Integration of Privacy Policy and Terms of Use in JoomlaSite

[statesman]

Hi,

I have been searching these forums and throughout the Internet for specifics on setting up your Privacy Policy static and Terms of Use static, in the footer? or?

I know how to make an uncategorized page but, not how to place these pages/items/articles.

I heard that they are required. This is my first website, sorry.

I would prefer that they were not menu items but, instead, are placed in the footer with a nofollow, noindex designation.

Can someone please help me with this? I would sure appreciate some guidance!

Statesman

[Markstein]

You can accomplish this by creating a hidden menu then simply link your terms of service and privacy policy page to that menu. You can now include modules (for example your main menu, logo, etc.) on these pages.

You can search on Google for "creating a hidden menu in Joomla".

Mark

[statesman]

Hi Mark and joomla! forum members,

I was just on the phone to my Hosting Co. They said that these documents are not mandatory and are only for customer security, confidence and satisfaction purposes... is this correct?

Also, I don't really understand how hidden menus will benefit the security, confidence and satisfaction of knowing we have posted a Privacy Statement, Disclaimers, Terms of Use, etc...

I will go now and search for hidden menu creation, to see if that will also help fill in the blanks in my understanding.

I would appreciate any and all other input to help myself and others to understand this issue.

Thank you,
Statesman

[Markstein]

A privacy policy and TOS are not "mandatory" to put on your website. The hosting company is correct in what they said.

The only reason I said to create a hidden menu is so you can link to the articles and still place modules on those pages. You cannot easily place a module on an article that is not linked from a menu in joomla. If you notice in your module manager, you place the modules by choosing menu items.

FYI...Well...you can, but that's an entire different story!

Doing a quick search on Google here is one little tutorial for creating a hidden menu:

http://www.robertsjeremy.com/2009/07/hi ... in-joomla/

Mark

[aemiller]

I too am puzzled by the suggestion to make these part of a hidden menu. I would suggest making a menu (perhaps called footer menu). Then these items can be placed and linked in the footer.

[statesman]

Hi Mark, Mr. Miller, etal,

I went to the Jeremy Miller tut. I made the hidden menu. I made menu items that are linked to the Articles I made called Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. I then went to the Articles and opened them up, selected the title at the top of the page and clicked "add link", like he said in the Tut, I went to Menu, expanded it, went to hidden menu and selected it and clicked insert. Everything went well and both articles are shown in the menu mngr, in hidden menu, published, etc...

But, WHERE ARE THEY? And, where can they be viewed... I don't understand this.

Sure would appreciate somebody shedding light on this for me.

Statesman

[aemiller]

I too am puzzled by the suggestion to make these part of a hidden menu.

Yes, I'm quoting myself. If you want to see the links, do not make them hidden.

You asked if you could put them in the footer. Yes, you can. You would make a new menu. Give it a name (ie footer menu). Then go create a new menu module admin>extensions>module manager. Click the 'New' icon. Select 'menu'. Give this module a name (it could also be footer menu). Select a position (i.e. footer). Click save.

Now go back and add your articles to this new menu.

[statesman]

OK,

I did away with the hidden menu idea. Thank you anyway Mark and Jeremy.

I went with the footer menu. Works good, thank you Mr. Miller. Worked best as legacy horizontal but the two doc. titles are close together. I will try to find the place in CSS to add span? or padding? between the two names. Any suggestions with this on closing would be nice.

One other thing... On global settings, I clicked Yes on SEF URLs and went straight to the page and refreshed and the page/template did not load right. I may have panicked without giving the server time to reload the new item names... I hurried and switched it back, as I had not yet backed up my site. Does this take some time? Could someone give me a quick few lines on all three of these selections: SEF URLs, Use Apache mod_rewrite, and add suffix..

Thanks so much,

Statesman

[aemiller]

the two doc. titles are close together. I will try to find the place in CSS to add span? or padding? between the two names

If you have not yet started using the Firefox plugin Firebug, I highly recommend it. Firebug will tell you the name of the css file and the line number of the element that you want to change. You can also make changes on the screen to see how that change will look before you make the change in the css file.

Firebug https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843/
Firebug Tutorial http://docs.joomla.org/Tutorial:Using_F ... la_Website

Could someone give me a quick few lines on all three of these selections: SEF URLs, Use Apache mod_rewrite, and add suffix..

Yes, you do select all three. What you also need to know is that you must rename the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess

[Markstein]

I too am puzzled by the suggestion to make these part of a hidden menu. I would suggest making a menu (perhaps called footer menu). Then these items can be placed and linked in the footer.

Yes this certainly can be done this way, however, I was stating the way I accomplish this. The way I have always understood it is when you insert some text, for example, in an article and you wish to make that text a link to another article, that targeted article must be linked from a menu in order to link to it.

On most of my sites I publish a custom html module in the footer position. Within this module I have links to the major parts of the site for the users and I have a certain way that I keep things organized for my administrative purposes (through menus, etc.). I apologize if this this caused any confusion.

Mark

[statesman]

@Mark,

That's OK... We're always learning, even when we're trying new things!
I appreciate your input. I may try that process again later.

I would be very interested in seeing your Link Footer thing.


@aemiller,

I loaded Firebug but haven't messed with it yet. I already had webdev plugin loaded but hadn't gotten used to it enough to remember it!

I went out and uploaded eXtplorer, (very nice ext!) renamed the htaccess.txt file, set the global settings like you recommended and away we went! I have an extended menu and things wigged out a bit in the translation, at first. I went in to the module and changed a couple of settings and it seems to have settled in and cooperating!

Anyway, everything seems to be doing alright. My Privacy Policy is in my Footer Menu. I may change that format later as, it seems to be a bit of a waste of the Footer Module Position!

So, I'm still interested in hearing options, like Mark's Link Footer, etc..

Thanks all!

[Markstein]

I may change that format later as, it seems to be a bit of a waste of the Footer Module Position!

You can see the way I do it using a custom html module here:

http://www.telmantec.com

At the bottom of the page you will see all of my links. It's not a menu. I simply insert all of my text into a custom html module and link all the text to my articles. Like it was pointed out...this necessarily isn't the right way or the wrong way, it's just the way I have accomplished it.

I went to Menu, expanded it, went to hidden menu and selected it and clicked insert. Everything went well and both articles are shown in the menu mngr, in hidden menu, published, etc...

But, WHERE ARE THEY? And, where can they be viewed... I don't understand this.

Since you have the articles linked to from a menu, you can easily link to the articles within another article using text. For example, In a new custom html module input some text, select the text and click the "insert link" button in your editor. Then choose to link to one of your articles within that hidden menu. Now if you publish that custom html module somewhere people can click the link to view your articles which are in your hidden menu. This way I don't take up a module position just for a menu that has a couple of items (for example a privacy policy and a TOS)

Mark