Content Items : New / Edit
--- Draft Version
This page allows to create or edit a Content Item.
Toolbar Icons
Preview: Opens a new window to preview the content as you would in the Frontend of your site.
Upload: Opens a new window which lets you upload a file or an image from your computer to the images/stories folder.
Save: Saves the content and returns to Manager.
Apply: Saves the content and keep the content displayed to edit.
Close: Cancels the action. Any modification is lost. If opened to edit, the Content Item remains checked-in.
Item Details
Title: Type here is the title of the content. This is the title as it will appear on the page or table listing this content.
Title Alias: This field is not used by core. SEF scripts and dynamic title/meta scripts use it and it may have a future use.
Section: Choose here the Section you want the item to belong to.
Category: Choose here the category you want the item to belong to. The dropdown list will display the available Categories for the Secton chosen above.
Intro Text (required): Type here the introductory portion of the content. This is the part displayed in Blog Lists for both Categories and Sections. It can also be configured to be hidden when you view the content.
Main Text (optional): This is the body of your content. It is only shown when viewing that content in full view, and is not shown in Blog Lists.
Content Mambots:
Content Mambots are special tags you place in your content that Joomla parses to perform a particular action or function. These Mambots will be available (if published) even if you choose NO WYSIWYG editor in the Global Configuration. They may be published or edited through the Mambot Manager (Mambots->Site Mambots, Filter set to content).
The two default Mambots specifically used when editing content are:
- {mosimage} (mosimage Mambot): Used to tell Joomla where to place graphics in your content.
- { mospagebreak} (mospaging Joomla): Instructs Joomla to create a page break in your content. You can break your content into several pages if you like. If you do, a table of content will display to let you navigate between the different pages created.
Buttons to insert these codes may be published or not through (Mambots->Site Mambots, Filter set to editor.xtd). You may also manually type them into your content. Remember that in order for your images to show in the content, you must insert the {mosimage} code snippet where you would like your image to be placed in your content.
NOTE: The images in the Intro Text can be hidden for Blog Lists. This is a configurable setting for these Menu Items. Also, this is a global setting that will affect your entire web site as a default in Global Configurations. If you are having trouble getting images to display within the Intro Text and the problem keeps cropping up in Blog Lists, then make sure that the Parameters for MOSImages is set to Show for that menu entry.
Formatting content
The formatting options interface depend on the Editor you are using.
Many editors are available as Open Source (through http://developer.joomla.org) or commercial products.
Joomla comes with 2 default editors:
- NO WYSIWYG: This editor lets you enter text and/or HTML code directly.
- TinyMCE: This editor lets edit in WYSIWYG or HTML mode (See specific Help).
NOTE: It is advised to publish only one editor at a time in Mambot Manager and to save also that choice in Global Configuration.
The Attributes Area for content consists of five tabs:
Publishing, Images, Parameters, Meta Info and Link to Menu.
Publishing
Publishing Info
Show on Frontpage: Check the box if you want this content to be assigned to the FrontPage Component.
Published: Check the box to let the item show on your site.
Access Level: Choose who will be able to view this content. Public, registered or special.
Author Alias: You can publish the author's name for a piece of content. You can choose a Registered user as displayed through the dropdown or type any name there (an author that does not have an account or content created by many authors as a group).
Change Creator: This allows you to assign ownership of this content to another registered user.
Ordering: Select the order in which this content is listed relative to others in this Category. The choices available in the dropdown will show once changes to the item are saved or applied.
Override Created Date: This shows the created date for the content. You can change the date if necessary.
Start Publishing: Select the date when this document is to be published on the web site.
Finish Publishing: If desired, you can set the date when your content is to be expired.
Content ID: This is the ID of the content in the database.
State: This shows the current state of the document. It is not editable.
Hits: This gives the number of times this content was viewed. The Reset Hits Value button allows you to reset the counter to zero.
Revised: This shows the number of edits this content has undergone.
Created: This is the date this content item was created.
By: This is the name of the user that created the content item.
Last Modified: This is the date when this content item was last modified, if ever.
By: This is the name of the user that last modified this content, if ever.
Images
MOSImage Control
Sub-folder: Choose here the sub-folder you want to get the images from. These are in images/stories/.
Gallery Images: This dropdown lists the images available in the specific sub-folder.
Highlight one or multiple image name(s) and click on the 'Add' button.
The name(s) will display in the Content Images dropdown.
Content Images
The 'up' and 'down' buttons determine the order of images if there are more than one on this page. The images will display relative to the instances of {mosimage} tags in your content.
Edit the image selected
Select an image in 'Content Images'.
Source: Displays the default name of the image highlighted. You may edit that name.
Image Align: Lets you choose between None, center, left or right.
Alt Text: Lets you choose an Alt Text for the image.
Border: Type here the number of pixels you want the border to be around the image.
Caption: Type here a caption for the image.
Caption Align: Lets you choose between None, center, left or right.
Width: Type here a number in pixels to override the width of the image
Apply: Click on this button to apply all the parameters defined for this image
Parameters
Parameter Control
These parameters control what you see when you view a Content Item in full view.
Page Class Suffix: Allows you to set customized styles for this page. The suffix you type here is automatically added to the CSS classes for this page, and will have to be defined in your template's CSS stylesheet for usage.
Back Button: Controls whether to show or hide a "Back" text link that would appear on the bottom of the page and return the user to the previously viewed page. The pull down lets select 'Use Global' to use the parameter as defined globally through the Site->Global Configuration, 'Hide' or 'Show'.
Page Title: Text to display at the top of the page.
Show/Hide Page Title: Hides or shows the Page Title text (defined in the field described above).
Section Name: Hides or shows the name of the section to which each item belongs. If this option is turned on, each item's section name will be shown under the item's title on the home page.
Section Name Linkable: Enables you to make each item's section name linkable. Applies only when the Section Name option (described above) is set to 'Show.'
Category Name: Hides or shows the name of the category to which each item belongs. If this option is turned on, each item's category name will be shown under the item's title on the home page.
Category Name Linkable: Enables you to make each item's category name linkable. Applies only when the Category Name option (described above) is set to 'Show.'
For each of the following eight items listed below, you can use the option selected in the Global Configuration settings (Site -> Global Configuration) by selecting 'Use Global' or you can override the Global Configuration setting by selecting 'Show' or 'Hide.' Overriding the settings here for items will not affect the Global Configuration settings and will not affect the settings on the rest of the site.
Linked Titles: Enables you to make item titles linked. The link will go to the item page.
Item Rating: Hides or shows ratings given to home page items by your site's users.
Author Names: Hides or shows the names of authors of items.
Created Date and Time: Hides or shows the date and time that items were created.
Modified Date and Time: Hides or shows the date and time that items were last modified.
PDF Icon: Hides or shows the icon and link to the PDF version of items.
Print Icon: Hides or shows the icon and link to the printer-friendly format of items.
Email Icon: Hides or shows the icon and link to the page that enables users to email items to others.
Key Reference: A text key that the item may be referenced by (like a help reference).
Docbook Type: Experimental, do not use in production work. Associates a type of DocBook document to this item.
Meta Info
Meta Data
Description: This information is inserted in the headers of your content. It is commonly used by search engines.
Keywords: These keywords are related to the header information provided for search engines, but they also provide another important function. These keywords drive the What's Related Module that provides automatic links to other content items that shares a similar keyword.
Add Sect/Cat/Title: Clicking on this button is a convenient way to insert the content's information into the keywords field, including the content's title, section name, and category name.
Link to Menu
This will create a 'Link - Content Item' in the menu you select.
Select a Menu: Highlight here once the menus defined for your site.
Menu Item Name: The name of the Menu as it will appear on your site.
Link to Menu: Click on this button to create the Menu Item.
Existing Menu Items
This displays a list of all 'Link - Content Item' Menu Items referencing this content.