Overview

Even though the Zen Grid Framework comes with a plethora of module positions you may at times want to add your own module position to your customised layout. The process for doing this is relatively straight forward and for the most part doing so follows the standard Joomla 1.5 conventions.

To do this you need to take advantage of the Zen Grid Framework override system. For this example lets assume that the module position you want to add sits above the top row of modules ie above top1, top2, top3 and top4. The best place to put your new code in this case would be in a top.php override file.

Creating a layout override

If your template already has a top.php override then you can skip to the next step but if it does not please follow the directions below:

1. Go to templates/zengridframework/assets/layout and copy the top.php file and paste it to the templates/[your template]/layout folder.
2. Then you need to go in to the template administrator and navigate to layout > overrides and make sure that the "Top" override is enabled.

Adding the new module markup and syntax

Once the override has been activated you can start to add your new code. An example of the markup that you might want to add to the override is given below.

{codecitation}

<?php if($this->countModules('top1')) : ?>

<div id="abovetop">

<jdoc:include type="modules" name="abovetop" style="jbChrome" />

</div>

<?php endif; ?>

{/codecitation}

Then in your css file add css specific to that div:

{codecitation}

#abovetop {float:left; width100%;margin-bottom:20px}

{/codecitation}

Adding a module to your new position

The module is now available in the template but it wont appear in the drop downlist in the module admin until you make one slight change tot he template's templateDetails.xml file. In some cases you might not need to make this change given that you can just type the name a module in the module parameter select box.

If you would prefer to have the module appear in the drop down then simply edit the templateDetails.xml file and add the following in the module position group eg after the <positions> and before the closing </positions> tag.

Your new module position will be available in the Joomla admin after you add:

{codecitation}

<position>abovetop</position>

{/codecitation}