Menu Location settings in Joomla 3

When configuring menu items in Joomla 3, the Menu Location setting controls which menu the item belongs to. If you want to move a link to a different menu, you need to change the link’s (aka menu item’s) Menu Location setting.

In this tutorial, we will help you understand the Menu Location setting by demonstrating what happens when you change this setting.

What options appear as Menu Locations?

In our testing, we installed Joomla 3.2 with the testing sample data. When we examine the Single Article menu item, we see the following Menu Location settings:

• All Front End Views
• About Joomla
• All Modules
• Australian Parks
• Fruit Shop
• Main Menu
• Top
• User Menu

As you can see in the screenshot above, these menu items are the same as the menus that show under the Menus in the top navigation of your Joomla 3 dashboard.

What happens if I change the Menu Location Setting?

By default, the Single Article menu item is assigned to the All Front End Views Menu Location. If we change the menu location to Main Menu, you can see in the screenshot that the Single Article menu item now shows in the “Main Menu”.

How do I change a Menu Item’s Menu Location?

To change a link’s menu location:

1. Login to your Joomla admin dashboard
2. In the top menu, click Menus and then click Menu Manager
3. In the left menu, click Menu Items (located under “Menus”)
4. Find your menu item and then click it
5. Find the Menu Location setting towards the right of the page, change it, and then click Save in the top right of the page