FW Food Menu – Documentation

Managing Categories

Categories organize your menu into sections — for example, Starters, Mains, Desserts, or Drinks. You can nest categories, reorder them by dragging, and extend them with plugin-powered fields for columns, colors, availability hours, and images.

Go to FW Food Menu → Categories to view, add, edit, or delete categories. The list supports drag-to-sort ordering — drag a row to reposition it. Published and unpublished categories are indicated by the status toggle in the list.

Category Fields

When you create or edit a category, the form includes the following standard fields:

• Title — The category name displayed on the frontend.
• Alias — URL slug used in links. Auto-generated from the title, but you can set it manually.
• Parent — Assign a parent category to create a nested hierarchy. Leave empty for a top-level category.
• Description — Optional text describing the category.
• Ordering — Controls position in the category list. Adjust by dragging in the list view.
• Status — Published or Unpublished. Unpublished categories and their items are hidden from the frontend.

Nested Categories

Use the Parent field to build a multi-level menu structure. For example, a top-level "Drinks" category can contain child categories such as "Hot Drinks" and "Cold Drinks". The frontend renders this hierarchy depending on your active theme.

Plugin-Extended Category Fields

Several optional plugins add extra fields to the category edit form. These fields appear automatically when the relevant plugin is installed and enabled in both the Joomla Plugin Manager and the FW Food Menu → Addons page.

• Columns — Set how many columns of menu items are displayed within this category (requires the Columns plugin).
• Color — Apply background and accent colors to the category for visual differentiation on the frontend (requires the Color plugin).
• Time — Define availability hours for the category, restricting when it appears or is orderable (requires the Time plugin).
• Image — Upload or select a category image displayed on the frontend menu (requires the Image plugin).

Publishing and Ordering

Toggle a category's published state directly from the category list by clicking its status icon. To reorder categories, drag rows in the list into the desired sequence. The saved order is reflected on the frontend immediately after publishing.

Deleting Categories

Select one or more categories using the checkboxes in the list and use the Delete toolbar button to remove them. Deleting a category does not automatically delete its menu items — items remain in the system and can be reassigned to another category.