Hardcoding Menu Links - Strange Problem

3 issues:

1. I hard code a lot of my menu links like "manage connections". I noticed there are several ways to get to this page. What's the best way to put a "Manage my connections" menu link on a Joomla left User Menu? There is no CB menu item type for this.

2. If I disable one menu item I notice that another separate page goes crazy. If I disable the My Profile menu item (on the Joomla left User Menu), a right module appears on the profile view page. So I guess that is why the "User Profile" menu item is mandatory?

3. And how do I define modules for profile views. For example if I want a right vertical banner to appear on the view profile page, how do I make it happen or not, because there is no checkbox option in the modules for CB items that are not on a Joomla menu.

Thanks in advance.

1. I hard code a lot of my menu links like "manage connections". I noticed there are several ways to get to this page. What's the best way to put a "Manage my connections" menu link on a Joomla left User Menu? There is no CB menu item type for this.

An external link with the below should work fine.

index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=manageConnections

2. If I disable one menu item I notice that another separate page goes crazy. If I disable the My Profile menu item (on the Joomla left User Menu), a right module appears on the profile view page. So I guess that is why the "User Profile" menu item is mandatory?

No idea why your page goes crazy as that's not very descriptive of its behavior, but yes the profile menu link is mandatory at all times. It doesn't have to be in a menu position that is rendered through a module though.

3. And how do I define modules for profile views. For example if I want a right vertical banner to appear on the view profile page, how do I make it happen or not, because there is no checkbox option in the modules for CB items that are not on a Joomla menu.

CB basically uses 1 Itemid throughout. You'd need to assign modules to the mandatory profile Joomla menu link for modules to appear specifically in CB.

So are you saying that the module layouts for all CB pages need to be the same?

Here is what I'm trying to do. Im trying to maximize my banner impressions, so I need to be able to display certain modules on different pages. For example the View Profile page will not have a Right banner module, but the View Userlist can (because I can compress it into the middle column easily). I can select the the pages I want the module to be displayed on if the page is a Joomla Menu item.


2 examples:
First:
The Manage My Connections hardcode link you gave me. I have that set up so that it has a right banner module. But when I click on the "view profile" icon from that "Manage My connections" page i get a different result then when I click the image from that same page, but they both end up at the profile.

Here are the 2 different links:
index.php/component/comprofiler/userprofile/userxyz?Itemid=564
index.php/ms-profile/userprofile/userxyz

Second:
I have a userlist that is a joomla menu item where I have a module on the right (selected the menu item from the module settings page). But when I go to click "next" for the next page of the list, the right module disappears.

Is this all because I have the Main Profile menu item set up to be a 2 column page without that right module? So both these examples go back to that setting of the main profile? If so then why do the 2 links on the manage my connections page differ?

If you can shed some light on this, I'd greatly appreciated it as it will help me later on. You guys are awesome, thank in advance.

CB will always use the profile menu link. It has the capability of passing task to the itemid function, but it's not widely used (mainly to differ registration from profile view). You're going to get the same Itemid in profile view, profile edit, manage connections, userlists, etc and thus the same modules. You can try creating internal Joomla links to various CB locations such as userlists, but again CB will most often use the profile menu link for its Itemid. External links can't utilize Itemid if you have SEF enabled as Joomla strips the Itemid.