I've missed something with how category layout override is working

Question

I'm working on a students directory with the following structures:

Directory (parent category)
|_ 2017-2016 (child category)
|_ 2016-2015 (child category)
|_ 2015-2014 (child category)
…

In each child category there are articles about a student (his resume).

I'm using a List All Categories menu type to display all child categories. I could override the layout of this List All Categories view.

Now what I would like is to override the layout of the Category Blog view used by child categories without having to create a menu for each child category.

So I've duplicated:

com_content/views/category/tmpl/blog.xml
com_content/views/category/tmpl/blog.php
com_content/views/category/tmpl/blog_item.php
com_content/views/category/tmpl/blog_link.php
com_content/views/category/tmpl/blog_children.php

I've rename each new files to have the following:

com_content/views/category/tmpl/test.xml
com_content/views/category/tmpl/test.php
com_content/views/category/tmpl/test_item.php
com_content/views/category/tmpl/test_link.php
com_content/views/category/tmpl/test_children.php

And I've changed the test.xml (changing BLOG by TEST):

<layout title="COM_CONTENT_CATEGORY_VIEW_TEST_TITLE" option="COM_CONTENT_CATEGORY_VIEW_TEST_OPTION">
<help key = "JHELP_MENUS_MENU_ITEM_ARTICLE_CATEGORY_BLOG" />
<message>
<![CDATA[COM_CONTENT_CATEGORY_VIEW_TEST_DESC]]>
</message>

In the test.xml file I've changed nothing else.

Then for each child category under Options tab I've chosen my new test layout.

In frontend, the articles of child categories (student resume) don't display. Instead I have the message saying there is no article in this category.

For each child category when choosing default Blog or List layout, articles are correctly displayed.

Could you please help me finding what I have missed.

Tahnk you

Answer 1

Not 100% sure if I got you right because there are quite a few questions in one which I am not able to see what the relation is.

But if I got you right it could be just the following setting:

Menu > Your Item > Blog Layout > Include Subcategories 

Choose 'All' there.

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Apart from that your override files should not be located in the Joomla! component folder itself. They should be based in your Templates HTML folder like this:

YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category/test.xml
YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category/test.php
YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category/test_item.php
YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category/test_link.php
YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category/test_children.php

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If this two things are not answering your questions, please specify what is working already and what not. Especially why you think you need an override for this at all is not really clear to me.