Hello Joomla community,
I'd like to create a category blog layout where all articles are shown with their entire content. I.e. without having the article shortened at the 'read more' position. What's the easiest way to accomplish this?
Any advice is welcome, Thank you.
Well, here is how this works:
When creating an article, you have the option to insert a "Read More" in your article.
What happens when you insert the Read More is that it splits the content of the article into 2 pieces, and it saves these 2 pieces in 2 database columns in the db #__content table.
The text before the Read More goes into the introtext and the text after the Read More goes into the fulltext column.
If you don't use the Read More, then the whole text goes into the introtext.
Later the blog category layout always renders the introtext of the article.
So, the easiest way to have a category blog layout showing the full text, is to not insert the Read More into your articles.
Now if you feel a bit more adventurous, you can customize the blog category layout to suit your needs.
I would suggest to create an Alternative Menu Item for the Blog Category Layout, as it will allow you create menu items for any category and still be able to have different layouts for them.
And here is how to do it:
1. Create the required files for the alternative layout:
Inside :
components/com_content/views/category/tmpl
Clone (duplicate) the files listed below and rename the cloned files :
blog.php duplicate and rename to-> blogfull.phpblog.xml -> blogfull.xmlblog_children.php -> blogfull_children.phpblog_item.php -> blogfull_item.phpblog_links.php -> blogfull_links.php2. Edit the new xml file
Open the blogfull.xml and edit the top lines:
<layout title="COM_CONTENT_CATEGORY_VIEW_BLOG_TITLE" option="COM_CONTENT_CATEGORY_VIEW_BLOG_OPTION">
<help key = "JHELP_MENUS_MENU_ITEM_ARTICLE_CATEGORY_BLOG" />
<message>
<![CDATA[COM_CONTENT_CATEGORY_VIEW_BLOG_DESC]]>
to something like:
<layout title="Blog Full Text" option="Blog Category Layout with Full Text">
<help key = "JHELP_MENUS_MENU_ITEM_ARTICLE_CATEGORY_BLOG" />
<message>
<![CDATA[Blog Category Layout with Full Text]]>
3. Edit the new template file of the blog item.
Open the and edit line around 47:
<?php echo $this->item->event->beforeDisplayContent; ?> <?php echo $this->item->introtext; ?>
Change to:
<?php echo $this->item->event->beforeDisplayContent; ?> <?php echo $this->item->introtext; echo $this->item->fulltext; ?>
4. Create Menu Items with your new Alternative Menu Item
Now you will have a new menu item to choose for your category blog layouts. Go in Menu Manager and create a new menu item for the articles component. When you are about to choose they menu item type, you will find a new type: Blog Full Text. *Make sure you will adjust any settings/options of the menu item to suit the rest of your needs (show/hide readmore etc).
I'd say none of the above completely solves the general situation when you have article where you want to have a "Read more..." link / button. So, hiding "Read more" (within menu item parameters or article settings) will do exactly as it says - it'll simply hide "read more" and the whole article won't show up again at the end.
What you need to do in this case is create an override for category blog view.
Go to Extensions - Template Manager - Templates (on the left) - click on your default site template title. Now you're editing your template more "close" to its php code. No matter, you might not know PHP, you can do it here.
Choose the "Create Overrides" tab at the top. In list(s) click on com_content (middle column) -> category. Joomla created all folders and files you need to change now. You only need to change a few lines for your particular problem. Go to "Editor" tab now -> click html folder, then com_content -> category. The file you need is blog_item.php. Click on it and you'll see it on the right. Now you need to edit the line around 47 in my version of Joomla (3.4.1) which is:
<?php echo $this->item->event->beforeDisplayContent; ?> <?php echo $this->item->introtext; ?>
Change to
<?php echo $this->item->event->beforeDisplayContent; ?> <?php echo $this->item->introtext.$this->item->fulltext; ?>
Now click Save & Close. Refresh your page where you have category blog view and you'll get full text of your article(s). This will work if you have "Show Intro Text" parameter set to Show within Menu item Options parameters and I presume you want to keep this. By default it's Show in global configuration. Also, you can set "Show read more" to "Hide" now within same menu item since you don't really need it now.
This way you'll keep "Read more" link for all other instances of your article(s) except for the blog category view.
As with all things Joomla there are several methods:
BasicThe simplest way is not to have the 'read more' buttons in your Articles.
Through the Menu ItemIf you need to use them for other layouts/reasons, then you can configure the Menu Item you are using for displaying this particular page to ignore 'Read More'
Go to the 'Options' tab and set 'Show Read More' to 'Hide'.
Set it globallyThere is another global method of doing this too, go to the Article Manager and click on the 'Options' button on the top-right corner of the page.
In the 'Article' tab, set the 'Show Read More' to 'Hide'.
In regards to the original question. Showing the full article without the introtext.
A very simple way which requires no coding experience.
In the category, under the 4th dropdown "Item view options in category listings" There is the option to choose the Introtext word limit. If you leave this field blank, it will by default, show all of the article text.
Simple, done and nothing has to get customized!
If it's for a smaller website you can just create the menu-item for a blogview in the tab 'Blog Layout' and put for the number of 'leading articles' a big number like 999999. It'll show the first 999999 articles in that category as full text (but also full width/1 column, so you can't use the multiple column setting there cause that is for the intro articles).
