Joomla! Discussion Forums

Hi,

Been playing with 1.5 once more and it's looking good. Can I request that a developer looks at implementing all article advanced parameters as global parameters. Currently there is no particular reason to the some-but-not-all approach. This would give admins more control over wayward users forgetting the correct settings. It would fit in nicely with the efforts to make the front-end editor more useful. Most advanced params are unavailable to the front-end editor. Sites designed with, say, Intro Text set to "hide" cannot currently have new content added at the front-end as the default is always "show".

In hope.

Simon

What particular parameter are you looking for?

Ian

In particular the Show Intro as it directly affects a couple of my site designs.
I would dearly love to be able to set this On globally.
However I can easily imagine designs that would want to control the others too:

Page Title
Intro Text 
Section Name   
Section Name Linkable   
Category Name   
Category Name Linkable

I would be happy if I knew how to patch the code myself to change just the default for Show Intro.
However a comprehensive solution would improve jooomla.

Now I turn my mind to it do you know what would be brilliant?
Have settings that take precedent over global in the section settings then ones that override these in categories.
Implement this for the list of adavanced params.
This kind of functionality is surely exactly the thing that sections/categories are for!
You get joomla to do more of the hard work for you.

Simon

Have you looked at the preferences in the article manager?

Hackwar, I am befuddled by your response.

The article manager has no preference page I can see.

What I do see...
When an article is in edit you get access to a list of advanced params.
6 of these are set locally on the article only.
The others are controlled globally by default.
I want them all global.

In an ideal world I want more control still via the sections and categories.

Simon

Please click on the button "Preferences" in the toolbar in the article manager.

You have me stumped.
I am assuming that the joomla demo site is the latest build.
I don't see any preferences.
Or is it hidden from my user level?

My current test build is the original 1.5 beta so perhaps this is missing?
I will install the latest churn locally.

Could you send me a screen grab simonknee at googlemail dot com

Simon

Right...

With my own latest build of 1.5 I see the preferences. What the devs have done is move the global cofig settings to this lightbox page, correct? Nice touch.

Hackwar, please re-read my original mail and my first reply as these questions still stand in their entirety.

Simon

Yeah...  I don't think there is a demo for 1.5, is there?

Anyway, it is not in the original 1.5 beta.  The original beta is very old and is very different from the latest svn.  Give the latest svn a try.

That being said, those specified options are not in the latest svn.

See screenshot below.

Ian

I am moving this off to the wishlist forum.
Why I never noticed this beofre I do not know...

Simon

@simonknee - thanks for the suggestion.  I think it has merit

@Hackwar - any chance of this getting into 1.5?  It strikes me as something that only requires a few changes and shouldn't break anything.  I think the idea has merit.

Ian

Talk to Johan about this. I'm not allowed to make decisions in this project...

Is Johan likely to stumble across this here or do I need to notify/ask him some how?

Somebody call me ?

Hi Johan,

What do you think of including all the advanced params of an article in the global preferences?
Do-able for 1.5?
The greatest benifit is that it makes front-end article creation possible for sites that require Show Intro Off, for example.

As an extension of this idea would it be possible extend this functionality to categories and sections.
i.e. add a heirachical advanced param system whereby section settings overide global prefs, category overides this then finally the article can overide. Great for control of the pdf/email/print icons

This would not only make categories and section more useful it would allow the admin greater ability to design sites that can be "set and forget" letting non-technical users create content in the front-end that doesn't violate site design.

Simon

With global reference do you mean the content compenent preferences or the global configuration ?

Since the other advanced params have moved to content component preferences then this is where the complete set should live.

Glogal config no longer shows content settings and the data has been moved out of configuration.php compared with 1.0 (and 1.5beta come to that)

We are still working on cleaning up the parameters in 1.5 this is one of the last items on the to do list, i'll have a look if this is something that can be easily done.

Johan,

when you are at it ... 

Maybe it is be possible to introduce a parameter for maximum length of intro text to be displayed before "read more" which cuts intro text near length being specified?

I mean something like teaser handling which can be seen when one visits an online portal.

We are trying to finish this baby guys, not add more stuff too it, i'm afraid that one will need to wait for 1.6

IMO, the first suggestion seems reasonable (making local parameters globally configurable)...  the second one gets into new features...

But I support either decision.

Ian

Whatever developers decide in relation to wishes and feature requests:

Getting the baby on it's legs should have highest priority now. When there is something additional possible with little effort and done it's fine for me.

Could I then make the specific request of this thread to having all article local advanced params globally configurable in the Article Mananger preferences. This is to

1. Standardise the presentaion, the current "some but not all" approach appears ad hoc.
2. Standardise the functionality, why restrict what can be controlled globally?
3. Make my life easier, (oops how did that get in).

Could this be included in 1.5 please?

In line with this could there be a policy that if a new advanced param is added in a future joomla release then it should by default end up globally configurable too.

Simon

Just installed the latest 1.5 svn (beta2) and am v. pleased to see an expanded preference section for articles.

In edit the article's advanced params still don't all have a "global" option, they have radio buttons rather than a drop-down.
Is this an oversight or just that the coding hasn't got that far yet?

cheers

Simon

Could you clarify what you mean by this ?

Go to Article Manger and in preferences all the advanced params can be set.
Now edit an article and check out the advanced parameters... some are still local only.
e.g. Show Intro still has radio buttons for hide or show, so how do you get it to follow the global setting that you can now make in article preferences?

Also I think the terminology could be tightened up. In the Article Manager > Preferences the heading should be "Global Advanced Parameters" not "Configuration". The later has no logical connection with what you are doing in this location!

Simon

Gotcha, I'll discuss this with Louis.

Hello, first, sorry for my english.
Another thing to have in consideration, is that, when you create a new item a menu, for example, of kind: Internal Link -> Category Blog Layout. Then you have in the "Component Configuration" the option: "Show Intro Text". Well it has no utility, because content articles, doesn't have in this select (type="radio") the option "Use Global".

I think, the correct way, would be, that content articles, for "Show Intro Text", they had a "select" instead of a "radio" with options:
{Use global, show, hide}

Thanks.

I am not familiar with Internal Link -> Category Blog Layout but this is a good general point. Any part of the joomla interface that presents options for the advanced parameters of the content items (articles) should have a "Use Global" option available as well as hide or show.

I supposed as it was me who came up with the idea I should go off and find out where this needs addressing, there may be more.

I'll be back

Simon

Looking at the latest build off svn it appears that content articles still don't have "use global" set on all their advanced parameters. If I navigate to an article and look at the advanced parameters there is still not an option to "use global" on 30% of the settings.

Conversly this does now appear to be enabled on the all the various Menu Item Types. On all I have checked every single "Component Parameter" has the option of "use global". However look at Weblink category List Layout for instance. I don't think joomla has anywhere to set the global for the options in it's component parameter section.

Looks like the whole thing needs a sweep through to check each Menu Item Type and address each Component Parameter settings.
Plus the articles themselve need "use global" adding to all their advanced parameters.

Should there be a preferences page for the Menu Manager like the Article Manager?
The Article Manager Prefences also apply to Menu Item Type's so there is at least a call for some tightening of the terminology. A better presentation and grouping would in the preferences list gives the user an idea of what the globals will effect.

cheers

Simon