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Description: ArtCats is a module that can list Articles from within a designated Category or can list Categories from within a designated Section. Compatible only with Joomla 1.5 and later. Not for use with Joomla 1.0.xx. Based on Categories 1.5 module created by Rich Dorfman which was created with inspiration from Module - Content Categories version 1.0.1 by Boris Komraz.

I've been posting my developments on the module here:
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=231&t=292997

The need for this module arose because Joomla does not have an easy way to create menus automatically, and this can come in pretty handy. For example a person will usually create their article and then they will have to create a menu item link to link to that article. With this module an article listing will be automatically created depending on the category you are visiting (or a category listing will be automatically created if you are visiting a section).

There is one slight issue if you'd like to use the module in both modes at the same time...the title of the module does not change and I am trying to figure out how this can be done via some module parameters, but other than that the module is fully functioning, and to the best of my knowledge, error-free (works nicely with SEF turned on too).

The only thing I have not checked yet is how it functions with caching enabled. If anybody would like to try it out under those circumstances and report back I'd greatly appreciate it!

EDIT: Uploaded v.1.5.2 of the ArtCats Module

Please see: http://extensions.joomla.org/content/view/15/63/

Adding this to JED is a good idea, as it will increase your exposure.

Thank you for the info Brad! I was registered on the site, but I had checked the other day and thought the Add Your Extension link would be somewhere in the left-hand menu (didn't know I had to go to a particular category and then click on that link). I've gone ahead and added it under "Menu Systems" I hope it's appropriate.

One thing I wasn't sure about was the download link, project page URL since I haven't set up anything special at this time I just pointed the download link to this thread and the project page to my original thread and in the J!1.5 Dev Forum, I hope that's alright too.

Anything else I should be aware of?

Please let me know if you need me to change anything,

Why not add the project to www.joomlacode.org it's really a better place to offer downloads from than the forum?

I've added it there too, but just have to wait for it to be approved in order to add the files for download :-).

Good stuff.. it looks like you are well on your way then. All the best with your Extension.

Hello,

Thanks for this extension, I guess lots of people are looking for this functionality

I downloaded it from the last post attachment of your thread on the dev forum, there's a small typo on line 58 in the xml file, you forgot to change "mod_articles" to "mod_artcats"

Wish you all the success

Thank you for that ah72ah!

I had caught that after the fact, but I guess I thought I had rezipped the project with that update. I'll update both posts with the corrected file, thank you!

Someone was asking for this functionality here viewtopic.php?f=541&t=294860&p=1307993#p1307993

I pointed him to your module, it will be really useful, keep up enhancing it!



You're welcome, but my name is "ah72" not "ah72ah"

Thx a lot Brad for transferring my posts!

Awesome!

Sorry for the incorrect name, but the I wrote what I saw in the morning (I even attached the screenshot to prove it :-). It's weird now though because it shows the correct username you use for the earlier post.

Anyway, I asked for some help on the jxtended forum about how to change the titles so I should be able to add that feature tonight. I'll be updating in a bit!

Hi orware,

I've just checked your thread in Jextended
That feature will make it better, keep up with it, I'm sure I'll be using it all around my pages.

I'm new to Joomla! and want to learn its framework and start making extensions for it like you, I'm now building a tool to help me do that, check it here, it might be useful for you when developing your add-ons. I'll upload its files package soon.

Did u make that picture with photoshop

Regards

Haha, I wish! No I'm totally serious about the screenshot...I took it from the same Firefox tab I opened this morning when I first read your reply...weird huh? Either way, I changed your name to the correct one in the changelog :-).

I had actually seen your thread the other day and took a look at the demo site, I think it's a very interesting project :-)...I'm still learning a lot myself (luckily for me there was another module that was similar to what I wanted and it gave me a good starting place, rather than having to begin from scratch).

Here's the latest updates:

1.5.2 2008-05-27 / Omar Ramos
+ Added Dynamic Module Title with help from Andrew Eddie and Rob Schley of Joomla/JXtended
+ Added Two Module Title Parameters for Both Mode (one for Category Page Title, one for Article Page Title)
+ Added Check for option=com_content since there are other components that also use section/category as view names (e.g. jxtended Magazine)

I'm going to update my first post in this thread with the latest version in just a moment (v1.5.2).

Hi orware



little hint
I was joking! just to make the discussion cool!


Glad to hear about the new updates of your extension!

Happy coding!

Hi - I was looking for something to do this having started creating my 1st menu in joomla and thinking - this is a bit long winded.

However, it doesn't seem to work for me

Downloaded your version 1.5.2 - installed OK - I can seem to configure it (just want a list of all articles from a category)

it displays the module name but nothing else

I then tried it on a local server 1.5.2 virgin install and it did the same thing - module title of ArtCats 1.5.2 and nothing else (This was using section about joomla, category the cms)

regards

Simon

I'll double-check things, but if you'd like you can also try turning on debug mode in the Global Configuration and try and reload the page in the frontend and let me know if you get any errors that might help point us in the right direction :-).

Sorry - made no difference.

I've tried changing everything I can think of but nothing except the title appears

regards

Simon

Would you like to post a link to the frontend of your site (one of them was online right?)?

I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the default Joomla Categories/Sections (maybe I've created the module in such a way that it will only work on new Sections/Categories that have been created). I didn't test for that particular case so it'd be good to find out :-).

Hi

I've had my wrists slapped for boosting my post count to PM

(And my posts deleted )

I can't even PM the mod to say sorry - thats a good Catch 22 :lol:

To brad - sorry!

Anyway, back to topic before I get striked again, i missed off that the joomla site is in the folder /newsitetest

regards

Simon

I'd be more than happy to take a look at it for you if you could provide a public address that I might be able to check out that is experiencing the problem (you can PM me the login details).

Thanks!

Unfortunately I am unable to PM you again as I have not made enough posts

I am refraining from artificially boosting my posts again as I respect the rules of forums

I'll send you the details as soon as I can - thanks for your patience

regards

Simon

@Omar
Thank you for all your help (and I'm sorry for not understanding the nature of your module )

For the benefit of others I'm posting Omar's email to me



What I was basically looking for is a means to have a simple method of automatically just linking from the mainmenu to a list of article in a category and have a "menu" of the articles in that category just be automagically listed along with the 1st article and when you click on the mneu item it goes to that article and still keeps the menu.

Do you think this is possible with either your module or another one?

regards

Simon

how many posts do we exactly need to start sending PMs??

Thanks for this, it works great! Exactly what i was looking for.

I have been using the Latest News mod for this purpose previously till i recently ran into a site with LOTS of categories and is looking for a single mod to do it all instead of making 50 Latest News mod.

I am interested in making the Category Title show up automatically as the module title as well. Any way i can contribute to your effort?


Cheers

I updated ArtCats last week to have better Category SEF URL support at the request of a user and as far as I can tell he must be happy with it because I haven't received any complaints about the update :-).

Enjoy!

Hi orware,

Your module does almost exactly what I was looking for ... The difference is that I need the menu items to be created as children of an existing menu item in my main navigation. Here's the scenario.

I have a menu that drives the navigation for the entire site. I also have the breadcrumb displaying at the top of the site. It seems like the breadcrumb will only add an entry to its list if my current location matches and entry in the main navigation menu.
In other words, when I navigate to a specific category and see a list of all its articles, clicking on a specific article will take me there, but won't update the breadcrumb accordingly.
My fix for this is to add every article to the menu (as invisible items on my menu).

I would like to use your module to automatically update my menu, so that all articles in a given category are automatically added as menu items.

Any thoughts on how to do this?

TIA,
dbJoom

dbJoom,

Could you PM me a link to a site with the behavior you are talking about?

Also, are you using the module in a modified manner?

I'm a bit curious about seeing what you mean about the breadcrumb not being updated when you visit an article because trying it out here on my end with the default rhuk_milkyway template I am definitely seeing the breadcrumb get updated.

Also, you mentioned menu items...so is everything you are talking about a menu item? I'm sort of getting what you are talking about but I think I still need some more detail in order to see how I can help you out.

Right now I am currently rewriting ArtCats (v.2) and adding some new features including an Accordion mode, which you can see a demo of the way it would function here:
http://blog.medianotions.de/assets/demos/mootools-nested-accordion/

And setting up a proper website for the project with demos and stuff.

Hi orware,

Thanks for the quick response. I think I might have "fixed" my breadcrumb issue, although I'm not quite sure what was wrong with it before.

That said, I still think it would be nice to be able to automatically create menu items for a category, which is what your module currently supports, and have them as children of an existing menu, which is what your module does not currently support.

In the attached JPG, the "Product Brochures" menu items link to a category. At the moment, the sub-menu items (MC 402 and MC 382) are created manually. I would like to be able to add navigation at this level without having to manually add the menu items when new articles are created in that category.
Does that make more sense?

Thanks,
dbJoom

OK, that's what I was thinking you were talking about before but in that case you really aren't using my module, since you are still using the menu modules.

In order to do something like that a plugin would need to be created that would run onAfterContentSave that would find it's parent item in the menu and then add the other items as children.

Are MC 402 and MC 382 links to categories or articles?

They are articles. I understand I can't do this currently using your module. I was wondering if there was an "easy"ish way of extending your module to integrate with the menu module and achieve this functionality.

Cheers,
dbJoom

Well, the best way to go about what you talked about would be to create a plugin that would add the menu items to the menu.

My module doesn't touch the menu items you create at all, it queries the tables that contain the articles directly and creates its list from that.

So my module wouldn't work at all for the scenario you are describing, a plugin would have to be used that would sense when new articles are created or modified and would then create the menu items at that point for you.

It's a good idea, but I would need to create a separate project in order to implement something like that.

A starting point for this, if you have a Joomlart club membership, would be to check out the JAZIN plugin used for the Teline II template, since it kind of does what you are talking about already, though in my experience I found it to be a bit buggier than I liked and decided to turn it off.