Multiple Category Blogs on the home page

[jlhunt]

Hi everyone -- I'm fairly new to Joomla. I have searched extensively to try to figure out how to place 2 or more category blogs on one page, specifically the home page. I two areas on the home page with all the options for formatting a category blog. For example, I need the first one to be 4 columns and the second one to be 1 column, each listing showing articles from its own category. And each with a different heading.
I feel sure its not possible with core Joomla, but there has to be a way to do this by editing a php file, xml file or using some extension.
Any ideas or solutions would be very greatfully appreciated.

[imanickam]

Probably you could try the extension Plugin Include Component (http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... clude/8741).

[jlhunt]

Hmm. Not sure how I would use it to do this. Could you please provide more info? What I am trying to do is to have more than one category blog on one page. Only the menu items allow to even choose category blog and not an option for a new module. That's what I'm thinking I need. Not sure though.
Thanks for replying

[imanickam]

Since this extension seems to allow embedding component in an article, I was thinking that it should be possible to embed multiple components - in this case, each component would be com_content with display of different categories.

[jlhunt]

Thank you so much for replying -- So, here is what their help says (below). But what would I enter to do what you're suggesting? -- it sounds like it may work -- just not sure how I would write the syntax. I have SEF on and need to pull all articles in category, "services" into the article.

Plugin include component


Include any component in a article (without iframe).
Code is {component url='url' }
Replace url with the url to your component and include index.php?
For example:
{component url='index.php?option=com_component&Itemid=73&parameters....' }

You maybe need to change the url when using an SEF component. If you get a component not found when using normal url then use the SEF url. So not:
index.php?option=com_contact&lang=en&view=category
but:
Contact-Us/category/

[jlhunt]

There have been over 600 views of this post and still no complete answer? How do you get one category blog with say 4 columns with articles from category 1, then below it 6 columns with articles from category 2?
This has to be possible...

[jlhunt]

There are now over 1000 views of this topic. Anyone find an answer??????

[UberGruber]

I'm in your exact situation, i've posted same question in both Joomla 2.5 and 3 section but still no answers.

It's quite hard to find posts about this, since usually it's more discussed how to place multiple categories in the Category Blog stream rather than have multiple istance of it.

Tinkering around with the Joomla core, i guess the best aproach is to use the Articles - Newsflash module, and use some override magic to have something very similar to the Category Blog component layout, with the bonus that being a module is way more easier to implement in specific positions of your template.

As for plugins, the one mentioned above by @imanickam seems promising, but i havent tried it yet. I think that combining it with some other plugins from excelent NoNumber developer like Articles Anywhere + Advanced Module Manager can give what we are looking for, but i have to test things out..

Hope this helps, if you do any progress please give a shout i'd like to know how you handled this! Cheers!