Joomla Tutorials: How to Use and Manage Modules on Joomla Web Sites

Modules allow you to display certain elements on your site in key areas around the template. Modules include things such as upcoming events, latest news, polls, latest items added to store and other things. Many different components for Joomla also come with modules that allow you to display information from the component in a featured area on given pages within your Joomla web site.

Menus are also displayed in module areas. The default modules that come with a fresh Joomla installation are "main menu", "user menu", "Top menu", "Latest News", "popular news", "Syndication", "polls", and "newsflashes".

You can always publish or un-publish a module by clicking the icon under the "Published" column on the modules page.

How to install a module on your Joomla web site:

There are an array of modules available for your Joomla web site. You can search for them with a search engine, but the easiest way to find what you are looking for is to visit www.joomla.org and click the extensions option to peruse their directory of available modules. Depending on what you want to accomplish you may actually be in need of a component. Components are elements that execute action while modules display information in chosen featured areas.

To install a new module, you will need to download it to your hard drive.

1) Log in to your administration area at www.yoursitename.com/administrator

2) In the row of menus across the top choose "Installers"

3) Choose "modules" in the drop down menu

4) Use the browse button to locate the module file on your hard drive.

5) Click "upload"

How to move modules on your Joomla web site:

Remember that modules determine where certain information is displayed on your web site. If you want the information displayed to viewers in a different area, you will need to move the module to a different module position. Typical module positions are "top", "bottom", "left", "right", "user1", "User2". Where these positions show up in your template vary on the template design. If the template you are using did not come with a chart to show where the different module positions are, you may have to play around by moving a module to different positions and looking at your page to see where it was moved to.

1) Log in to your administration area at www.yoursitename.com/administrator

2) In the top row of menus choose "Modules"

3) Choose "site modules" from the drop down menu.

4) Choose the name of the module you wish to move.

5) Use the pop up arrow to choose the module location.

6) Below that, choose the order of the modules (if you have more than one module in that position - you will want to check your page to make sure your design has room for more than one module in a given position)

7) Click the disk icon to save the module.

How to create a custom Module for your Joomla web site:

If you would like to publish an image, embed an object, or just a certain amount of text in a module position, you can do so by creating a custom module.

1) Log in to your administration area at www.yoursitename.com/administrator

2) In the top row of menus choose "Modules"

3) Choose "site modules" from the drop down menu.

4) Click the "new" button at the top left of the page

5) Give the module a name

6) Choose if you want the module name to appear on your web site or not

7) Click "yes" next to publish.

8) Type your text into the editor - to embed an image or object, you will need to hit the "html" button in the editor before pasting the embed code.

9) Click the disk icon at the top of the page to save.

How display your module on only specific pages in your Joomla web site:

If you only want your module to show up on certain pages (for example - you only want the upcoming events to show up on the home page):

1) Log in to your administration area at www.yoursitename.com/administrator

2) In the top row of menus choose "Modules"

3) Choose "site modules" from the drop down menu.

4) Click the title of the module you want to change.

5) On the right hand side, there is a list of pages.

6) Click the page you want the module to show up on. To select more than one page for the module to appear on, hold down the Ctrl button while you click.

7) Click the disk icon to save.

You can only choose specific pages that are a menu link. For example. If you wanted the module to show up on the home page only, you would click "Mainmenu>Home" in the list.

You can always create a menu that is not published and link articles to it if you want them to be on specific pages with modules arranged differently on them.