Joomla User Tips

Submitted by freelock on

These are tips based on installing Mambo for various web sites.

General user tips


  • Software has written a great guide for getting started with Mambo/Joomla. Download the most recent version from page.
  • For finding extensions, check out Tips on the forums.


Add a new chapter


In this site, we've set up a section for each chapter of the organization. We've then created a set of standard categories for chapters, and added them to each section. We've also created a custom menu for each chapter, and finally, a calendar and Peoplebook category for each chapter.

  1. Create a new section for the chapter.
    1. Go to Content->Section Manager
    2. Check one of the existing chapter sections, and click "Copy".
    3. Give the section a new name, and Save.
  3. Edit the new chapter section.
    1. Change the Title as appropriate ("Chapter x")
    2. Change the description (may not be used...)
    3. Add to the Main Menu, using the Link to Menu. Give the menu item a name, and use a type of "Section List."
    4. Save.
  5. Edit the new chapter page.
    1. Go to Menus->Main Menu, and click the new Section.
    2. Change the Parent Item to Chapters to put it under this heading.
    3. Change parameters as desired, and save.
  7. Create a new Chapter menu.
    1. Go to Menu->Menu Manager.
    2. Select an existing chapter menu and click Copy.
    3. For menu name, don't use spaces/characters, e.g. "universitymenu"
    4. For module name, this will be the public title e.g. "University Chapter"
    5. Copy.
  9. Edit Chapter menu
    1. In the Menu Editor for the chapter menu, edit each item.
    2. Change the "Category" to the one for the correct chapter and save.
  11. Add Chapter menu
    1. Go to Modules->Site Modules.
    2. Find your new menu, and edit it.
    3. Change "Position" to "User 1".
    4. In the right column, under Pages/Item, unselect "All", and use the Control key to add the Main Menu | chapter name, and all the items in the new menu.
    5. Save.
  13. Edit Category names.
    1. Go to Content->Content by section->Chapter x->Add/Edit Chapter x categories.
    2. Click each category and rename to the correct chapter.
    3. Add to the User Menu.
    4. If you want to add a table so Authors and Editors can add content, on the right side select "usermenu", choose "Content Category Table", and give it a menu name e.g. "Edit University Blog".


Peoplebook Module

I've figured out how to link to a Peoplebook category. It's a bit of a hack, but it works fine. The PeopleBook component doesn't have a direct interface to get to its categories, but here's how to build a menu link that works.

  1. Log into the front end, and follow the PeopleBook link I added to the user menu.

  2. Follow the link to the category you want to show, and with that category page showing the way you want to appear, copy everything in the address bar starting with /index.php. For example:

/index.php?option=com_peoplebook&Itemid=109&func=viewcategory&catid=13

  1. In the back end, create a menu item on the main menu of type "Link - Url". Give it the name you want to appear in the menu, nest it where you want it, and save.

  2. Now we have to fix it so the menu expands correctly. In the front end, go to the parent item. For example, follow the link to the Eastlake chapter. Notice the last number in the URL, in this case, 73.

  3. Go back to the menu manager, and replace the Itemid with this number. For the Eastlake chapter, it should end up looking like this:

/index.php?option=com_peoplebook&Itemid=73&func=viewcategory&catid=13

That should do it! The other categories should be exactly the same--except the catid should equal the id for the Peoplebook category, and the Itemid should match the last number for a link that has the right menu expanded.

Events Calendar


We've deployed the Calendar to allow users to add and edit events. The full documentation can be downloaded in PDF form here.