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Joomla. How to work with Display News module

Norman Fisher June 2, 2012
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Display News Module for Joomla is a flexible, intuitive and power solution for content publishing on your Joomla site.

Installtion

If your template comes with this module, you can find it in the /sources/modules/ folder of your template package. On the net, the module can be downloaded at http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/news-display/articles-display/frontend-news/736
Open your Joomla your admin panel and go Extensions -> Extensions manager -> Install -> Upload Package File. Click on “Browse” and navigate to the location of the DisplayNews.zip folder on your computer. Click on “Upload & Install” and wait till the module is successfully installed.
If you are ok to replace your current content with the live demo sampe data, you proceed to http://info.template-help.com/help/phpmyadmin-how-to-import-sample-data-dump-file.html
Otherwise, you will have to create the module manually. Go to the menu Extensions -> Module manager and click on New. Under Select a Module Type click DisplayNews.

Configuration

The Dismplay News Module comes with multiply options and the best way to get to know them is to actually create a new module and play around with the options. Open the documentation file that comes with every Joomla template where you need to find the table with all the modules listed. You need to copy and insert the flowing into the corresponding fields on the module configuration page:

  • Title;

E.g. Home articles

  • Module Position;

e.g. user-6 etc

  • Module Class Suffix (goes under Advanced Options -> Module Class Suffix) e.g. -home

The way to configure the rest of the options is really up to you. If you mouse over each option, it will give you a short description of what each one does. Lets’s take a quick overview at some of them:

Basic Options

  • Count: enter a number of items you want to have displayed in this module (0 for unlimited); E.g. 3
  • Columns: set how many items to show per row; e.g.1 etc
  • Order select the order for your articles. E.g. Order which means your articles will be ordered according to the Order column entered in the Article Manager;
  • Layout select the style to display the content items; E.g. Flat
  • Date type allows you to select the date type used for displaying and filtering, e.g Creation  

Content Selection Options

  • In Set category type choose ”only selected”;
  • Set categories by selecting one or some categories, you limit the items displayed to those from the particular categories. The category can be created in the Content -> Category manager ->Add New Category , where you need to specify the category title, the alias, set the status to published, click Save and it will appear in the list.

  • Set articles select the articles that you have under Content -> Article manager. Usually the same value as in Count;  

Here’s an example of the article content (it is recommended that it had an image coming before the intro text and the itro text separated from the rest of the content by the "Read More" button):

Title Options

  • Show Article Title allows you to show/hide the article title;
  • Title Likeable makes the item title likeable;
  • Title Tool Tip prefix;
  • Filiter and Linit Title removes any html formatting and special characters in the intro text (one that comes before "ReadMore"). Here it can be limited by chars ir words;
  • Length limit title reduces the length of the article title according to the value you have put here.

Text Options

  • Text allows you to choose the way to show show the content e.g Intro Only
  • Text Linkeable allows you to turn your intro text into a cliclable url that is pointed to the item
  • Text Format allows you to remove any html formatting and special characters in the text
  • Limit Text allows you to limit the text that is displayed
  • Limit text length allows you to linit your text in terms of the number of characters, e.g 100

Image Options allows you to configure the images you are using in your articles: to disable /enable them, make them clickable/unclickable (pointed to the full version iof the article); specify the number of images (just leave blank if you need to show all images). 

For instance, if the Show images is set to "Separately" you can set the module to to display only the intro image title and its title without the intro itself or the full version of the text.

Note, if you need to activate the options available for the Image Re-Sizing, a BK-Thumb image plugin for Joomla should be installed.

Category Options

  • Category Name allows you to disable/enabe it
  • Category Linkable allows you to turn the category name into a link
  • Text more is the text that is displayed for the read more link of the whole module
  • Show more category auto when set to yes allows you to create a link pointed to the list of all category items; 

Date/Author/Read More/Rating/Hits Options

e.g. %a, %B %d

For the default format, just leave the field empty;

  • Show Author or hide the author of the articles;
  • Show Read More allows you to ename/disable the button and the next option Text readmore allows you to specify the text for this button;
  • Readmore tooltip prefix, please refer to http://docs.joomla.org/How_to_add_tooltips_to_your_Joomla!_website;
  • Show Rating/Hits of the user or hide them;

Scroll Options 

  • Scroll allows you to make your content items scroll in the right left etc direction;
  • Specify the height of the scroll;
  • the scroll speed;
  • Scroll delay in displaying / refreshing the scrolling the data in milliseconds, the lower the number, the quicker the speed ;
  • Make your scrolling items pause on mouse over;

Popup Window Options: this set of options allows you to enable/disable a pop-up in this module, specify the url for the pop-up; the pop-up window height and width in pixels.

Item ID Options: The Itemid is what Joomla uses to decide which modules and templates need to appear on the page. This option gives you a way to assign an itemID to the module, so that other modules can be displayed in the MainContent  

Template Options provide you with a reach static and dynamic filtering to style it and to create your own output with the help of Static and Dynamic raw templates:

To see the syntax of the static and dynamic template commands, mouse over them.
for the Static row template (more simple) you can use use
%s – if you need to add a section,
%c – category,
%d – date,
%a – author,
%t – title,
%h – hits,
%i – intro text,
%f – full text
%m – read more
Etc
In order to reset the default templates, just clear all the fields and save the changes, the next time you open it, the default ones will be there.

Integration Options like Prepare Content plugins should be enabled for the preparation plugins support, e.g. if you use BK-Multithumb

Advanced Options 

  • Module Class Suffix Apply a CSS suffix to the module
  • Caching. Use Global/No Caching. Whether or not to cache the content of this Module. A setting of "Use Global" will use the Cache Settings from the Global Configuration screen.
  • Cache Time. The length of time, in minutes, before the Module is re-cached.

Under Menu Assignment -> Menu Selection select the pages you want to the module to appear on. Make sure that the module status is set to Published and click Save.

Below there are some examples of how the content items may look within this module:

Support for the Display News Module is provided at http://joomla.rjews.net/forum.

Feel free to check the detailed video tutorial below:

Joomla. How to work with Display News module

Joomla Templates
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