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Hey there,

I found an interesting feature request in the "General Questions" forum (cp. http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,213647.0.html) which I believe to be better posted here: 

Currently, when you create a menu item of the type

"Section Layout
- Displays a list of Categories in a Section"

...you get the following output as result:

(1) List of Categories in Section ("Section Layout")
    |
    | (1a) click on Category title
    |
    -> (2) List of Articles in a Category  ("Category List Layout")
            |   
            | (2a) click on article title
            |
            -> (3) Individual Article

In my view (and others, too, cp thread above), in many cases it would make more sense to replace (2) and be able to jump to the Category Blog view ("Category Blog Layout") directly from (1), i.e.

(1) List of Categories in Section ("Section Layout")
    |
    | (1a) click on Category title
    |
    -> (2) Category Blog view (Articles in category in Blog format, "Category Blog Layout")
            |   
            | (2a) click on article title
            |
            -> (3) Individual Article

Reason:
In many categories you often have only a few articles to display, so it does not look nice and is not necessary to have a "List" of articles. Instead of being presented a mere list of two or three article titles, I as a user would prefer to see the beginnings of the articles with fotos etc. as soon as I click on a category (1a), which would tell me much more about the category contents than the article list.

So I think that a (new) view "Category List (currently named 'Section Layout') to Category Blog" in many cases would make more sense than the current view "Category List to Article List".

Proposal:
Maybe this could be done in the "Menu Item: [Edit] - Section Layout" panel via an "Advanced" parameter of the type

"Link Category titles to Blog view (instead of Article List view)"

or something like that?

Regards,

D*

I have heard there was an extension for 1.0.x for this option.  I have wanted to use this setup for a very long time.  It bugs me that its not included in the standard installation of joomla, because it provides a far superior method of displaying your content for certain situations, like the what you have mentioned above. 

Somewhere on this forum somebody created a different template so that when you clicked on a category to get the list of Article Titles, it also showed a description with the title and possibly a picture also.  While that is a quick solution, I still do not like it the way the content is displayed.  I'd still rather it load the content like a blog.  Readers, including myself would rather be able to scan the screen and get a good idea of the content and the blog layout is the best looking layout to display the content in an eye pleasing way.

I would code it myself if I could.  And I don't like patching the core files to much, it makes updating harder.  I would love to see a plugin or something with these features.  Many Many People Would Support It, Trust Me!!!  Off hand i'd say theres probably about 100-200 people that have looked for a similar feature, and probably even more that haven't voiced their needs or wants on this.

I ended up using many menus, and linked to category blogs to get a similar result to what your wanting.  But would be nice if I didn't have to create menus for every section/category I have.  I think I have like 365+ categories.  Its a big site with categories to cover any topic imaginable.

I told necessity of this feature sometimes ago and I am waiting a response from devs. My solution is implementing parameters into category edit pages. So you can change parameters from there and get rid of standard list view.

_________________
Every soul will taste of death.

Did you get any feedback from the devs regarding this issue?

Regards,

D*

No. But there were some talking about this on the forum.

_________________
Every soul will taste of death.

You may want to check  GHOP task 32  .

_________________
So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. MLK 1964.
http://officialjoomlabook.com Get it at http://www.joomla.org/joomla-press-official-books.html Buy a book, support Joomla!.

Yeah, check out GHOP submission 32 or head over here.

I wish the last posts were made before I started working on my complex solution.. I will give the GHOP submission a try but meanwhile I also discovered a core hack in this thread: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,135919.0.html.

I really think the lack of this feature is a major drawback of Joomla. Since the solution seems to be fairly easy to implement for coders I think this should absolutely be near the top of the roadmap for new features.

From what I understand, the GHOP submission will be included in Joomla 1.5, but I may be wrong on that... I know some of the tasks will, but I'm not positive...

No, non of the ghop submissions are intended for 1.5 core, just as extensions or other options. Though there definitely some that could be considered for 1.6.

_________________
So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. MLK 1964.
http://officialjoomlabook.com Get it at http://www.joomla.org/joomla-press-official-books.html Buy a book, support Joomla!.

Yeah, I really had no idea... at all... lol