In Joomla! 1.6, using modules is more flexible:
You can schedule the time during which a module should display. In previous versions of Joomla!, you could set a start date and an end date for publishing articles. Now this is also possible for modules.
Modules are always assigned to one or more menu items. However, when editing a menu in Joomla! 1.5, there was no way to find out or change which modules were assigned to that menu item. You had to leave the menu item edit screen, navigate to the particular module's settings in the Module Manager, and check the module's menu assignment there. In Joomla! 1.6, you can set what modules are assigned to a menu link directly when you're editing a menu link.
Let's find out how you can put these two new features to use in your day-to-day web building practice. First, we'll try out how to set timed modules, and after that, we'll look at the different ways to assign modules to menu items.