Per-Menu Item Configuration

Another powerful feature in Gantry is the ability to control configuration on a per-menu-item basis. Imagine the scenario where you have configured your styles, layouts and features so they look perfect on your homepage, but then you realize that on a specific page you need a different layout, or possibly you want a different CSS style, etc.

Discover the power of Gantry and it's ability to configure any parameter on a per-menu item level in this short screencast. A feature that has been added to some degree in the upcoming Joomla 1.6 is now available in Joomla 1.5, but with more power, and more control.

This type of customization in Joomla templates generally required some extensive ‘hacking’ to accomplish, or if there has been an allowance for picking a CSS style and associating it to a menu item, it was extremely limited.

Using Default and Per-Menu Item Configuration

To use the Menu Items specific settings, you should first set all your preferred configurations with the Defaults button active. These will serve as the default settings for the entire site.

After setting your defaults to the desired values, select the Menu Items button and choose the menu item you wish to modify the parameters for. You will then see a series of checkboxes on the left of all the supported parameters (parameters such as cache are not supported on a per-item basis). Select the checkbox next to the parameter you wish to modify, it will then become active, and you can modify as you wish. Clicking “Save” or “Apply” in the toolbar will then save this configuration.

Per-Menu Item Inheritance

By default all the Per-Menu Items inherit from the Default settings. However that is not always the case.

When a parameter setting is stored for a Menu Item which is a parent of another Menu Item, all the children will now inherit from their parent stored param and not from the defaults settings. An 'inherited' tag will be displayed next to all the parameters inherited from the parent so that you can visually see which are inherited from the defaults and which from the parent.

In the above screenshot we have selected the parent Menu Item Documentation and we have set the Body Level parameter to medium.

In the above screenshot we have selected the Menu Item Basics. As you can see, the Body Level parameter is set to medium and a blue 'inherited' tag appears. This indicates the Basics Menu Item is inheriting from the parent Documentation.

The Defaults setting for the Body Level parameter is high. If our Documentation Menu Item had no custom setting stored for the Body Level, then the child Basics would have inherited from the Defaults settings.