Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

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sidstone
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Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:33 pm

Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by sidstone » Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:21 pm

Im using Joomla 1.5 and I cant work out for the life of me how to Link to an Article Without a Visible Menu.

I have created a menu which can be seen at the top of my site www.sidstone.co.uk, what I want to do though is lose the drop downs so that my menu simply becomes tabs to the relevant sections.

It is important to me that the articles url's remain consistent with their relative sections i.e.

mortgages/moving-home
mortgages/remortgages
etc

without showing in the actual menu

Thanks

Pocketss
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Location: Troy, MI - USA

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by Pocketss » Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:41 am

Hey Sidstone,

try the following:

1. make another menu under 'Menu Manager'
2. Then add your articles to that menu
3. you can copy the link next to 'Link' and put that in articles on the front page. , this will also allow you to customize that particular page with extensions.

Another way to do it, would be to have separate menu for each of those tabs. when you click on a top menu item, you see different items and depending on the tab you clicked you see a different menu for the sub items.

Let me know if that's what you were looking for.


Neil

sidstone
Joomla! Apprentice
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Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:33 pm

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by sidstone » Mon Feb 22, 2010 5:16 pm

Hi, thanks for your reply. What Im trying to do is create the menus as follows:

Blog Layout Blog Layout Blog Layout
Main Menu > Mortgages Life Cover Insurance
/mortgages /life-cover /insurance
************* Don’t Link Any Pages to this Menu******************

Link to Article(s) i.e. pages for that section
Mortgage Menu > Moving Home <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /mortgages/movinghome
> First Time Buyers <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /mortgages/first-time-buyers
> Buy to Let <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /mortgages/buy-to-let
> Bad Credit/ Credit Problems/ Been Refused <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /mortgages/bad-credit

Link to Article(s) i.e. pages for that section
Life Cover Menu > Life Insurance <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /life-cover/life-insurance
> apply <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /life-cover/life-insurance/apply
> Critical Illness Cover <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /life-cover/critical-illness
> apply <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /life-cover/critical-illness/apply
> Why do I need cover <<<<<<<< need to set urls to /life-cover/why-do-i-need-cover

Pocketss
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Posts: 105
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:07 am
Location: Troy, MI - USA

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by Pocketss » Mon Feb 22, 2010 10:11 pm

Okay, to tackle this my solution would be in two parts. 1st part was to Enable SEF Url's. to do this you will need access to .htaccess. You will have to dig around the forums/web for rewrite rules. To make sure SEF Urls work properly. if you can't find them let me know I think I can dig through some backup files to find the rules. You might be able to ask your host as well. I think I had asked my host at the time.

Note on the menu, just because you have a menu, doesn't mean it's visible. It won't be visible until you use a menu module and display it.

after you get the SEF Url's working you can use the trial and error method to get the urls as you want them.
sidstone wrote: ************* Don’t Link Any Pages to this Menu******************

Link to Article(s) i.e. pages for that section
Mortgage Menu
>Moving Home - need to set urls to /mortgages/movinghome
>First Time Buyers - need to set urls to /mortgages/first-time-buyers
>Buy to Let - need to set urls to /mortgages/buy-to-let
>Bad Credit/ Credit Problems/ Been Refused - need to set urls to /mortgages/bad-credit

Link to Article(s) i.e. pages for that section
Life Cover Menu
>Life Insurance - need to set urls to /life-cover/life-insurance
>apply - need to set urls to /life-cover/life-insurance/apply
>Critical Illness Cover - need to set urls to /life-cover/critical-illness
> apply - need to set urls to /life-cover/critical-illness/apply
> Why do I need cover - need to set urls to /life-cover/why-do-i-need-cover
2nd part, if you have a menu named mortages and in that menu you have an article by the name of "Moving Home"

the url should be mortages/moving-home

if you can't get SEF urls to work properly, your urls will look like this
http://localhost/joomla/index.php?optio ... &Itemid=27 and I am not sure how to change that without enabling sef urls.

Let me know if that helps.

Good Luck

sidstone
Joomla! Apprentice
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Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:33 pm

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by sidstone » Sun Feb 28, 2010 9:29 pm

Well I think I have cracked some of it.

I have set up SEF easily thanks to a great post somewhere on here and I have followed your instructions but it still isnt set up correctly. I had to create an alias link for the sub menu so that the url's would actually link to the right pages but it works to a fashion.

sidstone
Joomla! Apprentice
Joomla! Apprentice
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:33 pm

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by sidstone » Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:43 pm

I have found an example of what I am trying to achieve and would really love to know if it is actually possible in joomla. MTV UK 's site navigation is what Im after...

please visit http://www.mtv.co.uk/ and then hover over the drop down menu..... notice there are no sub-menus coming off the single drop downs.

Hover over shows and click "the hills" in the drop down menus... notice the url http://www.mtv.co.uk/shows/the-hills.

This has brought the visitor to a section of the site dedicated to "The Hills"... perfect!

Now there is a small menu to the left... click "news" in the small menu... notice the url http://www.mtv.co.uk/shows/the-hills/news
***** Manual signatures are NOT allowed *****_

This would be absolutely perfect for my site.... I could create the sections as I want i.e. mortgages, loans etc... each with their own little sub menus, nice urls that dont appear as a sub menu on my main menu
***** Manual signatures are NOT allowed *****__

Can joomla actually support this type of navigation?

Or will the fact that all pages have to be shown on a menu for the page to be live prohibit such a basic function?

Thanks

Shaun

Pocketss
Joomla! Enthusiast
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Posts: 105
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:07 am
Location: Troy, MI - USA

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by Pocketss » Tue Mar 02, 2010 1:32 pm

when I got home today, I will setup a local site. I will try to write down all the steps I take. I've done it before just been a while.

sidstone
Joomla! Apprentice
Joomla! Apprentice
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:33 pm

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by sidstone » Tue Mar 02, 2010 5:23 pm

super... I cant wait... thanks!

sidstone
Joomla! Apprentice
Joomla! Apprentice
Posts: 47
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 11:33 pm

Re: Link to Article Without a Visible Menu

Post by sidstone » Sun Mar 07, 2010 2:26 am

I cracked it!!!

I thought I had better post how I did it so everyone else can see.... its simple really.

I never realised a simple concept. There is a difference between a live menu and a displayed menu.

All I had to do was this:

In the main menu you create a section e.g Tab 1. You dont link anything to this tab 1!

Then you create a new menu, say tab 1 section. You start with an alias link to this tab 1 and then have all the other links/pages as sub pages to that tab.

Then for the navigation you simply create a new menu e.g. Tab 1 Nav, ensure you hide the title and then every link is an alias to the main menu that you created.

That probably wont make sense but its the best I can do... If you need to know more PM me


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