Help310:Menus Menu Item Article Single Article

Description

Used to show one Article in the Frontend of the site.

How to Access

Add a new menu item 'Single Article'

• Select Menus → [name of the menu] → Add New Menu Item from the dropdown menu of the Administrator Panel

• Click the 'Menu Item Type' Select button

• Select Articles → Single Article in the modal popup window.

Edit an existing menu item 'Single Article'

• Click on the menu item's Title in Menu items.

Screenshot

Form Fields

• Menu Title. The title that will display for this menu item.

• Alias. The internal name of the menu item. Normally, you can leave this blank and Joomla will fill in a default value. The default value is the Title in lower case and with dashes instead of spaces. You may enter the Alias manually. Learn more about Aliases.

Details

• Menu Item Type. The Menu Item Type selected when this menu item was created. This can be one of the core menu item types or a menu item type provided by an installed extension.

• Select Article. This field holds the article to be shown in this layout. Press the Select button to open the article selection modal window, as shown below. You can use the Filter fields to find the desired article and then click on the article's Title to select it. At that point, the modal window will close and the title will show in the Select Article field.

  

• Link. The system-generated link for this menu item. This field cannot be changed and is for information only.

• Target Window. This determines how the new page will be opened. Options are:
  • Parent: Open new menu item in parent window. This is the default.
  • New Window With Navigation: Open menu item in a new window with full browser navigation (for example, "back" button).
  • New Without Navigation: Open menu item in a new window without browser navigation.

• Template Style. Controls the template style for this menu item. A list box will show the available template styles for your site.
  • - Use Default -: Use the default style for the site to show this menu item.
  • [Template Style]: Select a specific template style to always show this menu item with that style.

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• Menu. Shows which menu the menu item will appear in.

• Parent Item. The parent menu item for this menu item. Used to determine whether a Menu Item is a top-level item or a submenu item.
  • Menu Item Root: Select the default value if this is a top-level Menu Item.
  • [menu item title]: Select the Menu Item that is this menu item's parent.

• Ordering. Indicates the order of this Menu Item in the Menu. The default Order is to add the Menu Item to the end of the Menu. This Menu Item will moved to the order position just after the Menu Item selected from the dropdown list. Note: The Order can also be changed in Menu Items.

• Status. (Published/Unpublished/Trashed) The published status of the menu item.

• Default Page. (Yes/No) If Yes, this menu item is the default or home page for the site. There must be exactly one menu item set as the default page. You can change the default page in 2 ways:
  1. Click on the Home column of the desired menu item in Menu Items.
  2. Open the menu item for the new default page and change the Default Page setting to Yes.

• Access. Who has access to this menu item.
  • Public: Everyone has access.
  • Guest: Everyone has access.
  • Registered: Only registered users have access.
  • Special: Only users with author status or higher have access.
  • Super Users: Only super users have access.

• Language. Select the language for this menu item. If you are not using the multi-language feature of Joomla, keep the default of All.

• Note. Menu item note. This is normally for the site administrator's use (for example, to document information about this menu item) and does not show in the Frontend of the site.

Options

The Single Article Layout has the following Article Options, as shown below. These options determine how the article will show on the Frontend layout.

Note that these options includeUse Global. If this is selected, the setting from the Article Options will be used.

• Show Title. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the article's Title.

• Linked Titles. (Use Global/Yes/No) If the article's Title is shown, whether to show it as a link to the article.

• Show Intro Text. (Use Global/Show/Hide) If set to Show, the Intro Text of the article will show when you drill down to the article. If set to Hide, only the part of the article after the "Read More" break will show.

• Position of Article Info. (Use Global/Above/Below/Split) Puts the article information block above or below the text or splits it into 2 separate blocks, one above and the other below.

• Article Info Title. (Use Global/Hide/Show). Displays the 'Article Info' title on top of the article information block.

• Show Category. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the Article's Category.

• Link Category. (Use Global/Yes/No) If the category title is shown, whether or not to show it as a link to a Single Category menu item for the category.
  Note: You can set this to be either a blog or list layout with the "Choose a layout" option in the Category Options.

• Show Parent. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the Article's Parent Category.

• Link Parent. (Use Global/Yes/No) If the Article's Parent Category is shown, whether to show it as a link to a Category layout (list or blog) for that Category.

• Show Associations. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Show or hide the associated article's flags or URL Language code.
  Note: Multilingual only.

• Show Author. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether to show the author of the Article.

• Link Author. (Use Global/Yes/No) If the author is shown, whether or not to show it as a link to the Joomla user.
  Note: This will only show as a link if there is a Contact associated with this user. Also, a link will not show if there is an Author Alias value for the article.

• Show Create Date. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the Article's create date.

• Show Modify Date. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the Article's modify date.

• Show Publish Date. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the Article's start publishing date.

• Show Navigation. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show a navigation link (for example, Next or Previous article) between articles.

• Show Voting. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Whether or not to show the a voting icon for the Article.
  Note: The Plugin Content - Vote has to be enabled.

• Show Icons. (Use Global/Show/Hide) If set to Show, Print and Email will use icons instead of text.

• Show Print. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Show or hide the Print Article button.

• Show Email. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Show or hide the Email Article button.

• Show Hits. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Show or hide the number of times the article has been viewed (called hits).

• Show Tags. (Use Global/Show/Hide) Show or hide the tags for the article.

• Show Unauthorised Links.
  • Yes: The Intro Text for restricted articles will show. Clicking on the "Read More" link will require users to log in to view the full article content.
  • No: Articles that the user is not authorised to view (based on the viewing access level for the article) will not show.

• Positioning of the Links. (Use Global/Above/Below) If there are links associated with this article, whether to show them above or below the article.

Link Type

• Link Title Attribute. An optional, custom description for the title attribute of the menu hyperlink.

• Link Class. An optional class to apply to the menu hyperlink.

• Link Image. Select an image to use with 'Menu Title'. Use 'Add Menu Title' set to No to show just image.

• Image Class. The class which is added to the image (src tag).

• Add Menu Title. (Yes/No) If optional image is selected, shows a 'Menu Title' next to image.

• Display in Menu. (Yes/No) Select No if you want to exclude this menu item from displaying in the menu.
  Note: Any submenu items will also be hidden.

Page Display

• Browser Page Title. Optional text for the "Browser page title" element. If blank, a default value is used based on the Menu Item Title.

• Show Page Heading. (Use Global/Yes/No). Show or hide the Browser Page Title in the heading of the page (If no optional text entered - will default to value based on the Menu Item Title). The Page heading is usually displayed inside the H1 tag.

• Page Heading. Optional alternative text for the Page heading.

• Page Class. Optional CSS class to add to elements in this page. This allows CSS styling specific to this page.

Metadata

• Meta Description. An optional paragraph to be used as the description of the page in the HTML output. This will generally display in the results of search engines. If entered, this creates an HTML meta element with a name attribute of "description" and a content attribute equal to the entered text.

• Meta Keywords. Optional entry for keywords. Must be entered separated by commas (for example, "cats, dogs, pets") and may be entered in upper or lower case. (For example, "CATS" will match "cats" or "Cats").
  Learn more about Meta Keywords.

• Robots. The instructions for web "robots" that browse to this page.
  • Use Global: Use the value from the Metadata Settings.
  • index, follow: Index this page and follow the links on this page.
  • noindex, follow: Do not index this page, but still follow the links on the page. For example, you might do this for a site map page where you want the links to be indexed but you don't want this page to show in search engines.
  • index, nofollow: Index this page, but do not follow any links on the page. For example, you might want to do this for an events calendar, where you want the page to show in search engines but you do not want to index each event.
  • noindex, nofollow: Do not index this page or follow any links on the page.

• Secure. Whether or not to use SSL and the Secure Site URL for this page.
  • Off: Do not use SSL.
  • On: Use SSL.
  • Ignore: Ignore this setting and use the global setting for the site.

Module Assignment

• Unassigned Modules. (Show/Hide) Show or hide modules unassigned to this menu item.
• Unpublished Modules. (Show/Hide) Show or hide modules that are unpublished.

Toolbar

At the top left you will see the toolbar.

The functions are:

• Save. Saves the menu item and stays in the current screen.

• Save & Close. Saves the menu item and closes the current screen.

• Save & New. Saves the menu item and keeps the editing screen open and ready to create another menu item.

• Save as Copy. Saves your changes to a copy of the current menu item. Does not affect the current menu item.
  Note: This toolbar icon is only shown if you edit an existing menu item.

• Close. Closes the current screen and returns to the previous screen without saving any modifications you may have made.

• Help. Opens this help screen.

Quick Tips

If you have a Single Article Layout defined for an article, that layout will show any time a user drills down to that article. For example, if an article is shown on another menu item type (for example, in a Category Blog or List Layout or a Featured Articles Layout), the user will be taken to the Single Article Layout for that article (if defined).

Related Information

Articles are created using Articles: Add or Edit.

Related Help Screens	Description
Components Article Manager Options	Used to set global defaults for menu items that display articles. These default values will be used when "Use Global" is selected for an option in an Articles menu item. For example, to show the 'Create Date' for an article in your Articles menu items, then set that option to "Show" here and it will be the default value. You do not need to set any of these options. Your Joomla site will work with the default settings.
Content Article Manager	The Article Manager is used to find, mark featured, add and edit articles. See Toolbar below for a detailed list of all functions.
Content Article Manager Edit	This is the back-end screen where you can add and edit Articles. The same screen is used for adding a new Article and editing an existing Article. You can also select the Section and Category for an Article and indicate whether or not it is Published and if it is selected to appear on the Front Page. The Article's content is edited using the default editor selected in the User Manager - New/Edit. The Joomla! default editor is called TinyMCE. A number of Parameters can be set for the Article. Metadata can also be entered.
Content Featured Articles	Used to control which 'Featured Articles' are displayed on the Front Page and in what order they are displayed. The Front Page is often the Home page of a web site, but it can be any page in the site. The Front Page is created using a Menu Item with the Front Page layout.
Menus Menu Item Article Archived	Used to show a list of Archived Articles. The Archived Article list can be displayed by date, filtered, and intro text added as shown below.
Menus Menu Item Article Categories	Used to show a list of Categories. Categories are shown in a hierarchical list, as shown below. Depending on the selected options for this layout, you can click on a category Title to show the articles in that category.
Menus Menu Item Article Category Blog	Used to show articles belonging to a specific Category in a blog layout. Controls the Introduction or Leading Article, additional Articles with intro text, and additional links to more Articles in the same category. Some examples of settings for the Blog Layout format include: number of articles, article columns, across or down layouts, and number of additional links. See the Advanced Details Tab for all this menu item.
Menus Menu Item Article Category List	Used to show articles belonging to a specific Category in a list layout.
Menus Menu Item Article Create	Allows users to submit an article. Normally this is available only to users who have logged in to the front end of the site. Users must have permission to create articles. When the Create Article page is shown in the front end, the screen shows as examples in the following Front End Screenshots section.
Menus Menu Item Article Featured	Used to show all Articles that have been tagged as Featured. Articles are shown in a Blog Layout.