Help16:Components Contacts Contacts

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Overview

This screen is accessed from the back-end Joomla! administrator panel. It is used to manage contacts in your Joomla! website.

How to access

• Select Components → Contacts → Contacts from the drop-down menu of the Joomla! Administrator Panel. You can also select the 'Contacts' menu link from the Contact Manager: Contacts, or the Category Manager: Contacts screens.

Description

The Contact Manager screen allows you to add contact information to your Joomla! site. You can enter information such as name, address, phone and e-mail. You can also link contacts to registered users. Afterwards, you can use the Menu Manager to create front-end links to the the contacts.

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 Contact. You can click on the title to open the Contact for editing.
• Linked User. The username this contact is linked to (if applicable).
• Published. Whether the item has been published or not. You can change the Published state by clicking on the icon in this column.
• Featured.
• Category. The Category that this Contact belongs to. Clicking on the Category Title opens the Category for editing. See Contact Category Manager - New/Edit. Note that Contact Categories are separate from other Categories, such as those for Articles, Banners, Newsfeeds, and Web Links.
• Ordering. The order 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 'Save Order'. Note that the display order on a page is set in the Parameters - Advanced section for each Menu Item. If that order is set to use something other than 'Order' (for example, 'Title - Alphabetical'), then the order value in this screen will be ignored. If the Menu Item Order parameter is set to use 'Order', then the items will display on the page based on the order in this screen.
• Access. Which user 'access level' has access to this item. You can change an item's 'access level' by clicking on the item to edit it.
• Language. The language of the item.
• ID. The ID number. This is a unique identification number for this item assigned automatically by Joomla!. It is used to identify the item internally, for example in internal links. You can not change this number.

List Filters

Filter by Partial Title

You can filter the list of items by typing in part of the Title or the ID number. You can also select a combination of Category 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 and press 'Go' 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. You can also search for a specific item id by entering "id:" followed by the id number. For example, "id:123" will find the item with an id of '123'.

Filter by Category and Published State

In the upper right area, above the column headings, are 2 drop-down list boxes as shown below:

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

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

• 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.

Toolbar

At the top right you will see the toolbar:

The functions are:

• Publish. To publish one or more items, select them and click on this button.

• Unpublish. To unpublish one or more items, select them and click on this button.

• Delete. To delete one or more items, select them and click this button. The selected items will be deleted. Note: only empty items can be deleted.

• Edit. Select one item and click on this button to open it in edit mode. If you have more than one item selected (where applicable), the first item will be opened. You can also open an item for editing by clicking on its Title or Name.

• New. Click on this button to create a new item. You will enter the New page for this item.
• Parameters. See Global Configuration section below.

• Help. Opens this Help Screen.

Click the Parameters button to open the Contacts Global Configuration window. This window allows you to set default parameters for Contacts, as shown below.

• Save. Press Save to save your settings.

• Cancel. Press Cancel to cancel your changes.
• Icons/Text. Whether an Icon, Text or nothing is displayed next to the Contact fields.

• Address Icon. Icon to use for Address. Select an image file in the drop-down list box. These images are located in the 'images/M_images' folder.

• E-mail Icon. (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display a button to allow a link to the Article to be e-mailed. This displays a form that allows the user to send an e-mail with a link to the current Article.

• Telephone Icon. Icon to use for Telephone. Select an image file in the drop-down list box. These images are located in the 'images/M_images' folder.

• Mobile Icon. Icon to use for Mobile phone. Select an image file in the drop-down list box. These images are located in the 'images/M_images' folder.

• Fax Icon. Icon to use for Fax. Select an image file in the drop-down list box. These images are located in the 'images/M_images' folder.

• Miscellaneous Icon. Icon to use for Miscellaneous. Select an image file in the drop-down list box. These images are located in the 'images/M_images' folder.

• Show Table Headings. Hide or Show the column headings (Name, Address, and so on) in the Contact Category Layout.

• Show Contact Position. Hide or Show the Contact's Position.

• Show E-mail Address. Hide or Show the Contact's E-mail address.

• Show Telephone Number. Hide or Show the Contact's Telephone number.

• Show Mobile Number. Hide or Show the Contact's Mobile phone number.

• Show Fax Number. Hide or Show the Contact's Fax number.

• Enable vCard. Whether or not to enable vCard support for Contacts. vCard is a special file format for electronic business cards. This allows contact information to be sent in a standard way via e-mail. Note that this parameter must be set to "Yes" for the vCard feature to work. If this parameter is "No" and vCard is set to "Show" for a Contact, the vCard link will show but the link will not work correctly. It will only show a blank screen.

• Banned E-mail. Enter any e-mails to be banned from the site. E-mail addresses containing any of the listed text will be banned. Separate different words with semi-colons ';'. For example, the entry "spam;junk" would ban e-mail addresses such as "myspam@.com" or "aeddie@junkisgood.com".

• Banned Subject. Enter any e-mail subject words to be banned from the site. Separate different words with semi-colons ';'. For example, the entry "spam;junk" would ban e-mail subjects such as "This is not spam" or "I Like Junk".

• Banned Text. Enter any e-mail text words to be banned from the site. Separate different words with semi-colons ';'. For example, the entry "spam;junk" would ban e-mail content such as "This is not spam" or "I Like Junk".

• Session Check. Whether or not to check for the existence of a Session Cookie on the User's computer. If set to 'Yes', Users without Cookies enabled will not be able to send e-mails.

• Custom Reply. Whether or not to use the Custom Reply. Setting this to 'No' allows integration to other systems.

Quick Tips

• You need to add at least one Category for your Contacts before you can add your first Contact. Categories are added using the Contacts Category Manager.

Related Information

• To add or edit Contacts: Contact Manager - New/Edit
• To work with Contact Categories: Category Manager (Contacts)
• To work with Users: User Manager