Practice Lesson 04: Mastering Joomla Menu System – Building a Site-Wide URL Path Permalink Structure

Author Dustin Dzung Published: 09 October 2024

Joomla Menus are a powerful, unique, and essential system that helps you define the entire URL structure of your website. Joomla Menus are crucial for building your website. Mastering Joomla Menus is an essential skill when creating a website with Joomla.

Location of the Menu Structure Management Section

In the Backend, as shown in the image, you can find the Menus section in the left column.

In the Backend, as shown in the image, on the left column under "Menus," you will see Groups (Menu URL Path Permalink). Currently, the image shows the following:

Bottom Menu, Special Menu, Main Menu Blog, Main Menu

These Groups (Menu URL Path Permalink) can be thought of as categories for your menus. What's special is that each time you create a new group (a category for menus), it will automatically appear in the list on the left, as you see.

Groups (Menu URL Path Permalink) (categories for menus) help you organize and manage your menus more easily.

The "Manage" section is where you can create new Groups (Menu URL Path Permalink) or rename existing ones as needed.

Menu URL Path Permalinks

When you click on a Group (Menu URL Path Permalink), such as clicking on "Main Menu Blog," you will see a list of previously created Menu URL Path Permalinks.

By clicking the "New" button, you can start creating a new Menu URL Path Permalink.

An important feature of Joomla Menus is the ability to define the structure of Menu URL Path Permalinks (SEF) for your website. For example, you might need to create links like these:

http://yourdomain.com/contact to display the contact form and contact information.
http://yourdomain.com/about to display information about the website.
http://yourdomain.com/activities to display all articles or posts categorized under "Activities."
http://yourdomain.com/activities/internal if you want to create a sub-URL to show internal activities.
http://yourdomain.com/activities/general to create a sub-URL displaying general activities and external events.
http://yourdomain.com/register to show the registration page for users to sign up on your website.

Joomla doesn't create these Menu URL Path Permalinks for you, but you can fully customize and create them to your liking.

Once each Menu URL Path Permalink is added, you can simply type the URL into your browser's address bar (in Chrome or Firefox) to access the page.

Resources, Functions, and Internal Data in Joomla

Imagine you own a large company with multiple production areas and various departments. Someone outside the company premises would have no idea what’s inside or how things operate.

A Joomla website works similarly. It contains a vast amount of data and functionalities, but by default, everything remains inside the system, hidden from visitors. Some examples of internal data include:

• Individual articles (Articles)
• Articles grouped within a Category
• Contact forms
• Member registration pages
• Single tags and grouped tags
• Search results
• Products and shopping cart pages

Creating Access Paths – Defining URL Paths into the Website

Just like a company builds roads to allow visitors access to permitted areas, a Joomla website needs structured paths (URLs) to let users reach specific content. To avoid confusion, these roads need proper names and signposts.

Creating a new Menu URL Path Permalink is how you open access routes to your internal data. Once these paths are established, visitors can navigate through them to reach the information you want to make available.

To ensure clarity, each URL path should have:

1. A clear and meaningful name (like naming a road for easy navigation).
2. A destination (the specific data or content it leads to).
3. A title or label to guide users on what to expect when following the path.

In the next section, we’ll explore how to create a new Menu URL Path Permalink, how to define its name, assign internal content, and label it properly for user-friendly navigation.

Creating a Menu URL Path Permalink

To create a new Menu URL Path Permalink, follow these steps:

• Click on any Group (for example, Main Menu Blog).
• Click the New button.

Setting the URL Path with an Alias

The Alias defines the URL Path you are creating.

For example, if you want the URL to be: http://yourdomain.com/about-us

Then enter about-us as the Alias.

💡 Important Notes:

• No spaces in the Alias.
• Use only English characters (avoid accented letters or special characters).
• Do not use special symbols or punctuation marks.

Once set, the system will generate a clean and SEO-friendly URL for your content.

URL Path Signage (Title)

Imagine a visitor seeing a long URL like:
👉 http://yourdomain.com/introduction-to-our-internal-operations

Or even longer URLs—these can be inconvenient and difficult to read. How can we make it clearer and more user-friendly? The answer is Title.

The Title is meant for users. It acts as a signpost, making URLs easier to recognize and understand.

For example, instead of showing a complex URL, you can use simple, familiar titles like:

• "Breaking News"
• "Stock Market Updates"
• "Social News"

(In the next practice lesson, where we use the Menu Module, you will see how the Title is displayed as the Menu Item in the navigation menu on the Frontend. Each Title is a hyperlink, linking to a Menu URL Path Permalink. This makes the navigation system more user-friendly, helping visitors easily recognize and access different sections of your website.)

Connecting to Internal Resources

Now that you have set the URL path (Alias) and defined the Title (Signboard), the next step is to decide where this path leads and what content visitors will see when they access it.

Choosing the Destination for Your URL Path: In this step, you will assign specific resources to your Menu URL Path Permalink. This means deciding what content will be displayed when users visit the link.

To do this, go to the Menu Item Type field and click Select.

Menu URL Path Permalink and Display Layout

A Menu URL Path Permalink is more than just a way to direct visitors to specific content within your website—it also enhances the organization and presentation of information, ensuring users can easily access content in the way you intend.

For example, suppose you create multiple URL Path Permalinks that all connect to the same Article Category. You can customize how each one displays the content differently:

• URL Path Permalink #1: Displays 3 articles per row.
• URL Path Permalink #2: Displays 1 article per row, showing content in a vertical column format.
• URL Path Permalink #3: Displays 2 articles per row, but sorts them to show the oldest articles first.

As shown in the image below, once you select a Category as the connection type, additional display options appear, allowing you to configure how the category content is presented. You can adjust these settings as needed, or simply leave them at their default values. Detailed instructions on modifying these settings will be covered in future tutorials—right now, just take a look to familiarize yourself.

Not only can you define structured URLs, but you can also configure custom display settings for each Menu URL Path Permalink. Unlike other CMS platforms that often limit layout options, Joomla’s Menu System gives you full control over how each URL path operates and appears.

Set as HOME: Change a URL Path to the Homepage URL

What is a homepage URL? It’s typically the main, root URL of a website that doesn’t have any additional path segments following it.

For example:

• https://www.xiroweb.com
• https://j5.xiroweb.com/
• http://localhost/lamweb/

Notice that there are no extra parts added to the URL—this is understood to be the homepage. Usually, when visitors go to a website, they only type the main URL, and rarely add additional paths.

You can easily make any URL Path become the homepage URL.

How to Set a URL Path as the Homepage: Try clicking on any URL Path Permalink and follow the instructions shown in the image. Then, enter the homepage URL in your browser’s address bar, and you’ll see the entire homepage display according to the URL Path Permalink you selected. Feel free to experiment and check it out!

When a URL Path Permalink is set as the homepage, all other URL Path Permalinks will be updated to reflect the main homepage URL.

(After testing, be sure to revert it to the original setting so you can continue practicing with the lessons. Go to the Main Menu group and select Home for the URL titled “Home.”)

Use Case:

In some situations, you may need to design a new homepage without affecting the current one. The new homepage might be set up on a different URL, and once it’s ready, you can simply click Set as Home, and the main homepage URL will change to the new one. It’s a convenient and seamless process!

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Dustin Dzung

Author Dustin Dzung

Dustin Dzung with 15 years of experience in using and developing websites with Joomla!, from the first version of Mambo to Joomla! 1.0 and up to the present Joomla! 5.x.