Extend your possibilities with ExtendedLink

The ExtendedLink plugin provides a means of adding strings to the end of each Joomla menu item's URL. This is perfect for style assignment as will be discussed below.

We release a Club Template every month, and it is accompanied by a series of preset styles. With such a selection, it may be difficult to choose a particular style over the others. You may now want to use and may wish to use difference styles in different areas of your site.

Until the release of the new plugin, this has only been possible by creating a duplicate of your template package. This is by copying all the files and folders, then renaming all names to reference the new template name, different from the original. This new template package can then be installed into your Joomla site in the usual fashion, then assigned to certain pages of your site using the menu assignment feature in the template parameters.

If you wanted to use 5 difference styles of the template on your site, you would have to duplicate the template several times. You would end up with having the same template installed multiple times on your site, with just a different preset style set as default. This wastes time and space and is inefficient.

This was the case until now. The 1.7.2 release (07-August-2009) of RokNavMenu, brought with it a new plugin, ExtendedLink. The plugin provides a much more convenient way to achieve the same result with greater ease. The plugin is automatically installed with the RokNavmenu module - mod_roknavmenu.zip, under the component installer process. The plugin allows for strings to be added to the end of a Joomla URL and is controlled in the menu item settings - Admin → Menu Manager → *Menu* → Menu Item → Parameters (Extended Query Strings).

How can you use this new feature to use different styles of the same template in different areas of your site?

Let us assume that you are using Style 1 with your Nexus template. This is defined in the template parameters and can be changed easily at Admin → Extensions → Template Manager → rt_nexus_j15 → Preset Styles: Style 1. Style 1 is now being used on all pages of your site.

Now, you can assign another style to a certain page by modifying the URl of the menu item itself. For example, if you have created a new menu item in MainMenu called Products, and wanted to use Style 2, rather then Style 1, then follow the steps below:

• Go to Menus → MainMenu → Products → Edit
• Locate the Parameters (Extended Query Strings) to the right of the page
• Click the Add button
• Add &tstyle into the Name Field
• Insert style2 into the value field
• Save

Now load your site and visit the products page from your menu. The following string should be appended to the end of the URL: &tstyle=style2. Style 2 of your template will now be used on this page. You can repeat the same steps for any menu item and for any style - or use any string that is functional such as &mtype=fusion or ?tp=1.

The extended link functionality uses the name=value format so there is no need to insert the equals sign for the URL, RokNavMenu does this automatically.