Creating menu items for Music Collection

To access a component, in Joomla! you usually do it by clickin' on a item menu. If you're familiar to Joomla structure, you'll know that there can be many different views for a component, and when you create a new menu item you can choose wich of theese views you want to show.

In Music Collection we made it easy for you to choose how to enter the component via a menu item. When you create a new menu item you'll see the following structure if you click on Music Collection:

 

Different views of Music Collection when creating a new menu item

 

We distinguish 6 different cases:

  1. We want to display an specific album: That's the Album view. If you choose this option, you'll be asked to choose what album you want to display from a dropdown menu containing ALL your albums:
    Choosing the album from the dropdown
  2. We want to display an specific artist, listing his albums: That's the Artist view. We have three options: the default artist layout, the detailed one and the grid view. Choose the one you preffer (my favourite is the detailed). If you're a developer, you can create your own views and will be automaticly listed here. Now you'll be asked to choose the artist you want to display from a dropdown:
    Choosing the artist from the dropdown
  3. We want to access the "root" of Music Collection: That's the Artists view. A page that will display your introduction text (setted up in preferences, in the component itself) and two search forms (albums and songs). From there, you'll be able to access any letter, from A to Z, to display the artits listed under this letter.
  4. We want to access the search tool of Music Collection: that's the Search view. this is very similar to the Artists view, but if you add the necessary search variables to the URL, such as "search", "searchword", "artist_id" or "genre_id", you'll be performing a concret search that will display the albums (or songs) that match the query. Use this option ONLY if you know what you're doing and you're familiar to URL GET variables (only developers!)
  5. We want to display an specific song: That's the Song view. Just like the album view, but this timie you have to select the song you want to be shown:
    Choosing the song from the dropdown
  6. We want to display an specific artist, listing his songs: That's the Songs view. Just like Artist view, you'll have to choose what artist you want his songs to be shown from the dropdown
Any questions or doubts? write on our forum!