Help4.x:Menu Item: Category Blog

How To Access

To create a new Category Blog Menu Item:

• Select Menus → [name of the menu] from the drop-down menu on the back-end of your Joomla! installation (for example, Menus → Main Menu).
• Click New to create a new menu item or click on an existing item to edit.
• Click the Menu Item Type Select button and then click the Category Blog link under the Articles link.

To edit an existing Category Blog Menu Item, click its Title in Menu Manager: Menu Items.

Description

Used to show articles belonging to a specific Category in a blog layout. Controls the Introduction or Leading Article, additional Articles with intro text, and additional links to more Articles in the same category. Some examples of settings for the Blog Layout format include: number of articles, article columns, across or down layouts, and number of additional links. See the Advanced Details Tab for all this menu item.

Screenshot

Details

Details Tab

For more information please see Menu Item Manager: Details Tab

Required Settings

This layout requires that you select a category. Template:Chunk40:colheader Template:Chunk40:colheader Template:Chunk40:colheader Template:Chunk40:colheader

Advanced Details Tab

Category Options

The Category Options control the way that category information is shown in the layout. The Category Blog Layout has the following Category Options, as shown below.

• Show Subcategories Text. (Use Global/Hide/Show) If Show, the 'Subcategories' will show as a subheading on the page. The subheading is usually displayed inside the "H3" tag.

Blog Layout Options

Blog Layout Options control the appearance of the blog layout.

• Featured Articles. (Use Global/Hide/Show/Only) Select to show, hide or only display featured articles.

Article Options

The Category Blog Layout has the following Article Options, as shown below. These options determine how the articles will show in the blog layout.

In addition to Yes/No or Hide/Show, these options allow the following settings.

• Use Global: Use the default value from Article Manager Options.
• Use Article Settings: Use the value from the Article Manager Edit. This setting allows you to have different options for different articles in the blog layout. For example, one article could show the author and other articles could hide the author.

The Article Options are as follows. Template:Chunk40:colheader Template:Chunk40:colheader Template:Chunk40:colheader

• Position of Article Info. (Use Global/Use article settings/Above/Below/Split) Puts the article information block above or below the text or splits it into two separate blocks, one above and the other below.
• Article Info Title. (Use Global/Use article settings/Hide /Showe) Display the 'Article Info' title on top of the article information block.

Integration Options

The Aritcle Category Blog layout has the following Integration Options.

These determine whether a news feed will be available for the page and what information it will show. Template:Chunk40:colheader Template:Chunk40:colheader

Common Options

See Menu Item Manager: Edit/New Menu Item for help on fields common to all Menu Item types, under the Advanced Details Tab which includes:

• Link Type Options
• Page Display Options
• Metadata Options

Module Assignments Tab

See Menu Item Manager: New Menu Item for help on fields in Module Assignments for this Menu Item.

Toolbar

At the top left you will see the toolbar:

The functions are: Template:Chunk40:Help screen toolbar icon Save/en Template:Chunk40:Help screen toolbar icon SaveAndClose/en Template:Chunk40:Help screen toolbar icon SaveAndNew/en Template:Chunk40:Help screen toolbar icon SaveAsCopy/en Template:Chunk40:Help screen toolbar icon Cancel/en Template:Chunk40:Help screen toolbar icon Help/en

Quick Tips

• The Category Blog layout replaces the Section Blog and Category Blog layouts from Joomla! version 1.5. To simulate a version 1.5 Section Blog, select 1 for the Subcategory Levels option to include one level of subcategories.

Related Information

• To create a new Category see Category Manager: Add or Edit.
• To create a new menu see Menus Menu Manager.

Related Help Screens	Description
Components Article Manager Options	Used to set global defaults for menu items that display articles. These default values will be used when "Use Global" is selected for an option in an Articles menu item. For example, to show the 'Create Date' for an article in your Articles menu items, then set that option to "Show" here and it will be the default value. You do not need to set any of these options. Your Joomla site will work with the default settings.
Content Article Manager	The Article Manager is used to find, mark featured, add and edit articles. See Toolbar below for a detailed list of all functions.
Content Article Manager Edit	This is the back-end screen where you can add and edit Articles. The same screen is used for adding a new Article and editing an existing Article. You can also select the Category for an Article and indicate whether or not it is Published and if it is selected to appear on the Front Page. The Article's content is edited using the default editor selected in the User Manager - New/Edit. The Joomla! default editor is called TinyMCE. A number of Parameters can be set for the Article. Metadata can also be entered.
Content Featured Articles	Used to control which 'Featured Articles' are displayed on the Front Page and in what order they are displayed. The Front Page is often the Home page of a web site, but it can be any page in the site. The Front Page is created using a Menu Item with the 'Featured Articles' Menu Item Type.
Menus Menu Item Article Archived	Used to show a list of Archived Articles. The Archived Article list can be displayed by date, filtered, and intro text added as shown below.
Menus Menu Item Article Categories	Used to show a list of Categories. Categories are shown in a hierarchical list, as shown below. Depending on the selected options for this layout, you can click on a category Title to show the articles in that category.
Menus Menu Item Article Category List	Used to show articles belonging to a specific Category in a list layout.
Menus Menu Item Article Create	Allows users to submit an article. Normally this is available only to users who have logged in to the front end of the site. Users must have permission to create articles. When the Create Article page is shown in the front end, the screen shows as examples in the following Front End Screenshots section.
Menus Menu Item Article Featured	Used to show all Articles that have been tagged as Featured. Articles are shown in a Blog Layout.
Menus Menu Item Article Single Article	Used to show one article in the front end of the site.