The Joomla! Extensions Directory ™

A professional website with a demo of the Pro version tempted me to download the free version and I was amazed.

This tool is a fantastic addition to a developers arsenal to get a drop-down menu system working very quickly. Excellent customisation options. I did not even download the documentation.

I already use Extended Menu which works fine but using this tool is so much easier.

Don't forget to download the SwMenuMaker tool as well which takes the pain out of moving menu items around.

Well done!

I tried another menu system but no luck due to poor documentation.

SWmenuFree comes with comprehensive 23 page user manual and after 2 hours I got it working.

Looks great and feels good.

I always try components and modules offline in XP, prior to putting them on a linux site. This function was easy to use offline and it installed online just as well. It is great to put on simple colours or complex photo graphics into the menu. I cut some pieces from a photo, saved them as a png file and simply uploaded and added these to the menu. I was using an extended menu and replaced it with this one with ease. If anything there are too many options but the program is reasonably intuitive. Menus can easily be placed across the page, down the page, left submenus, right submenus in all kinds of colors and formats and even the submenus transparency can be adjusted. Borders can be added, removed or chosen as different colours. I didn't need the manual, just hacked it around offline and when happy used the same parameters online. Altogether a fine piece of software. It was a bit scary when the program came up with some horrid looking message and I thought everything would crash but this disappeared almost immediately and it has worked fine. No issues, but I keep expecting them because it has worked that well and there are so many options that I haven't tried them all yet.
Good Job

I have been trying many of the GNU GPL menu modules and components over the past several hours and SWmenuFree was the winner for me. I was able to create a dropdown trans menu that exactly matched my website in a matter of 10 minutes. Thanks for an excellent menu tool!

however it messed up with my Greek encoding... :-(
I can use this

I have used SwMenu for a while now and I must say it is the best menu system out there. I have tried a lot of them. This component makes it possibe to create exactly the menu you want and most of the menu systems inluded in this component makes the links searchable for the search engines - which is very important to me.

As important as a good product is good support. And the developer is always very helpful and quick. After switching template I got problems with my menus. This was not a problem of this component but a template problem. Never the less the developer rewrote my template to it work. What about that service? I am used to developers of templates and components putting the resposibility on the other part.

Excellent component.

Simple to use - you'll be up and running in 15 minutes.
Supports background images.
Great control console.
Great CSS support.
Excellent support forums.

This is by FAR the best free menu extension I have used. In fact, it is one of the best of any kind of extension I have used for Joomla!

Awesome menu system for someone like me who is just above being css illiterate, but does want some customization! I tried a few of the other menu systems, and settled on this one. I got things working last night much easier than I could have imagined, and am ecstatic over the results. I wanted to be able to use the menu buttons that I'm already using in the Solarflare II template. This menu system made this super easy

This did require a tiny bit of knowledge of an image editing program (Paint Shop Pro in my case), but only because of how Solar Flare template has the button images done. The button image and mouseover images in Solar Flare II are a single png image file (top half has one button, the bottom half of the image has the mouseover button). I just needed to cut each half of the image file and paste each as its own image, and then upload those two files to my server.

The component then creates a module for you, and you go in and fill in the parameters. All I had to do was, in the proper box in the form, point to the new image files I uploaded. I had to do some tweaks like change the font size, etc., but all this is done in the component without requiring any knowledge of css.

Great menu system, and exactly what I was looking for.

This is my first review. But now I had to write one.

I am teaching students at a university how to use Joomla and after looking at several free menusystems I tried this one and it worked immediately. Impressively simple to set up if you already know your way around Joomla.

Congratulations on a well done system. My students will be happy with this one. I wish all extentions for Joomla was as well done as this one.

This is a great module. Easy to configure and very powerful.

There does seem to be a layout glitch in the way sub-menus are displayed in IE 7 browsers, but looks to be addressed in future versions as discussed here:

http://www.swonline.biz/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=59&func=view&catid=29&id=3799

I really like this menu, but it just wont work in Safari, not that that'll bother too many people!
d

No slight intended, but contrary to the indications on the extension page, niether the free nor the pro versions are 1.5 compatible just yet, The author has promised a compatible version "when there is a stable release of Joomla 1.5".

Regards,

Ted Moens

easy to config with the help illustrated

I personally recommend this extension! it will save you time and effort in making perfect menus in under seconds.

SkoozA

Because it doesn't have clear procedures or manual so that we can :

(1) Integrate our newly created swMenuFree menu into our Joomla! web page, and

(2) It doesn't tell me how to create and how to implement a swMenuFree menu system of multi-languages, but I saw it before (English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese).

No manual, no implementation procedures !

I was needing an extension that would allow me to build Drop Down menus. I looked at other options and experimented with them in futile attempts to get drop downs onto my site.
This component is a double thumbs up. The installation was simple and it is so easy to get professional looking drop downs without ever leaving the Compments admin back end and going to hack land. The supporting documentation and online help is excellent.

Don't go wasting your time as I did trying to find a better menuing component. This should be part of the Joomla core.

Well done.

I had tried quite a few of the menu modules. I thought the modules would be easier than a component... I was wrong!
This component was a breeze to install, and the admin interface made setting it up to my needs very simple. The Preview ability is just wonderful! No doubt it has capabilities beyond my basic needs, but it did exactly what I wanted...with a minimum of stress. Now my main menu looks/works so much neater ( and so much nicer!)
Thank you SWMenuFree!

It is unbelievable how extensive and easy this component is to install and configure. It took only a handful of minutes to figure out how to use it. I was impressed with the extensive configuration parameters and the ease by which this is done through a component that allows you to preview changes prior to implementing them. It is amazing to fathom that this component is free and eliminates requirement of knowledge and time it takes to first configure CSS files and then create extensive menu IDs when manually creating menu links through Joomla for such components as Virtuemart, which could have hundreds or thousands of categories. This module could save hours or even days. About the only con I have seen in the 45 minutes I have used this free menu system is option for an expandable menu, which is referrenced below. Otherwise, I am quite surprised at how long this component has been around and the few views and reviews it has. I am curious how this menu performs under the eyes of search engines and load speed. The pro version has many more menu options and is priced reasonably for developers.

Having tried several dropdown menus, I've found this one is by far the best among free stuff and was amazed by how easy to set it up. Highly recommand it! Definitely five stars from me.

Fastest DHTML creation I've ever done. I've got intermediate CSS skills and I can manage certain DHTML solutions... but I find a lot of the menu extensions for Joomla to be too complex or confusing for me.

I was able to get swMenu working for me in MINUTES. I will be purchasing Pro for all my professional sites!