How to add an additional article info on sidebar in Joomla 1.5? - joomla

Question

I want a sidebar on article page, with additional info. Is there such a solution for Joomla 1.5.
I mean that I add an article and the info is pulled from my text between the tags e.g.
{info_for-sidebar}
Lorem ipsum....
{/info_for-sidebar}
And this info shows in sidebar for current article with actual info.
Is this possible?

Answer 1

Setting up something like what you are asking for require some sort of workarounds.
First, lets agree that what you are calling a "sidebar" is nothing but a content... You enter that content as a part of your article.
So, to achieve what you are asking for I would recommend you use what is called CCK - Content Construction Kit - extension for Joomla using Form2Content. There's a free light edition that would be enough.
Form2Content let you setup a content type. You define what fields you want for each content. Then you create a template that will use the info you are going to enter on the fields to built an article layout.
So let's say you are going to create 3 fields like this :
1- Intro text
2- Full text
3- Sidebar
You are going to create a template as we said. each content type will have 2 templates an intro text template and a full text template
The full text template shall be like this :
<div class="content-container">
<div class="content-sidebar">{$SIDEBAR}</div>
<div class="content-fulltext">{$FULLTEXT}</div>
<br clear="both" />
</div>
The {$SIDEBAR} and {$FULLTEXT} are the text you entered in the form and Form2Content will use it to create a regular content with layout.

Answer 2

If you don't want to use another extension or that solution looks too complicated, you could use a javascript solution. For example you could create an HTML module in Joomla and assign its to the sidebar. On this module switch the view to HTML code and enter this:
<div class="content-sidebar"></div>
When you enter an article, switch the view to HTML code and enter the text you want to show on the sidebar and add a class to the paragraph or the div like this :
<p class="special-content">Lorem ipsum dolor<p>
Then use jQuery to append this special text to the sidebar like this :
jQuery(".content-sidebar").append(".special-content");
Note: Joomla does not load jQuery by default, you have to add it on your template or use a plugin.