Joomla! Documentation™

How to Access

Select Content → Category Manager from the drop-down menu on the back-end of your Joomla! installation. Or click on the "Category Manager" icon in the Control Panel.

Description

The Category Manager is where you can edit existing Categories and create new ones. Articles in Joomla! are organized into Sections and Categories. Categories are the second level of organization underneath Sections. Every Section contains one or more Categories. The special Section 'Uncategorized' has a special Category also called 'Uncategorized'. These are built into Joomla!.

Screenshot

Column Headers

Click on the column heading to sort the list by that column's value.

• Checkbox. Check this box to select one or more items. To select all items, check the box in the column heading. After one or more boxes are checked, click a toolbar button to take an action on the selected item or items. Many toolbar actions, such as Publish and Unpublish, can work with multiple items. Others, such as Edit, only work on one item at a time. If multiple items are checked and you press Edit, the first item will be opened for editing.

• Title. The name of the item. For a Menu Item, the Title will display in the Menu. For an Article, Section, or Category, the Title may optionally be displayed on the web page. This entry is required. You can open the item for editing by clicking on the Title.

• Status. Whether the item has been published or not. You can change the publication status by clicking on the icon in this column.

• Ordering. The order in which to display items. If the list is sorted by this column, you can change the order by clicking the arrows or by entering the sequential order and clicking the 'Save Order' icon.

• Access. Who can view this item. You can change an item's Access in its edit screen. See User Access Levels for more information.

• Language. Item language.

• ID. This is a unique identification number for this item assigned automatically by Joomla!. It is used to identify the item internally, and you cannot change this number. When creating a new item, this field displays 0 until you save the new entry, at which point a new ID is assigned to it.

Toolbar

At the top right you will see the following toolbar:

The functions are:

• New. Creates a new item and opens the editing screen for this item.

• Edit. Opens the editing screen for the selected item. If more than one item is selected (where applicable), only the first item will be opened. An item can also be opened for editing by clicking on its Title or Name.

• Publish. Publishes selected items. Works with one or multiple items selected.

• Unpublish. Unpublishes selected items. Works with one or multiple items selected.

• Archive. Archives selected items. Works with one or multiple items selected.

• Check In. Checks-in selected items. Works with one or multiple items selected.

• Trash. Sends selected items to the trash. Works with one or multiple items selected.

• Rebuild. Rebuilds the tree data, which may get out of sync in some cases.

• Options. Opens the Options window where settings such as default parameters can be edited. See Options.

• Help. Opens this Help Screen.

List Filters

Filter by Partial Title

You can filter the list of items either by entering in part of the title or the ID number. Or you can select a combination of Section, Category, Author, and Published State.

• Filter. In the upper left corner just above the column headings is a Filter field and two buttons, as shown below:
  
  If you have a large number of items on the list, you can use this filter to find the desired item(s) quickly. Enter either part of the title or an ID number and press 'Search' to display the matching items. You can enter in whole words or part of a word. For example, "ooml" will match all titles with the word "Joomla!" in them.

Filter by Max Levels, Status, Access, Language

In the upper right area, above the column headings, are 4 drop-down list boxes as shown below:

The selections may be combined. Only items matching all selections will display in the list.

• Select Max Levels. Use the drop-down list box to select the number of levels to display within the structure.

• Select Status. Use the drop-down list box to select the published state: Published, Unpublished, Trashed, or All. For Articles, you may also select Archived. Important: With the default setting of -Select Status-, the screen only shows Published and Unpublished items. If you have the filter set to -Select Status- and you change items to Trashed, the Trashed items will disappear from the screen. However, they have not been permanently deleted. To do that you need to:

1. Change the filter to Trashed. The Delete icon will now show in the toolbar.
2. Select the items you want to permanently delete.
3. Click on the Delete icon.

You can see all items, regardless of their published state, by selecting All for this filter. You can also re-publish Trashed items by selecting them and clicking on the Publish icon in the toolbar.

• Select Access. Use the drop-down list box to select the desired Access. Only items with this level of Access will display.

• Select Language. Use the drop-down list box to select the desired Language. Only items in this Language will display.

Batch process the selected categories

This section lets you modify all currently selected (checked) items in one batch operation.

• Set Access Level. Select an Access Level to be applied to all selected items. See User Access Levels for more information.
• Select Category for Move/Copy. Select a target category where selected items should be moved or copied.
  • Copy. Select this option to copy selected items to the specified category.
  • Move. Select this option to move selected items to the specified category.
• Process. Proceed with the specified changes on all currently selected items.
• Clear. Reset all options in this section.

Quick Tips

• Click on the Title of a Category to edit it.
• Click on the green check mark or the red X in the Published column to toggle between Published and Unpublished.
• Click on the Column Headers to sort the Categories by that column. Click a second time to sort descending (Z to A).

Related Information

• To add or edit Categories: Category Manager - New/Edit
• To create a page showing Articles for a Category in a Blog layout: Menu Item Manager - New/Edit - Category Blog Layout
• To create a page showing Articles for a Category in a List layout: Menu Item Manager - New/Edit - Category List Layout