Transcript
Page 1: Adding Dynamic Content to your Joomla Website - Make your Website Dance

Adding Dynamic Content

to your Joomla Site...

Make your Joomla Site Dance…

JoomlaDayBoston 2015

Laura Gordon, RytechSites.com

Page 2: Adding Dynamic Content to your Joomla Website - Make your Website Dance

RytechSites.com

JoomlaDayBoston 2015 - Laura Gordon

About Me

Laura Gordon, RytechSites.com

● Started working with Joomla 2006

● Built sites for: Small Businesses, Non Profits, Libraries, e-commerce

● On Board for JoomlaNYC 2009 - 2013

● Ran Joomla Day NYC 2009, 2011, 2012

● Ran Joomla Camp 2010 - 2015 (next one 3/22/2015 in NYC)

● Founder of JoomlaUsersNJ.com (Users group for NJ)

● Trainer with OSTraining from 2010 - 2013

● Online Training on Lynda.com

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Shall we dance??

Our Steps for today...

● Language Overrides - the simplest adjustment you can make!

● Articles in a Category Module - not just a ‘list’!

● Related Articles - linking articles together and how!

● News Flash - how can you use this in a new way?

● Category Blog - what you can do with the basics...

● Hide Intro Text - and why??

● aidanews2 - auto thumbs, auto displays...

● tabs in content - get rid of those super long pages…

● easy admin - make it EASY for your ‘non techie’ to add content

● Put it all together with loadposition - LET’s DANCE!

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Language Overrides

By default what if you don’t like the ‘text’ that is used in your site (core joomla

or with a component)

Let’s take, njcampfairs.com

This site’s purpose is to list camps that are categorized by the type of camp,

etc.

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Language Overrides

Click on a category that does not have any entries, the default text is: no

record found...

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Language Overrides

Go to: Extensions → Language Manager → Language Overrides

1. Enter the text you want to replace, then

click search

a. Value is the ‘text’ that you see

b. Constant is the ‘constant’ name of

the variable

2. Click on the search results

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Language Overrides

Enter the Text, as you would prefer

to see it on the website…

Hit SAVE, then that is what you will see!

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Articles in a Category - Module

Each time a new

article is added to

the ‘footwear trends

Category, it will

appear on the right

side…

No reason to create

a menu item for

each article, this is a

more dynamic way

to list.

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Articles in a Category - Module

Our Blog is a category

blog, showing 1

article…

The ‘Recent Posts’,

shows the articles in

this category (the

most recent blog

posts)

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Articles in a Category - Module

Online Help:

https://help.joomla.org/proxy/index.php?option=com_help&keyref=Help34:Extensions_Module_Manager_Articles_Cat

egory

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Related Articles

This module displays other Articles that are related to the one currently being viewed. These relations are

established by the Meta keywords.

All the keywords of the current Article are searched against all the keywords of all other published Articles.

1. Set the Key Word on the

‘PUBLISHING TAB’ under

Meta KeyWords

2. Do this for all articles that

pertain to ‘boots’.

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Related Articles

● Create the Module: Articles -

Related

● Assign this to appear on any

pages as needed.

● Check out the page, it will

display all articles on the

sidebar left that related to the

article in the middle.

● All of these articles have boots

in the key word.

● ‘Let it Zip’, has a keyword,

boots...

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Articles - Newsflash

Newsflash allows you to display the intro text from an article(s) from specified

category or categories.

● Can specify the number of articles.

● Can specify order, random is good if

you want the articles displayed

randomly each time the page

refreshes.

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Articles - Newsflash

Examples to use newsflash:

What they Say - Testimonials

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Category Blog - Menu Item Type

The Category Blog can be used to display a single or multiple articles in a

page you can define the following:

● Show featured articles (or not)

● Number of articles

● Display a leading article

● number of columns

● ordering of articles

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Category Blog - Menu Item Type

Multiple Articles Single Article

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Hide Intro Text

Sometimes there

may be a ‘teaser’

image to be used

in ‘readmore’ or

category blog

view...then when

you view the

entire page, that

‘teaser’ is not

shown.

large image above

the readmore lineDefine show intro

text: HIDE (on article

or menu level)

On full page view you don’t

see the image

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aidanews2

Perhaps the best features of aidanews2, is that you can do the following:

● Define your own stylesheet

● The first ‘image’ in each article can be generated as a THUMBNAIL, no

more just clicking on the readmore, click the image!

● Select many different ordering options

● Select from multiple categories, featured, not featured, or both!

● Easily define what is displayed, image, title, category, intro / teaser text

● It’s free!

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aidanews2

Sample backend of Aidanews2:

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aidanews2

Sample frontend views of aidanews2:

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Tabs - End the LONG PAGE!

There are several free plugins that allow you to put tabs within your article.

NoNumber created a very easy to use Tabs Plugin…

https://www.nonumber.nl/extensions/tabs

Once the plugin is installed (and activated) the format is:{tab tab title 1}

text

tesxt

{tab tab title2}

text

text

{/tabs}

● The Pro Version has a few

more features, and styles with

the tabs for only 10 Euros.

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Tabs - End the LONG PAGE!

There are several free plugins that allow you to put tabs within your article.

NoNumber created a very easy to use Tabs Plugin…

https://www.nonumber.nl/extensions/tabs

Once the plugin is installed (and activated) the format is:{tab tab title 1}

text

tesxt

{tab tab title2}

text

text

{/tabs}

● The Pro Version has a few

more features, and styles with

the tabs for only 10 Euros.

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Tabs

Sample front end views of tabs:

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Easy Admin - for your Non-Techie

For an employee that is ‘administrator shy’, or considers themself a ‘non-

techie’. The best way to teach joomla, is by editing content from the front end

FIRST! This way they get used to how easy it is to edit an article or module.

Confidence is the first step to a happy Joomla Developer!1. create a user menu

2. Create 1 menu item as

PUBLIC - Admin (this is a

login type)

3. Create 1 menu item to ADD

BLOG ENTRY (as default

category).

4. This menu item should

have SPECIAL ACCESS

ONLY

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Easy Admin - for your Non Techie

● Once logged in, this special menu item will

now display.

● On the ‘publishing tab’, the CATEGORY will

already be set, and can not be changed.

● Now it is simple for this Admin to add a new

article to this category, which can now

display in (aidanews2, articles list,

newsflash, category blog view)

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Easy Admin - for the Non Techie

Joomla 3.4 introduced EASY Editing for modules...once logged in here are

some samples… (I have JCE Editor installed as the default editor)

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Put it all together - loadposition Let’s Dance!

Before we discuss the plugin ‘loadposition’, (which has existed since Joomla

1.0…), let’s figure out what positions in a template do...

header

top-a

sidebar-ainner-top

menu

main content area

● All of the positions on this template can be

specified in a module.

● Any module set to appear in a specific position

will get ‘loaded’ there, as long as it is also

defined to appear on that page.

● Having a ‘side menu’ appear in the sidebar-a

position on all pages, means that module will

appear in that location on all pages...

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● When defining the module, you

can TYPE in ANY position

● What if you want to include in

your ARTICLE, other articles that

may ‘relate’ to it…

● put in the position: mod_boots

Put it all together - loadposition Let’s Dance!

mod_boots

● In the article, use:

● {loadposition POSITION}

● As long as this module is set to

appear on this page, it will

appear within the article

● See the articles listed now

INSIDE of this article!!!

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TAKE A BOW!!!

YOU JUST MADE YOUR SITE DANCE!

RytechSites.com

Laura Gordon

JoomlaDayBoston 2015


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