Question over "Read More" New to Joomla

[garycpos]

Hi All,

I have spent some time now building my new site, however I seem to have hit a problem and cannot seem to find a solution to it.

Firstly, I have on my opening screen a tabs box from roktabs and inside that box I have placed a article which half way down has a "Read More" to take you to the full article, however when I click on read more I get the main screen back up and the full article at the bottom of the screen ?

I dont think a customer would realise that the article is at the bottom ?? as the screen comes back up as normal.

How do I get it that if I click on read more it opens just the full article on its own ? or if I click on Read more it goes to the article at the bottom of the page ?

Thanks

Gary

[FrankZoid]

Add a menu item for the article, otherwise it has no Itemid and will simply open in the front page.

[garycpos]

Hi Frank,

So are you saying get rid of the "read more" and use a menu link to the article, linked as a read more text ?

Thanks

[FrankZoid]

Nope. I am saying that likely your article is not assigned to any menu item, therefore it has a URL like 'domain/option=com_content&view=article&id=48' and uses the front page settings. If you assign the article to a menu item, the url will be like 'domain/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=53', the Itemid should automatically be there in your read more, and now when you click the link you leave the front page and have joy.

So, first try my suggestion. If that does not work, then ask for more help. Oh, and the menu item does not have to be on your main menu, or for that matter on a publicly displayed menu at all.

[garycpos]

I must sound like a right noob !! but getting used to Joomla is a different concept to anything I have worked with previously !! In simple terms :-
1. How do I assign an article to a menu item ?
2. There does not seem to be any programming for the read more line ?? or am I still missing the point ? so how is the item id in the read more line

I hope I dont sound thick !!!

Thanks Frank for your help it is much appreciated

Gary

[FrankZoid]

To add a menu item, go to your menu. Click 'New'. Select type Articles->Article Layout, then on the right side select the actual article. Save and you are done.

Now realize, the new menu item does not have to be on a publicly display menu. More about that later, for now just try this and see if it solves your issue.

[garycpos]

Well !! I did not succeed !! I went to the mainmenu added above and it appeared on my superfish menu ? on the home screen ?, I then unpublished it and not doing anything ?

I am missing the point here ??

So, should I just create a new menu ?? and add it to that on its own ?

Thanks

Gary

[garycpos]

Ok, I think have gotten somewhere I created a menu called article menu and added the article to a menu and then hey presto it worked however I have no navigation links within that page to jump back to home or is it not possible to also have the main home screen navigation bar in the article ??

Thanks

Gary

[FrankZoid]

Check your menu module, it must be assigned to select menu items instead of all menu items. Modules->Site Modules in the admin.

[garycpos]

Check your menu module, it must be assigned to select menu items instead of all menu items. Modules->Site Modules in the admin.

Hi Frank,

Again thanks for your patience, but I cannot find what you mean ?? I went into modules then article menu and selected all the home menu choices only , but still they dont appear ? when I click on the read more I get the full screen article but no menu bar.

Cheers

Gary

[FrankZoid]

I misspoke a little, when I said "it must be assigned to select menu items.." I did not mean that it must be set that way to work on your article page. What I meant to say is that if the menu does not appear on the article page, then it must not be assigned to that page.

So, in order to have the menu on the article page, be sure that the module IS assigned to the article page.

[garycpos]

Gotcha

Ok, fixed that, and my main navigation is showing throughout now ... Thanks

Going back to the articles with read more's then :-

If on my home page I have 1 module with staff members in (so read more is linked to a menu item/article layout) and now I have indvidual staff within that module linking directly to a menu/article person for full screen on that person do I have to create a menu>article link in that menu for every person that shows on that screen for the full biography to show in a new screen ? or would you do it differently ?

(Last question ...I promise and thanks for your help bud)

Gary

[FrankZoid]

You could assign all these articles to a section or blog, and then crate a menu item for that section or blog. The key is that the links needs to have 'Itemid=NN', meaning that the article is associated with a menu item. If the article is associated with a menu item, then you will not have the front page items appearing, and you will be able to assign any desired modules.

Make sense?

[garycpos]

Sort of ....

In this instance is NN meaning the number or literally NN ?

Is the link created via the "chain" in the JCE Editor ? on the text for "Biography"

Thanks

Gary

[FrankZoid]

Gary,

You might be over-thinking things a bit, don't forget to experiment and have some fun learning Joomla I know it is a lot to take in, but it really is not that complicated once you get going

All we did to fix your original issue was to create a menu item for the article, right? So to have the same control of the Staff articles, do the same thing. This can be individual menu items, like you did for the first article, or you can assign all Staff articles to a category (like Staff) and create a menu item type Article->Category Blog. I would expect that the module on the home page will automatically add the Itemid, just like it did for the first article we fixed.

'NN' was just to represent some number, whatever the actual menu item Id is. It did not mean that you will need to build links yourself. Look at the read more link to that first article, and note the Itemid=. Now look at the menu item for that article in your admin, and you will see its ID# is the same number. Itemid in the URL equals the menu item ID#.

If you are indeed adding links manually, using JCE, just use the Insert/Edit Link icon, navigate to the menu item you want to link to, and you will see JCE automatically adds the 'Itemid=NN'. This will not work if your navigate to 'articles' in JCE, again there will be no Itemid that way. BUT- here is the trick- you can add '&Itemid=NN' to the link, and when that link is followed the article will be displayed using the settings for whatever menu item ID you specified.

Make sense?

[garycpos]

Thanks Frank,

Yes ...it did make sense After playing for another few minutes after my post I actually did what you suggested in your last email article>category blog and it worked perfectly

I think one of the main reasons I have struggled is that I have run 2 other gaming websites under phpbb 2 and Nuke Evo CMS for a long time, and adjusting to the way joomla works and the terminology involved has been a steep learning curve lol,

Thanks for your help bud, your a credit to the forums cheers

Gary