title: How to use Joomla left sidebar position for a custom component menu
body: <p>A client web site uses a Joomla template with lots of modules in the left column, but for the custom component I'm designing, those modules must be replaced by a vertical menu. The <em>hack</em> solution I came up with is to hide those modules with CSS:</p>
  
  <pre><code>div#leftpad &gt; div {
      display:none;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and then insert a <code>&lt;div id='compmenu'&gt;</code> in <code>&lt;div id='leftpad'&gt;</code> with javascript and set <code>display:block</code>. With jQuery, I could do</p>
  
  <pre><code>jQuery('#compmenu').appendTo('#leftpad').show();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The component displays a google map, so javascript is required anyway. Any Joomla experts here know of a more elegant or straightforward method to achieve the same result?</p>