Menu items global parameters

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boogily
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Menu items global parameters

Post by boogily » Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:18 pm

Maybe I am missing something easy, but for all of the small sites I have done I just manually changed the parameters for each menu item, for example, setting the amount of columns and choosing to display page title, or heading as it is referred to in v. 1.6.

I am going to start a larger website, and most of the parameters will be the same for all menu items. I'm sure it would be easy, but how would I change the global options/config for menu items in 1.6?
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by jen4web » Wed Jan 12, 2011 2:04 pm

It works the same way in 1.6 as it did in 1.5.

1. Set your global Article Options (was called Article Parameters in 1.5). Content - article manager - options link in upper right.

Set this FIRST -- this controls things like whether the title displays, whether author name displays, etc, so you don't have to set it individually per article or per menu.

In 1.6, you may also globally set configurations for things like category blogs (how many columns, etc). This is a terrific new feature so you do not need to set the menu settings individually.

2. You can then override the global settings on a case-by-case basis, as required, for the individual menu items.

3. If one/handful of articles needs a different treatment, you can use the individual article parameters to do that.

One of the nice things in 1.6 is that these options are easier to set up globally, so do take advantage of that. You will save yourself a bunch of time later.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by boogily » Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:19 pm

The global parameters for changing the layouts is really nice. That is huge. I am looking for a global way to change if the page title (now called heading) is displayed. It is set to yes by default. I can't find any global way to change that
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by jen4web » Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:06 pm

OK, there are three titles which are very easily confused in Joomla 1.6.

Title
Browser page title
Page heading


Title: This is the old Joomla 1.5 article title, which appears at the top of the article by default. This can be turned off in Content - Article Manager - Options - Articles - Show Title

Browser page title: Configured under Page Display Options in the individual menu item. In Joomla 1.5, the browser page title (the HTML title tag) was configured by taking the menu item title and displaying in the HTML title tag. In Joomla 1.6, that is the default behavior as well. HOWEVER, you can now override the menu item title by entering anything in this blank, and that will display in the HTML title tag instead (as the "browser page title"). Also -- in Global Config, you can configure whether or not the site name should also display in the HTML title tag. If it's set to display, you'll get the site name and the browser page title (or menu item title if browser page title is not set) displaying together in the HTML title tag.

Page Heading: Also configured in the individual menu items, on the right side of a menu item screen under Page Display Options. This was previously called Page Title in Joomla 1.5. The page title displays on the page, usually above the article title. It is possible to have a page heading AND an article title appear on the same page.

If you show the page heading (there is a yes/no button in Page Display Options), by default, it displays the Browser Page Title. Remember if THAT is not set, it's displaying the menu item title.

How to make this clearer:

1. Set up an article in Joomla 1.6. Give the article the title of Article Title. Put in some placeholder text in the body.

2. Create a link to the article using the Single Article option. For the Menu Item Title, enter Menu Item Title.

Under Page Display Options, choose to show the page heading. Do not enter any text in the page heading blank. Click Save. Go to the front end of the site and look at the link you created.

Result: You will see the page heading called Menu Item Title and the article title called Article Title. In the HTML browser bar, you will see Menu Item Title.

3. Now type in Browser Page Title in the blank for Browser Page Title, enter Page Heading in the blank for Page Heading. Save, go to the front end of the website and refresh.

Result:

- HTML title tag: Browser Page Title

- in the main article body, you will see Page Heading followed by Article Title followed by some article text

- in the menu, you will see Menu Item Title.


I hope this clarifies what is available to you and where to change it.

Jen
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by boogily » Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:25 pm

jen4web wrote: Page Heading: Also configured in the individual menu items, on the right side of a menu item screen under Page Display Options. This was previously called Page Title in Joomla 1.5. The page title displays on the page, usually above the article title. It is possible to have a page heading AND an article title appear on the same page.

If you show the page heading (there is a yes/no button in Page Display Options), by default, it displays the Browser Page Title. Remember if THAT is not set, it's displaying the menu item title.
Thank you for showing me where all of the options are. My difficulty is not finding what to change, or even how to change it per item, I want to globally change just one thing. My page headings are set to show by default, and I don't want them to. I don't want to have to change that option every time I create a menu item
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by jen4web » Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:54 pm

What I'm saying to you is -- are you working with page headings? Refer to the definition above.

If you ARE working with page headings, I would recommend you work with article titles instead, which can be configured globally.

Page headings, according to my understanding, are configured per each menu item. By definition, they're not the best choice if you need global control.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by mcsmom » Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:41 pm

Global Options for menus are set in the menu manager, click on the Options button in the tool bar. Unless you changed settings you have to be an admin or super admin to do this.
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by serbianem » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:31 pm

I'm having a similar but slightly unrelated issue on Joomla 1.6.

I understand the difference between the Title, Browser Page Title, and Page Heading, and I have those under control with global settings.

I've disabled the page heading for a menu item while leaving the title. This works great, and looks just like I want it to. It appears that the menu link is what defines the page heading visibility.

My problem is that this setting isn't configurable from the article editor screen.
Example:
I'm working on an article name "Initial", and I select some text and click the article button to link this text to a different article name "Linked". I click the button, select the "Linked" article, and the link is successfully created.
I follow the link from the "Initial" article, and at the top of the "Linked" article I see a page header that reads Articles.

There doesn't appear to be a way of removing this page heading without creating a hidden menu item and copying and pasting the link URL.

Does anyone know of a better way of doing this? It wastes a lot of unnecessary time.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by free-rebel » Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:13 pm

Hi Serbianem,

Did you check article manager - option - blog or list layout ?
Edit: I m sorry, now I red, that Jen4web wrote everything :pop
I m Rebel ...

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by serbianem » Sat Jan 22, 2011 5:32 pm

free-rebel wrote:Hi Serbianem,

Did you check article manager - option - blog or list layout ?
Edit: I m sorry, now I red, that Jen4web wrote everything :pop
It's cool, you were trying to help.

I checked the article manager global options, but I feel this is more of a default article link problem.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by overtsr » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:33 pm

I have a similar problem to what Serbianem is experiencing. I have a link to an article from the Module Custom HTML module that looks like this:

<a href="index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=12&id=17" target="_blank" title="And much more ...">And much more ...</a>

When you click the link on the Frontpage, you are taken to the article and the article title is "Article". I have set all the parameters in the global Articles (plus all other areas) to hide/no and then on the individual article from the Edit Article page, I set the Article Options all to hide/no. I have changed all the options to show/yes and in no case will the "Article" header go away.

You can see this by clicking the "And much more..." on the left under "REPERTOIRE LIST", which will take you to the article page. http://www.courtneyoverton.com

Any ideas?

Steve

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by eskwire » Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:36 am

I have also come accross the same problem of the text of Article being displayed when there is no menu link to it.

Example: Privacy Policy No menu link so the word Article appears
http://onlinebackupsearch.com/index.php ... ticle&id=5

@mcsmom thanks for mentioning about the menu config options I did not know that was there. The only options that I see are for permissions, is this correct?

Why isn't there a meta title option for each article? It would sit right beside the meta description and keywords in each article. I thought this was going to be added in 1.6.

This value could be used as the browser title giving people more control over the meta data. The way it appears to work now is if you want a custom browser title then you have to create a menu link.

Is there a technical reason this is not implemented?

Is it possible to create custom browser titles for articles without menu links?

Thanks! - Steven

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by Cerebrl » Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:33 am

From what I can tell, there's still no answer to the original question. Yes, there are global parameters for the menu items, but that involves permissions, not what the original post was asking -- global option for Page Header Display Yes/No.

Here's an example of why people are asking about global parameters for Page Heading and other Display options:

I've adopted a Joomla! 1.5 installation for the task of redesigning the whole site. I've updated it to 1.6 and now I am down to the small details. One of them is getting rid of those darn Page Headings for each menu item. The problem? I have 60+ menu items. I don't want to have to manually select 'No' on each of the menu items for the page header display option.

Why on earth is global options available for everything but the menu items? Plus, from what I can tell, why does the menu item options for article display have priority over the actual individual article setting. That, to me at least, is counter intuitive.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure a global settings option doesn't exist for menu items, but I strongly feel it should be implemented in some future release. Please feel sorry for us developers that have to take over someone else's work. Thanks.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by boogily » Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:36 am

No, my original post never got answered.

I will reiterate simply so maybe somebody will understand.

If I didn't answer jen right, yes I am referring to page headings. They are all turned on by default. Here is a picture illustrating what I am talking about
Image
This is set to yes by default. This forces the page heading to show on your page. If I do not want any article title, page title, or page heading on my page, I have to manually disable this for every single menu link. Otherwise, it will display something always. If someone knows how do disable / override this globally, I'd love to see how.

Hopefully 1.7 won't have these headaches...
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by Cerebrl » Thu Jul 07, 2011 4:02 am

Lol, love the arrows! Yeah, I too think this was quite the oversight, especially when you have a ton of menu items from old Joomla designs that once used them. I finally just gave up and went though every single one and did it all manually. Oh well, nothing's perfect, although I still love Joomla :)

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by shoulders » Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:09 pm

@boogily

did you find a solution to this in joomla 2.5?

i have the same boggle

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by boogily » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:43 am

Either I'm just really lucky, or they fixed it. Now, it only does this for the homepage, and every other page is set to no. Thank goodness.
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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by shoulders » Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:12 am

does setting the global parameters in articles set the mneu item options for non article menu items?

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by reiferreira » Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:39 pm

Hi,
I'm facing the same issue as Boogily. I've updated my sites from J1.5 to 2.5.2 and they are all presenting the menu items as Titles in each page.
It would be nice that this parameter is set to NO instead of YES and/or an option to globally change it should be provided.
Thanks for your reply.
Reinaldo

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by effu » Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:48 pm

This method is for people that do not want to edit every single menu item and are comfortable with SQL queries. This can be done at any time as long as other admins are not editing the menus at the same time!

After I upgraded from 1.5 to 2.5, I did NOT want the Page Heading to be shown on any pages. One of our upgrades had over 100 menu items, and I did not feel like editing them all. So here is what I did:
  • Exported the j25_menu table as a SQL file with the "drop table" option using phpMyAdmin.
    Open the SQL file with a text editor.
    Do the following search/find and replace:
    Search for: "show_page_heading":1
    Replace with: "show_page_heading":0
    Save the file and import it into phpMyAdmin
    or Copy and Paste the code in to the SQL window in phpMyAdmin.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by shoulders » Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:53 pm

@effu

excellent idea, i did not even think about using MySQL option.

However i will use a mysql command from phpmyadmin rather than dumping the table and re-importing.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by effu » Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:24 pm

You're right, that's much easier. I was already exporting it looking for the string to find and replace.

For my j25_menu table it would be this mysql command (which is much simpler than exporting and importing):

Code: Select all

update j25_menu set params = replace(params,'"show_page_heading":1','"show_page_heading":0');
This will do the same thing as the method I said above, but it is in one simple mysql statement. It will just do a search and replace on the params field in the j25_menu table. If your menu table has a different name, just replace it.
Last edited by effu on Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Menu items global parameters

Post by shoulders » Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:39 pm

nice one effu, now i even get the code, that saves me a bit of time and i like that.


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