Menu items are simply links to things in your website or any URL on the internet. You can make a menu link to:

1. A page on your site (an article, content item, static content item etc)
2. A section or category of information in your site
3. An external website, or
4. Simply have a placeholder name (for example to be the title of a drop down menu)

In all of these instances it is important that the item to be linked to exists before you create the menu item.

Please note: you will almost never create a new menu. What you will want to do is create a new menu item in an existing menu, such as the top menu or footer.

1. Log in to your website
2. From the home page or Menu, click on 'Menu Manager'. This will take you to a page which lists all the menus have been created in your site.
3. Click on the 'New' button in the top right corner of the window to create the new menu.
4. In the 'Menu Name' field, enter a name for the menu. This is the name which Joomla uses to distinguish between different menus so it needs to be a unique name without spaces, eg 'newmenu'.
5. In the 'Module Title' field, re-enter the name but with spaces and use uppercase characters, eg 'New Menu'. It's this name for the menu that is seen in 'Site Modules' page.
6. Click on the 'Save' button in the top right corner of the window to create the new menu and be returned to the 'Menu Manager'. The new menu will now appear in the list of menus on the 'Menu Manager' page and in the 'Menu' drop-down list.

1. Log in to your website
2. From the Menu menu, choose the appropriate menu to edit (normally Main Menu in Joomla 1.5 or mainmenu or bottommenu in Joomla 1.0)
3. Click on the name of the item that you'd like to edit
4. Edit as desired
5. Press save
6. Review it online to make sure it works

To a page on your site

Firstly, create the page either as an article (Joomla 1.5) or a content item or static content item (Joomla 1.0).

When you are ready to create the menu item:

1. From the Menu menu, choose the appropriate menu for the new item (normally Main Menu in Joomla 1.5 or mainmenu or bottommenu in Joomla 1.0)
2. Click on New
3. In Joomla 1.5: [Help to determine which version of Joomla you are on]
   • Select Articles from Internal Link under Select Menu Item Type
   • Choose Article Layout
   • On the right of the screen under Parameters (Basic) press the Select Button
   • Click on the title of the page that you want to link to
   • Back on the left of the screen give the menu a title (this is what will be displayed)
4. In Joomla 1.0:
   • Choose Link - Static Content to link to a static content item or Link - Content item to link to a regular content item
   • Give the menu a name
   • Choose which content item to link to
5. On Click - choose "Parent Window with browser navigation" (which means the same window that the visitor is in)
6. The parent item - choose where you want the new menu to be under
7. Published - yes
8. If you'd like it to open in a new window select that under "On Click, Open in"
9. Press save (in the top right of the screen)
10. Review it online to make sure it works

Advanced: If you have trouble finding the page that you are trying to link to in the menu area, go to the page in your internet browser, copy the URL and then create a menu link directly to that URL.

To link to another website:

1. Go to the other website, and copy the website address (URL) from the browser
2. Go back to your website and log in
3. From the Menu menu, choose the appropriate menu for the new item (normally Main Menu in Joomla 1.5 or mainmenu or bottommenu in Joomla 1.0)
4. Click on New
5. In Joomla 1.5 click on External link under Select Menu Item type
6. In Joomla 1.0 choose Link - URL
7. [Help to determine which version of Joomla you are on]
8. Give the menu a name
9. Next to Link: paste in the website URL that you want it to go to (ensure that the http:// is included in the link)
10. The parent item - choose where you want the new menu to be under
11. Published - yes
12. Optional: On Click - choose "New window" to open a new window when a visitor clicks the link
13. Press save (top right corner)
14. Review it online to make sure it works

1. Log in to your website
2. From the Menu menu, choose the appropriate menu to edit (normally Main Menu in Joomla 1.5 or mainmenu or bottommenu in Joomla 1.0)
3. Click on the up and down arrows to reorder, or type in new ordering sequence into the order boxes and press the save button next to the Order column header
4. Press save
5. Review it online to make sure it works

Menu items can be published or unpublished to show or hide them. For example, you could create a menu item and then have it unpublished until you were ready to launch it.

To publish or unpublish a menu item:

1. Log in to your website
2. From the Menu menu, choose the appropriate menu to edit (normally Main Menu in Joomla 1.5 or mainmenu or bottommenu in Joomla 1.0)
3. Click on the Publish icon for the appropriate menu item - a green tick is published, a red cross is unpublished
4. This will toggle (switch) between published and unpublished as desired
5. Press save
6. Review it online to make sure it works

You can only insert a sub-menu in a drop down if you have drop down menus built into your website. If you do not have these menus, please contact Butterfly Internet to insert them for you.

If you would like to add a new menu item to a drop down insert the menu item as per the normal procedure, just ensure that the Parent Item is the menu item that you want the new sub-menu to appear under. This will put the sub-menu at the top or bottom of the sub-menu list, simply re-order to your desired location.