save here. I'm going to simply find that menu item, which is Test Ryan, and I'm simply going to either unpublish it, or in this case, I'm going to click Trash to remove it. I hope this has been a big help to you. This is how to add menus within the Joomla interface. Take care and all the best of luck. Ryan Dohrn here from BrainSwell Media, signing off.
