On Joomla, how to show multiple editable articles on the same page? - joomla

I have a static website, which I want to make editable by the client. So, I decided to rebuild the website using Joomla. The current static home page uses Zurb's Foundation to display the contents in the following layout.
1st Row: 1 column,
2nd Row: 2 columns,
3rd Row: 1 column
Using Joomal, I have thought of the following options.
the whole page is 1 article: the client would need to understand html, to be able to maintain div's and classes. Isn't it?
Each column on the page (1 column on the 1st row + 2 columns on the 2nd row + 1 column on the 3rd row) is an article that the client can edit. In effect, the page displays the full contents of 4 articles in the above layout.
I think the 2nd option is the way to go. However, I could not figure out how to display multiple, FULL, EDITABLE articles on the same page. I looked at the extension (Articles Anywhere - https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/articles-anywhere). However, it seems that although this extension can display articles, they won't be editable by authorised users.
Your effort and time to answer my question are highly appreciated...

Throughout the last few days, I managed to achieve what I asked about. I thought of documenting it here for the benefit of others.
Let's say we want to create a page, which looks like the following.
1st Row has 1 column: Part-r1-c1
2nd Row has 2 columns: Part-r2-c1 & Part-r2-c2
3rd Row has 1 column: Part-r3-c1
Basically, you need to do the following.
Create a template having module positions for each "Part" of your page layout. Let's call this template "Custom Template". So, you will need to create 4 positions:
Part-r1-c1
Part-r2-c1
Part-r2-c2
Part-r3-c1
Creating a custom template is an involved process with quite a learning curve. You need to be patient until you understand how Joomla templates work. I suggest referring to the official documentation and some tutorial videos/articles. I found the following useful.
Convert an HTML Template to Joomla 2.5/3.0 (3-parts YouTube Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E13QMWgvwlA&t=3s
https://docs.joomla.org/Creating_a_basic_Joomla!_template
As an alternative to creating your own template, you can use a Template Extension (or framework). I like T3-Framework http://www.t3-framework.org/.
However, in my opinion, investing time in understanding how Joomla templates work has much higher return on investment than understanding how to customise/customize an existing framework. To build your own template, you need to be comfortable with changing php and xml files though.
Create an empty article, and call it something like "Dummy Article".
Create a menu item for your page, e.g. "Services". The type of this menu item should be "single article". Choose the "Dummy Article", which you created above, as the article to be displayed. Assign "Custom Template" to this menu item.
Create an article for each Part of your page, in which you will write the contents, which your customer would be able to change.
Create a module for each Part, and assign it to the related position of the layout, and insert the related article into this module. Inserting articles into modules is not part of standard Joomla (at the current version 3.6.4). To insert articles into modules, you need to use a Joomla extension, like https://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/news-display/articles-anywhere/.
That's it.
I discovered the need for another feature, which I missed asking about in my question. I wanted to make some Parts, which are not editable by the customer. Here's how I did it.
Create a category for articles, which you don't want your customer to change. Let's call it "Protected". Change the permissions for this category to Deny access to Editors (with the assumption that you are going to provide your customer with an Editor User ID.)
Create articles for each Part of your page, in which you will write the contents, which your customer CANNOT change. Categorise these articles as "Protected."
Good Luck!

To display multiple articles on a page you can use the category blog view or the featured view or (with customization) the tagged items view. However you must not use "read more" within the articles. Make sure that the option to display edit icon is turned on and that you are logged in as a user with edit privileges for all of the articles in question. If you are an administrator, publisher or editor by default you will have these.

Related

Using one Wix Dynamic Page for various entries in the site menu

I am doing a site in Wix.com so my wife can maintain it without my input. The draft site is live at:
http://www.wingspan.info
IMPORTANT: The wife is not a techie.
Essentially, the site displays our art work in galleries of paintings, etc, filtered by artist.
I have coded one page, then duplicated that to create the galleries and filter the WixDataQuery according to Andrew or Helen and Categories like Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, iPad Art, etc. Also, where we have exhibited (Exhibitions menu) some of our paintings.
All working, but any change to design and I have to change 15 pages...
So, it now strikes me that it would be more efficient to design one dynamic page, and set up the menu to display the different categories, as it is set up in the live site:
However, I can't find any documentation that shows how to use just the one dynamic page rather than my coded page duplicated to produce 12 different pages. Not clever...
Any suggestions / tutorials where I can find how to do this?
Thanks!
Basically, you want to add the Content Manager to your site if you haven't already, and then set up a collection with all of your data in it. One row per eventual "page" that you want.
Next, you can take the page you already designed and convert it to a dynamic page. It will then have a dataset on the page which you need to connect to various elements on the page through their connect buttons.
Finally, you'll need to edit your menu to point to the various instances of your dynamic page instead of the regular pages you have them pointing to now.
You can read all about how dynamic pages work here and here.

Dynamic content display

when I select (say customer) using Dropdown I would want to show users all the properties on a side table or division. Essentially, displaying the selected customer's fields on the same page for the users to verify/read.
I am using laravel-backpack for development and finding it difficult to implement. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I'm afraid there's no existing way to achieve that, you'd have to code it.
But you don't have to start from scratch, you can use the code for the select2 field (or whatever field you prefer) and create a new field type, say select2_and_preview by tweaking the Javascript inside that one file.
There's recently been a Feature Request for a similar feature (see here), you might want to pitch in with your opinion if you want it created by the team, and included in the official build.

Joomla custom component item references

I have been following this guide to successfully create a Joomla custom component: http://docs.joomla.org/J2.5:Developing_a_MVC_Component/Introduction
For simplicity's sake lets say I have two tables, one for authors and one for books.
--AUTHORS--
ID
Name
--BOOKS--
ID
Name
Author_reference
Both have two views each, one list view and one edit view. When I click on a author in the list view it takes me to the list view of the books to see what books the author has written, and only those books filtering out the others.
Here the problem start, when I click on the New button in Joomla I want to add a book to that specific author, but have no way to set that reference. So far I have set that reference with a Session variable when clicking the author but that has obvious flaws such as opening another author in a new tab changing the Session variable.
EDIT: Looks like my question was not very specified. I need a way to send a parameter/variable when clicking the "New" button in admin mode in my component.
You can see a good tutorial for this on another question that I answered: How to add a link category_id added to the admin (JToolBarHelper::addNew)? - Joomla 2.5
Basically, joomla has two functions that you can set in the controller for that view to facilitate adding items to the url even through it's redirects as part of the loading, checking out, and save process.
You can build that with the "foreign key" or "category field" functionality in the Joomla Component Creator. It will save you a lot of headake. Give it a try.

How to display list of content items using Telerik Grid component

I'm begginer in the Orchard CMS.
I would like to create Content Type composed from different parts and fields which I know before. I want this content type to be enumerable ie I use content part List, I want to list it using telerik components.
For example my content type is Product and I specify its fields: Price, SKU apart from default: user(who created it) and creation time fields. Moreover the product contains also image gallery, ie image gallery content part.. I want the list of products to be shown using Telerik component Grid, including creation time and user name.
Is it better to create the whole module specifying all its fields(price,SKU) and its templates or is there any way to just take what has been already created in orchard as a content type and display it different way(using telerik)..
thanks for any advice ;)
Tomas
It appears this topic was moved and answered here:
http://orchard.codeplex.com/discussions/371276

Search View For Admin In magento

I have created a Sample Module (Admin Side) in Magento.. I managed To created a form and Then Stored the form field values in Database. Now I am trying To create a search view for that. to show me all the values which i have stored in my table. however i am not able to get it. when i press the tab I directly get the form view. I want the search view first and a button there which ll direct me to this form. I want it the same way as it is for product, category or any other module. Do anyone Know How can I do it.
It's called a grid. The process is kind of long to explain here, but if you search online there are a few tutorials that explain how to do it (here's one that I found useful: http://www.webspeaks.in/2010/08/create-admin-backend-module-in-magento.html). Keep in mind that you can also model your own code after core code. If you want to make a grid like the Category grid, then go look in the code how its made.

Resources