How to create a User Profile menu item in Joomla 2.5

In our last tutorial, we showed you how logged in users can view their profile using the User Profile link in the User Menu. If you needed to, you can create a new User Profile menu item and add it to any menu that you would like. This gives you more customization options for your website as you can setup your menus as you see fit.

In the following tutorial, we will add a new link to our menu named View My User Profile. When logged in users click the link, they will be able to view and edit their profile. We will also set the access level to registered, meaning that only logged in users will be able to see the link in the menu.

Adding a User Profile link to a menu:

1. Log into your Joomla 2.5 administrator area
2. In the top menu, hover over Menus, hover over the menu you would like to link to, and then click Add New Menu Item
3. Next to Menu Item Type, click Select
4. Under Users Manager, click User Profile
   
5. Next to Menu Title enter a name for the link, such as View My User Profile
6. If you would only like logged in users to be able to see the link, set Access to Registered. This step is optional. If a user is not logged in and clicks the link, they will instead be asked to login first (verses seeing a user profile)
7. In the top right menu, click Save
   
   Your new menu item is now active, and you should test your website to ensure it works. As you can see in the screenshot below, we now have a new link in our main menu that says View My User Profile. When logged in users click the link, they will be able to view and edit their profile!