Module Categories

[xavip]

I thought I would be nice if I could filter a site modules, not only by position or language, also by category. That way, sites with lots of modules could be managed more comfortably. 

For example, I could have this categories in on a website: "Product 1 pages", "Product 2 pages", "Demo section", that way I could manage all modules of a section with ease.

Maybe this could be a little bit confusing in the first moment for some users, so this feature could be activated by some plugin, like language filter.

I've been looking at JED but I could not find something similar... maybe this already exists, but I cannot find!

[brian teeman]

Thats a great idea. 

Here is a little hidden secret that you can use to "almost" achieve this without any changes.

All modules now have a field called "notes". If you use this field to enter the "category" eg "demo section" then you can use the filter box to filter your list of modules to display just the modules in the "demo section" by typing in the word "demo" in the filter

[xavip]

Works like a charm! Nice "hidden secret"!! :D Thanks!

El divendres 21 de desembre de 2012 10:07:51 UTC+1, brian teeman va escriure:

[hoochicken]

Hi,
categories I consider a great idea!
And thanks for the tip about the notice, that's great, too.

Speaking of com_modules:
What I would like to have is a frontend part of com_modules.
So it would be possible to display a module in the component (without the whole loadposition in an extra article just for the module stuff).
I think I can code it myself - planning it for spring 2013.
Questions:
(1) Do you regard this a good, useful idea?
(2) Is somebody coding a com_modules frontend already?

Greetings
Mareike

[brian teeman]

On Friday, 21 December 2012 09:26:23 UTC, xavip wrote:

Works like a charm! Nice "hidden secret"!! :D Thanks!

Dont let that put you off your idea of creating a real "category filter" I can see real benefits from it

[brian teeman]

I'm not really sure that I understand you. Do you mean to create a method that modules can be managed completely from the front end or something else.

The only thing I have seen is tp2 http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/style-a-design/modules-management/19884

 

Greetings
Mareike

[hoochicken]

Hi,
what I mean is: sometimes I want to display a module in the component, e. g. a gallery.
What I have to do now is:

• create article with loadposition
• create module with corresponding module position
• create a menu item with the article

What I want to have is

• create menu item with the gallery module

Greetings
Mareike

[xavip]

I would also like to see this implemented in Joomla! core.

This is not difficult to code, it's an easy hack to com_modules. But this is joomla core... you know...

El divendres 21 de desembre de 2012 10:32:58 UTC+1, brian teeman va escriure:

[Roberto Segura]

I see no problem in getting it into the core as it's a good feature.

You should create a patch ;)

[Marco Dings]

On Friday, 21 December 2012 09:43:19 UTC+1, xavip wrote:

I've been looking at JED but I could not find something similar... maybe this already exists, but I cannot find!

Have you looked at "Advanced Module Manager", it amongst other things add a custom color tag column. So you can color code your modules, and can sort them in that way.
 

[elin]

It's a normal thing to display modules in components.  Some developers do it all the time.  All you need to do is something like what Kyle did in Isis.

$this->submenumodules = JModuleHelper::getModules('submenu');

foreach ($this->submenumodules as $submenumodule)

{

$output = JModuleHelper::renderModule($submenumodule);

if (strlen($output))

{

$showSubmenu = true;

break;

}

}

In other words just read your module in as a string and baically echo it.  It's similar in concept to the layouts. ( That's also what people want you to do when they say that plugins shouldn't render modules should i.e. use a plugin to render a module.)

 Elin