Single article alternative layout for just one category

[RemcoJanssen]

Today I was working on something that (as always) seemed simple:

I wanted an alternative layout for all the articles within a specific category. So I created an override file:
/tempaltes/mytemplate/html/com_content/article/myalternativelayout.php

But no way to assign this to all articles within a category automatically. The only way (I know of) doing this is to go into every single article and select the new layout file. But that is a tedious job.

I came up with this solution, but there might be a better one...

in my default.php I placed the following code and copied the original code and the alternate code into the files that I require depending on the category.

Code: Select all

if ($this->item->catid != 13):
require_once JPATH_SITE . '/templates/mytemplate/html/com_content/article/article_default.php';
else:
require_once JPATH_SITE . '/templates/mytemplate/html/com_content/article/article_myalternativelayout.php';
endif;

- To state the obvious: going into your files to adjust the catid shouldn't be the way to go.
- Having sub-templates or layout files at our disposal, the require bit could be improved upon...

curious about other people thoughts

Remco

[pe7er]

Looks like a proper solution!

- To state the obvious: going into your files to adjust the catid shouldn't be the way to go.

Why not make it configurable via the Joomla back-end?
Add a default.xml to your template override in which you add a parameter to configure the categories to include or exclude.

[jonBuckner1]

Did not know you could override xml files in html folder !!