Joomla "Articles - Related" Module, Menu Assignment - joomla

I'm trying to add a default module (Articles - Related) on a Joomla site, but only on "Single Article" pages.
From the Menu Assignment of this module I select All Front End Views >> Single Article (Alias: single-article)... but it doesn't render until I also select: Main Menu >> Menu Item ... Now the module renders on all the article pages of this Menu Item but also in the Menu Item page (witch is a Category Blog) - it just renders on the right side as an empty white div with an "Articles - Related" title and no content as there is none related to the page's main content.
Any ideas on how to make this module (and maybe others) apear only o "Single Article" pages ?
Thank you

In 3.3, you just set the related articles module to display on all pages, and it didnt display unless the user asks to see an article page.

Agree that related articles module must be displayed only on article pages, even if categories are selected in its menu assignment settings. This feature must be in the module itself, default article related doesn't have that, and you won't be able to change this by changing Joomla settings.
I've made a lot of search for a good related articles solution for Joomla. This module shows up only on article pages.
Probably you'll also like this one: http://www.raxo.org/raxo-related-articles.html

Related

how to make the front page of joomla consist of only one article, or one section?

Currently, the joomla front page consists of latest news and several articles and list, basiclly i want to change the layout of this to just one specific article.
Changing the home button properties on the menu page doesnt do the trick as thats not the same as the front page.
Go to the menu manager and find the default menu item. It is marked with a star. Edit that item. If it is using a frontpage/featured layout you can tell it exactly how many featured articles do display by changing the parameters. OR you can change the menu item o a single article or a category or whatever you want.

Make a new page in joomla 2.5

i have done the home page with 8 custom html module . Now i have to make new pages like contact us, about, services ect. but it different from the home page. i need to use only two module other are not useful for other pages.
I am new in joomla would like to how could i make new pages in joomla.
Create a new page in the article manager and a menu item to that page. Then go into the module manager and enable those two modules for that menu item. You'll now have the new page and those 2 modules will appear.
Depending on what template you are using they may need to be in a different "position", e.g, below the content, to the side, etc. In that case use the duplicate function in the module manager to make a clone of those modules and place in the appropriate positions.
Note: If you want the modules to appear in the actual content area you can use the loadposition plugin, e.g. if you create a blank article you can then enter {loadposition mynewmoduleposition} to place the module in the page. Just remember to select that page in the module manager and put set the module to that position.
Just a note that joomla is "menu related" site where pages mean menu itemID, when you say "pages" i believe you have experience in wordpress...
All "pages" in a Joomla website are created with the single index.php file in the template you are using. In order to alter what displays from one page to another there are a few things to consider.
First, Joomla uses menu items to determine what a page is. When you create a menu item, it is assigned an itemID. In the case of menu items that have child items (an article within a category menu), then the child items inherit the parent itemID. You can then select to display modules on that menu item. In the module parameters there are options to display a module on all menu items, no menu items, selected menu items, and exclude menu items. You would change these selections to fit what you want displayed.
The second thing to consider is the template itself. It sounds like you have created a custom template so you will likely need to alter that. The index.php file should contain all of the possible module positions that you would may want to use. In order to hide the positions that are not being used on a particular page, you need to make those positions collapsible. You do this by not displaying any module position that is not populated on a particular page using this code:
<?php if ($this->countModules('top')) : ?><jdoc:include type="modules" name="top" style="xhtml" /><?php endif; ?>
You would want to use similar code for each module position on the page. This allows you to have a sidebar position that is not displayed on the home page, but is displayed on other interior pages that include a module in that position.
Ideally, if you plan the template properly, you will have many module positions that will allow you to add content in many different positions without having to touch the template once it is coded.

Virtuemart Joomla menu highlights wrong item

I have a Virtuemart 1.1.7a install on Joomla 1.5. We're using a Joomla menu as the shop side menu. Not every category is listed in this menu (only the 'parent' categories, no subcategories). When users navigate to a sub category (i.e one not in the list) it highlights the wrong category from the side menu. You can see this on:
http://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/books.html
and selecting 'Local Authors'. Then menu item 'Postcards' is highlighted on the left.
It would be preferable to either a) highlight no category or b) highlight 'Books' (which is the parent category of 'Local Authors').
I've had a look on the VM forums and web at large for issues with Joomla menus in VM, but the vast majority of results relate to an earlier problem regarding Itemids loading the wrong products ,but this is not the case here. Simply fixing the highlight would suffice!
Yes, virtuemart has issues with this. Unless you want to dive into the Virtuemart code (which can take you a long time to find the code dealing with the Itemid), I would recomment to add extra menu-items under the category that is it's parent. If you don't want these to be visible, you can go to the menu module and set the depth of the menu. The right parent would now be highlighted, because it has a child in it's roots.
Here is something that might help: http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=70482.0
I didn't see "Local Authors", but I saw the problem with Gifts (when I click on Gift, and then on Mugs, for example, I have postcards highlighted). I believe the problem is either in your template or in your data itself.
Try to remake all the menu buttons as in delete and create new ones.
Turns out using Joomla menus for VM categories just doesn't really work that well. Replaced Joomla menu with VM menu (i.e. mod_virtuemart), and styled to suit.

URLs in module not pointing the correct category from index page

I have 2 modules on my home page. One lists most popular, one lists most recent k2 items from 2 different categories, video and blog. The links to the blog entires go to /blog/item/, so the side bar modules are being displayed correctly. But for some reason the video entries are linking to /component/k2/item/, and on that page the modules that are supposed to on the right do not show up at all. The content area takes up the entire width of the site.
What is further confusing about this situation is that i have duplicates of those modules running on certain interior pages, with the same settings, that link to the items correctly. The only reason i have 2 of the same module is because i need that same module to display below the content on index page, and in the side bar on select interior pages.
I do not have a menu item that links to the video category. The main category is Education, and there are 3 sub categories. blog, video, article. There are only menu items for Blog, and for Education. I already have that same module in the some of the interior pages, and it works fine.
what am i doing wrong?
The solution is pretty simple, the explanation is rather complicated. Here is the solution -
Create a new menu, call it hidden links or something. Doesn't matter what is it called, you will not display this menu on the site.
Create a new menu item for the video category.
Assign your modules to that hidden menu item.
If you don't care about what is happening, just know that you can always create hidden menu items to control layout on pages.
If you do care, get a cold drink and get comfortable...
Menu items in Joomla server several different purposes other than providing links for users to get to content. If you are using the core SEF URLs, this is the first place Joomla looks to create those URLs. In general a URL is built like this - joomla install/parent menu item alias/sub menu item alias/content item/article alias.html. Since your video category does not have a corresponding menu item to use for building URLs, it uses the default URL scheme.
The menu item is also the source for the itemID that every page uses. If a particular page does not have a related menu item, it will inherit the itemID from the previous page usually or in the case of k2 items/joomla article it will inherit the itemID from the menu item that links to the parent category of the content. The itemID is used to determine module menu assignment. This is why getting to a particular page that does not have a menu item 2 different ways will often give you pages that look different, different itemIDs were inherited resulting in different modules being displayed.
Since Joomla really counts on the itemID, you should always specify a menu item for any content you are diplaying, even if you do not want to display a link in the menu. By creating a menu that does not appear in a module, you still get the itemID you need for the content, but the menu never appears anywhere. Usually, a link to a category will be enough since child content will pick up that itemID, but in some cases it makes sense to create menu items to specific content items/articles. You would do this any time you want a specific URL for an item. For example, if you wanted to create a URL like your-site.com/special-offer, you could create the content item for the special offer, then make a menu item with the alias special-offer to get the correct URL.
Joomla also uses the menu item for browser titles and page titles. Your question is not related to that so I'll stop here, but as you can tell it is pretty important to know when to create a menu item for your content.

Joomla conditional pages and menus

I'm trying to make a "Chapter selector" for my organization's website. I want to be able to select, say, the "Bay Area chapter" and have the site display articles and events for the Bay Area chapter (while keeping the chapter-independent parts of the site the same). How do I accomplish this?
I'd need a little more detail but here are some of the things to consider -
I am a fan of K2 for being able to nest categories, but you can at least categorize all of your Chapter information in to separate categories within a single section in the Joomla content manager.
For each Category you will need a menu item - Articles > Category > Category blog Layout
In the module manager you will need corresponding modules that display category related information. Be sure to associate the modules to the correct menu items in the module's Menu Assignment area.
I'd do the chapter selector as a menu. Create a menu to contain your chapters and then publish a module for that menu which allows you to pick your items with that chapter.

Resources