Joomla 1.7 Tutorial – How to Show Only Modules On the frontpage of Joomla 1.7.
The default installation of Joomla 1.7 displays featured articles in the “mainbody” section of the frontpage. These articles are managed by the ‘featured articles’ Manager in the Article/Content Manager. But what if you only want to show modules in the “mainbody” Frontpage and not show any articles. There must be an easy way to do this. So I went searching for an answer.
- How to only show modules on the Frontpage and not featured articles?
Problem:
Joomla 1.7 allows you to create Menu Items in the Menu Manager from Components that are installed on your website. You can then select any of these menu items to display as the default “HOME” menu item when users visit your site. The only problem is that Joomla 1.7 allows you to select only Components and not Modules as menu items.
- Joomla 1.7 allows you to add Components as Menu Items and not Modules
Solution:
I found a component that will convert Modules to Components so you can display them in the “mainbody” of your Joomla 1.7 website. This extension is FREE and can be found in the Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) called “M2C – Module to Component” Extension.
- Download free extension from JED – http://Extensions.joomla.org
- Component name = M2C – Module to Component
Steps to Install and Use:
- Download and Install M2C
- Publish and Assign Modules to a Module Position in the Module Manager
- Create a new M2C Menu Item in the Menu Manager to only show the Module Position Selected Above
- Assign new Menu item as “Home”
- I want to display the – Latest News Module, Who’s Online Module, and Random Image Module in the ‘Mainbody”
- I will create a new module position called ‘cmsmind-1’
- My new component menu item name will be ‘Cmsmind Show Modules on Frontpage’
Detail Steps to Show Modules on the Frontpage
1. Download and Install M2C
-
Go to the Joomla Extensions directory and search for M2C – Module to Component
- It says that the component is only compatible up to Joomla 1.6, but it works perfectly for Joomla 1.7.
- Download the component and do NOT unzip it
- Login to your Joomla 1.7 administrator backend
- Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Extension Manager’
- Under ‘Install’, ‘Upload Package File’, select the file you downloaded
- Click on ‘Upload and Install’
- Afterwards you will get a successful installation message
2. Publish and Assign Modules to a Module Position in the Module Manager
Here I want to create new modules – Latest News, Who’s Online, Random Image and assign it to a new module position = cmsmind-1.
- Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Module Manager’, New, Select ‘Latest News‘
- Under Module Manager: Module Latest News, Details, enter in the following info:
- Title = Cmsmind Latest News Module
- Show Title = Yes
- Position = cmsmind-1
- Status = Published
- Access = Public
- Click on ‘Save & Close’
-
Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Module Manager’, New, Select ‘Who’s Online‘
- Under Module Manager: Module Who’s Online, Details, enter in the following info:
- Title = Cmsmind Who’s Online Module
- Show Title = Yes
- Position = cmsmind-1
- Status = Published
- Access = Public
- Click on ‘Save & Close’
- Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Module Manager’, New, Select ‘Random Image‘
-
Under Module Manager: Module Random Image, Details, enter in the following info:
- Title = Cmsmind Random Image Module
- Show Title = Yes
- Position = cmsmind-1
- Status = Published
- Access = Public
- Click on ‘Save & Close’
3. Create New M2C Menu Item in Menu Manager and show new Module Position
My new component menu item name will be ‘Cmsmind Show Modules on Frontpage’
- Click on ‘Menus’, ‘Main Menu’, Add New Menu Item
- Under Menu Manager New Menu Item, Details, enter in the following values:
- Menu Item Type, click on Select = ‘Display Module Position‘
- Menu Title = Cmsmind Show Modules on Frontpage
- Status = Published
- Access = Public
- Menu Location = Main Menu
- Module Position to Load = cmsmind-1
- Click on ‘Save & Close’
4. Assign new Menu item as “Home”
- Click on ‘Menus’, ‘Main Menu’, filter for CmsMind
- Use checkbox to select the Menu item = Cmsmind Show Modules on Frontpage
- Click on the ‘Home‘ button on the top left
- Then you will see a orange star beside the Menu Item, which means it’s the new default Home page now.
Now you can refresh your Joomla 1.7 website and see all the modules that you assigned to the frontpage. If you want to manage these modules, you can either choose to remove or add modules by removing the assignment or assigning them from the module position = cmsmind-1 in your Module Manager.
Thanks,
Thanks for this wonderful tutorial