Help25:Components Content Categories

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 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. (Published/Unpublished/Archived/Trashed) The published status of the item.

• Ordering. The order in which to display items. You can sort the list by order number by clicking on the Ordering label in the column heading. 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. This is shown in the screen below.
  
  Note that the ordering is only defined within a single category. For this reason, it is easier to re-order the list if you use the Category filter to select one category.

• Access. The viewing level access for this item.

• 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 toolbar:

The functions are:

• New. Opens the editing screen to create a new content category.
• Edit. Opens the editing screen for the selected content category. If more than one content category is selected (where applicable), only the first content category will be opened. The editing screen can also be opened by clicking on the Title or Name of the content category.
• Publish. Makes the selected content categories available to visitors to your website.
• Unpublish. Makes the selected content categories unavailable to visitors to your website.
• Archive. Changes the status of the selected content categories to indicate that they are archived. Archived content categories can be moved back to the published or unpublished state by selecting "Archived" in the Select Status filter and changing the status of the content categories to Published or Unpublished as preferred.
• Check In. Checks-in the selected content categories. Works with one or multiple content categories selected.
• Trash. Changes the status of the selected content categories to indicate that they are trashed. Trashed content categories can still be recovered by selecting "Trashed" in the Select Status filter and changing the status of the content categories to Published or Unpublished as preferred. To permanently delete trashed content categories, select "Trashed" in the Select Status filter, select the content categories to be permanently deleted, then click the Empty Trash toolbar icon.
• Rebuild. Reconstructs and refreshes the content category table. Normally, you do not need to rebuild this table. This function is provided in case the data in the table becomes corrupted.
• Options. Opens the Options window where settings such as default parameters or permissions can be edited.
• 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 by Partial Title or ID. In the upper left is a filter field and two buttons, as shown below.
  
  • To filter by partial title, enter part of the title and click Search.
  • To filter by ID number, enter "id:xx", where "xx" is the ID number (for example, "id:9").

Click Clear to clear the Filter field and restore the list to its unfiltered state.

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

Below the list of categories is the batch processing section:

• Set Access Level. Use this drop-down list to select an access level.
• Set Language. Use this drop-down list to select a language.
• Select Category for Move/Copy. Use this drop-down list to select a category to move or copy the selected categories to. Use the radio button to select either a move or copy operation.
• Process. Press this button to execute your batch processing settings for the selected categories.
• Clear. Reset your batch processing settings selections.

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