Sometimes, you might want to create a Joomla page that is not available through a menu. You only want the page to appear when the URL is entered. This might be a 'thank you' page after form submission, a log in page or some other type of 'hidden' page you would need on your Joomla site.
Many users ask about this in the Joomla forums and on Twitter. I decided to write a short tutorial on how to set up a link to an element - article or other type of Joomla assett - with no menu item visible on the site.
The thing is - you won't be able to create URLs without having a menu item. But who says you have to show the menu?
This is how you create URLs to pages with no visible menu items:
- Create a new menu using the Joomla Menu Manager
- Create menu items pointing to the article you to link to
- Don't create a menu module - you won't need it
- Use JCE or another extension for linking to the articles
This way you will have the URLs created, but the menu items are not visible on the site.
That way, the URLs will be translated to SEF URLs when needed, but you won't have to change the links if the SEF URL changes.