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How to Change What Displays on the Home Page
September 25, 2006 | by Cory | 24 CommentsBy default, Joomla! displays the FrontPage component on the home page. The FrontPage component takes a list of content items that are published to the FrontPage and displays them in a blog layout. This will work for most sites, but some webmasters want the option to display something else on the home page. If you would like to change what is displayed on your home page, follow these steps:
- In your administrator panel, click Menu->mainmenu.
- Create a new menu item that links to what you want to display on the home page.
- Re-order your menu items such that the item you want to display on the home page is listed first.
It really is that easy. Joomla! displays the first menu item in mainmenu as the home page. You can set anyting in your site as your home page using this method.
About the Author
In the years since Joomla! was founded, Cory has built dozens of websites with Joomla! and helped thousands of people find answers to questions about Joomla! through HowToJoomla.net. Cory has also written a book about Joomla titled Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development published by Wrox in April, 2009. In February of 2008, Cory founded Cory Webb Media, LLC, where he provides consulting and web development services for companies of all sizes. You can follow Cory on Twitter @corywebb, or become a fan of Cory Webb Media on Facebook.
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Comments (24)
written by BTOS, September 30, 2006
written by Cory, September 30, 2006
This tutorial falls short of a complete explanation of purpose. I looked for the rest of the story. I'll try the other tutorials on menus but this one? Come on man!
I believe this tutorial explained what it said it would explain. The intent was not to be a comprehensive explanation of the menu system, but rather to explain a little-known feature (or fault, depending on how you look at it
) by which the menu system sets what displays on your home page. If you have any specific questions about the menu system, I'd be glad to try and answer them.
written by Ron, March 12, 2007
I want to have a different homepage for public and the rest. I tried your suggestion by setting the first mainmenu entry (news) to registered followed by a public entry Welcome (which shows frontpage stuff). This doesn't work, because joomla still display the news page to the public user telling to log-in. I thaught joomla would skip the first entry completely because it is registered, but obvious it doesn;t. Do you have any suggestions?
written by Cory, March 12, 2007
Unfortunately, that is not a feature that is available in Joomla. The only way to do that would be to make the public page the home page and somehow put an automatic re-direct to the registered-only page conditional on whether or not the user is logged in.
You could use the code in your template from "Making module positions viewable only by unregistered visitors" to add the re-direct code when the user is logged in.
Good luck!
Cory
written by pintobuck, April 26, 2007
a) Put another menu item first so it becomes your real home page, and
b) You still need the menu item "home" to show top left as a navigational aid.
If you put the new item first, then its menu item appears first also (top left). Home is out of position, and navigation becomes confusing.
written by Cory, April 26, 2007
You could try re-naming the first menu item to "Home". That way, it displays the word "Home" in the menu, but it points to whatever the menu item is.
Cory
written by Larry S., May 02, 2007
written by Cory, May 02, 2007
What your developers are saying is not true. You cannot create drop-downs with the menu module that comes with Joomla!, but you can with the Extended Menus module. It helps if your developers understand Javascript and CSS in order to make the drop-downs work.
Cory
written by Kevin, July 08, 2007
written by Wam, July 28, 2007
The situation was I don't want the homepage to show crappy frontpage component with blog-like content. But remove all content from frontpage won't help; It showing "No contents to display" message instead.
So I made two copied of the similar template for that site.
-The first one is as it be, set default.
-The second one is the copy of the first one for "Homepage only".
In order to made it working, I did this.
1. Made a copy of the first template and rename its folder to templatename-home
2. Hack templateDetails.xml, change the templatename to templatename-home according to the new folder name
3. Hack index.php of the template to remove
4. Further hack the template_css.css file to share images from original source (the first template). This is not a must, but I did to save server's space and page loads.
5. Config site template in admin's panel. Select the new template then ASSIGN it to mainmenu | Home.
Wish this help somebody.
written by May May, October 28, 2007
written by steven, December 24, 2007
written by Luke, August 13, 2008
written by Cory, August 13, 2008
written by Noah, November 25, 2008
Is there a way to display on the frontpage first an article and after that (on the same page) a newsfeed?
Noah
written by Cory Webb, November 25, 2008
written by Noah, November 25, 2008
Thanks!
written by Cory Webb, November 25, 2008
written by Adam, December 02, 2008
written by Cory Webb, December 03, 2008
In Joomla 1.0, it's not quite as easy because the home page has to be the first menu item in the menu called "mainmenu". One way to do it would be to only have the home page menu item in the main menu and then use a different menu as your actual main menu, and never display the "mainmenu" menu on the site. Let me know if that makes sense.
written by mark weatherill, December 03, 2008
When you get a free minute, would you please write a guide to configuring the Extended Menu module? I have it installed & published, but i can't find any easy-to-follow tutorials on how to set it up in Joomla.
I would say the drop-down menu has to be configurable to at least 2 levels.
Cheers,
Mark Weatherill.
written by David, February 03, 2009
What happens is that the green arrows are missing when i create a new sub menu item. This then leads to a problem of reordering that item.
My website is growing all the time and this is becoming a headache to say the least!
Joomla 1.5 ver 1.9
This may be a joomla problem rather than a template one but does any one have an answer?
It is not a problem with browser etc. as i regularly clear all these.
Does any one else suffer with this?
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