Category-Article Tree

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kjersos
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Category-Article Tree

Post by kjersos » Sun Nov 26, 2017 6:08 pm

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post. Have a suggestion for ease of use for Joomla both in the creation of menus and for the assignment of modules.

When working with a site that has multiple levels of categories and subcategories, assigning of modules is currently limited because the only structure that we see is the menu structure that we have manually created.

So if we rely on menus that are created using the built in capacities of Joomla to call up the subcategories and article for any given category, those subcategories and individual articles are not available in any menus for us to assign individually to any given module. From what I can see the only way to assign any module to individual pages then is to manually create menus for every single category on my site.

For example I can create the heading year on a main menu, choose list all categories and Joomla creates the page listing all categories(which for the purpose of this example we can call months). The reader can click on any month, to go to other pages listing every individual day. There was no need for me to create a menu of the months or the days, it was handled by Joomla. Thank you Joomla. But because I didn't create a menu manually, when I go to assign a module there is no link for the individual pages of the different months or days for me to click on. I can only assign it the main category year. When what I really want is the option to pick which months or days at my discretion. But in this case the way Joomla is now I have to go create a menu for every single subcategory that I have. A waste of time and energy, especially if you have an extensive site, when instead could we possibly have a more complete tree option listing our categories, subcategories and maybe even currently publised articles assigned to those subcategories? Think of the time that would save.

Would also be nice to have that as an option when creating new menus. Just click on the pages that you want included in the menu.

Just a thought. Trying to save myself some work.

Thanks!
Nadja

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andypooz
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Re: Category-Article Tree

Post by andypooz » Thu Nov 30, 2017 7:03 pm

I think you're misunderstanding how the module assignment works. When you set up modules for a category blog, then click on a sub category or an article in that blog, the modules stay the same. But they don't stay the same because the sub-category or article belongs to the category for which you nominated the source menu item. The modules stay the same because there is no new ItemID, so it remains the same. Now, it may seem like this is the same thing, but it's not. The menu item itself has no concept of a category's sub-categories and articles beyond displaying them in the initial blog. It's only interested in the category you nominate within the menu item blog setup. Whatever articles or subcats you navigate to after that are irrelevant- if you clicked on a social media link or a tags link or front end editing, if Joomla can't find a new ItemID related to that page, it'll load the same modules as previously.
What you are suggesting may be possible (anything is), but I just wanted to point out that we're not as close to being able to do that as you might have imagined because you seem to have misunderstood the logic behind menu items and module assignment and what's really going on.
It'd be nice to have though. I've always felt that the lack of control you have over module assignment without adding menu items is a pain. I've developed modules that can grab request variables like category id and adapt modules to make them most relevant, but choosing not to display the module at all has always alluded me, though I suspect it's possible through a 3P extension (chameleon, etc)
Andy Hickey
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http://www.netamity.com

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stutteringp0et
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Re: Category-Article Tree

Post by stutteringp0et » Sun Apr 22, 2018 6:49 am

That would be a relatively easy extension to write.

Contact me.
My extensions: http://extensions.joomla.org/profile/pr ... ails/18398
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