Joomla! Documentation™

Description

Categories are are used to organize Articles, Contacts and other components for ease of management and display. They can be organised into tree-like structures like file systems. For example, category Pets may be a parent to category Dogs, category Cats and Category Goldfish. Categories can be nested to any level. All Articles must be assigned either to a parent Category or a child Category or to the special Category called 'Uncategorized'.

The Articles Categories list shows existing Categories in a table layout. Click a Category name to edit an existing category or click the 'New' Toolbar button to create a new category.

How to Access

• Select Content → Categories from the Administrator menu.

Screenshot

Column Headers

In the table containing Categories, these are the different columns.

• 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.
• Ordering. You can change the order of an item within a list as follows:
  • If the list Filter Options include a Position filter select the desired Position. This will limit the list to items that are assigned to that Position.
  • Select the Ordering icon in the Table heading to make it the active ordering item. The ordering icons in each row will change from light grey to dark grey and the pointer will change to a drag arrow on hover.
  • Select one of the Ordering icons and drag it up or down to change the position of that row in the list. The items will display in the new order within the Position.

• Status. Status of Category, Published or Unpublished are shown with icons as follows:
  • Published category.
  • Unpublished category.

• 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.
• Icons. Counts of number of Published, Unpublished, Archived and Trashed Articles in each Category.

• Access. The viewing Access Level for this item.
• Association. Other languages with which this Category is Associated.

• 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.

List Filters

Search bar. Near the top of the page you will see the search bar shown in the Screenshot above.

• Search by Text. Enter part of the search term and click the Search icon. Hover to see a Tooltip indicating which fields will be searched.
  To 'Search by ID' enter "id:x", where "x" is the ID number (for example, "id:19").
• Filter Options. Click to display the additional filters.
• Clear. Click to clear the Filter field and restore the list to its unfiltered state.
• Ordering. Shows the current list ordering field. 2 ways to change the order:
  • Select from the dropdown list. Ordering may be in ascending or descending order.
  • Click a column heading. The column heading toggles between ascending and descending order.
• Number to Display. Shows the number of items in a list. Select from the dropdown list to change the number displayed.
  The default for a site is '20' but this may be changed in the Global Configuration.

Filter Options

Near the top of the page you will see the filter bar shown in the Screenshot above. The functions are:

• Select Status. Select from Trashed / Unpublished / Published / Archived / All.

• Select Access. Select from the list of available viewing access levels.

• Select Language. Select from the list of available languages, if the site manages more than 1 language.

• Select Tag. Select from the list of available tags.

• Select Max Levels. Select from the list of available levels.

Pagination

Page Controls. When the number of items is more than one page, you will see a page control bar near the bottom of the page shown in the Screenshot above. The current page number being viewed has a dark colour background.

• Start. Click to go to the first page.
• Prev. Click to go to the previous page.
• Page numbers. Click to go to the desired page.
• Next. Click to go to the next page.
• End. Click to go to the last page.

Batch Process

The Batch Process allows a change in settings for a group of selected items marked with a check-mark in the corresponding check-mark boxes. To use: click on the link found below the table of items being viewed to activate the drop down field area. Using the 'Batch' Toolbar button will open a pop up window as shown below.

You can change one value or all four values at one time.

Note - if you copy items to a new category, changes you have selected from access level and language will be applied to the copies, not the original.

How to Batch Process a group of items:

1. Select one or more items on the list by checking the desired category check boxes.
2. Click the 'Batch' Toolbar button.
3. Set one or more of the following values:

   • To change the Access Levels, select the desired new access level from the Set Access Level list box.
   • To change the Language, select the desired language from the Set Language list box.
   • To change the Category, select a category. To leave the category unchanged, use the default value of "Select".

   1. To copy the items to a different category, select the desired category from the category list box and check the Copy option. In this case, the original items are unchanged and the copies are assigned to the new category and, if selected, the new access level and language.
   2. To move the items to a different category, select the desired category from the category list box and check the Move option. In this case, the original items will be moved to a new category and, if selected, be assigned the new access level and language.

4. When all of the settings are entered, click on Process to perform the changes. A message "Batch process completed successfully." will show.

Note that nothing will happen if you (a) don't have any items selected or (b) have not selected an access level, language, or category.

If you wish to clear your entered selections, click on the Cancel button. This will return all of the Batch controls to their default values. Note that this does not uncheck the check boxes for the items.

Toolbar

At the top of the page you will see the toolbar shown in the Screenshot above. The functions are:

• New. Opens the editing screen to create a new category.

• Actions: Reveals a list of actions for selected Items. Check one or more Item checkboxes to activate the list.

• Publish. Makes the selected category available to visitors to your website.
• Unpublish. Makes the selected category unavailable to visitors to your website.
• Archive. Changes the status of the selected category to indicate that they are archived.
  Archived category can be moved back to the published or unpublished state by selecting 'Archived' in the 'Select Status' filter and changing the status of the category.
• Check-In. Checks-in the selected category. Works with one or multiple category selected.
• Trash. Changes the status of the selected category to indicate that they are trashed.
  Trashed category can still be recovered by selecting 'Trashed' in the 'Select Status' filter and changing the status of the articles to Published or Unpublished as preferred.
  To permanently delete trashed category, select 'Trashed' in the 'Select Status' filter, select the category to be permanently deleted, then click the 'Empty Trash' toolbar icon.
• Batch. Batch processes the selected category. Works with one or multiple items selected.

• Rebuild. Reconstructs and refreshes the 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 can be edited. See Article Manager Options for more information.

• Help. Opens this help screen.

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