1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 So in our previous video, we created a category blog for our Solar blog. 2 00:00:05,001 --> 00:00:10,001 And this particular blog had about five articles in it and you see that they are 3 00:00:10,002 --> 00:00:13,002 displayed here on this page, four articles I guess. 4 00:00:13,003 --> 00:00:17,003 You see that we've got one big article stretching across the top and then it 5 00:00:17,004 --> 00:00:21,004 seems like we have columns underneath, where we have some additional 6 00:00:21,005 --> 00:00:22,005 articles located here. 7 00:00:22,006 --> 00:00:25,006 And you're probably wondering how we can change this layout. 8 00:00:25,007 --> 00:00:29,007 Fortunately, it's not that awful. 9 00:00:29,008 --> 00:00:33,008 And we can in fact change this layout just using Joomla!'s interface, you don't 10 00:00:33,009 --> 00:00:36,009 have to deal with HTML or CSS or anything like that. 11 00:00:36,010 --> 00:00:42,010 So here in the backend of Joomla!, let's go to Menus>Main Menu one more time. 12 00:00:42,011 --> 00:00:45,011 And we are going to go down to our Solar blog link. 13 00:00:45,012 --> 00:00:50,012 If you go ahead and click on that to edit it, and so far we've only worked here 14 00:00:50,013 --> 00:00:54,013 on the Details tab which allows us to set up the Menu Item Type and the 15 00:00:54,014 --> 00:00:57,014 Category, the name of the Menu Item and so forth. 16 00:00:57,015 --> 00:01:00,015 But notice that there's also an Advanced Options tab. 17 00:01:00,016 --> 00:01:04,016 So if we start by going here, scroll on down to where it says Blog Layout 18 00:01:04,017 --> 00:01:10,017 Options, and you'll see here that we've got four blanks for Leading Articles, 19 00:01:10,018 --> 00:01:13,018 Intro Articles, Columns and Links. 20 00:01:13,019 --> 00:01:17,019 And this is how we can change the layout of our Web page. 21 00:01:17,020 --> 00:01:21,020 So let's take a look at each of these things individually. 22 00:01:21,021 --> 00:01:27,021 Here, inside of a typical blog layout, this is currently set up to have two 23 00:01:27,022 --> 00:01:29,022 columns of information. How do we know? 24 00:01:29,023 --> 00:01:33,023 Well, we've got two columns of information right here, one column and two columns. 25 00:01:33,024 --> 00:01:35,024 So that's the easy one. 26 00:01:35,025 --> 00:01:39,025 Intro Articles indicates these are articles that have a title, a little bit of 27 00:01:39,026 --> 00:01:41,026 text followed by a Read More link. 28 00:01:41,027 --> 00:01:46,027 And we have three of these, these three down here on the bottom, 29 00:01:46,028 --> 00:01:47,028 they are here in the columns. 30 00:01:47,029 --> 00:01:50,029 And then finally, there is one that's on the top that spans across these two 31 00:01:50,030 --> 00:01:54,030 columns that's called the Leading Article. 32 00:01:54,031 --> 00:01:57,031 Finally, we have this thing down here called Links. 33 00:01:57,032 --> 00:02:01,032 I don't have any of those showing right now on the Solar blog because I don't 34 00:02:01,033 --> 00:02:04,033 have enough articles that are assigned to the Solar category just yet. 35 00:02:04,034 --> 00:02:08,034 What the links would indicate is you have a bullet followed by the title of 36 00:02:08,035 --> 00:02:12,035 the article as a link that you can click on and you can then go read the full article. 37 00:02:12,036 --> 00:02:17,036 So it doesn't have the big title the little bit of text on the Read more, it's 38 00:02:17,037 --> 00:02:22,037 just a bullet and the title of the article that you can click on to go read the full article. 39 00:02:22,038 --> 00:02:28,038 By default Joomla!'s settings for this is one Leading Article, four Intro 40 00:02:28,039 --> 00:02:33,039 Articles, two Columns and four Links, that is the numbers that Joomla! 41 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:35,040 is working with right off the bat. 42 00:02:35,041 --> 00:02:40,041 If we want to change those global numbers, these are globally set, we can change 43 00:02:40,042 --> 00:02:44,042 them on a blog-by-blog basis simply by typing in different numbers here. 44 00:02:44,043 --> 00:02:48,043 So what I would like to start by doing is saying instead of two columns, let's 45 00:02:48,044 --> 00:02:50,044 just have one column. 46 00:02:50,045 --> 00:02:54,045 And instead of having any links at all, they are kind of unattractive and they 47 00:02:54,046 --> 00:02:55,046 are a little bit confusing. 48 00:02:55,047 --> 00:02:57,047 Let's set that to zero. 49 00:02:57,048 --> 00:03:02,048 And then here for my Intro Articles, I usually set this to a big number, like let's say 20. 50 00:03:02,049 --> 00:03:08,049 And the reason why is, that way I'll have a whole bunch of articles appearing on this page. 51 00:03:08,050 --> 00:03:12,050 And if I have more than 20 articles assigned to the Solar category, what will 52 00:03:12,051 --> 00:03:16,051 happen is I will wind up with some navigation on the bottom, a series of numbers 53 00:03:16,052 --> 00:03:21,052 that I can click on to go to more pages of more blog posts. 54 00:03:21,053 --> 00:03:25,053 And then finally for the Leading Articles, this is something that I very seldom 55 00:03:25,054 --> 00:03:29,054 if ever use inside of Joomla!, I am going to go ahead and set that to zero. 56 00:03:29,055 --> 00:03:33,055 So these are the numbers that I typically use for laying out my blogs, 57 00:03:33,056 --> 00:03:34,056 particularly my Category blogs. 58 00:03:34,057 --> 00:03:38,057 I am going to go ahead and click my Save button here, that will keep me in 59 00:03:38,058 --> 00:03:39,058 the editing screen. 60 00:03:39,059 --> 00:03:45,059 And if I refresh my blog, now you can see that I at least have these items 61 00:03:45,060 --> 00:03:48,060 stacked on top of each other, one after the other. 62 00:03:48,061 --> 00:03:53,061 Okay, so one of the things you might want to do is think about the order in 63 00:03:53,062 --> 00:03:56,062 which these are appearing on the particular blog. 64 00:03:56,063 --> 00:04:04,063 Once again if we go to Advanced Options and I go on down here to the Blog Layout Options. 65 00:04:04,064 --> 00:04:07,064 I have some options here for ordering. 66 00:04:07,065 --> 00:04:11,065 And this is here under Category Order and Article Order. 67 00:04:11,066 --> 00:04:16,066 I only have one category, so I'm not going to group together any of my 68 00:04:16,067 --> 00:04:17,067 articles by category. 69 00:04:17,068 --> 00:04:21,068 So I don't need to mess with that, but Article Order, I have some options here 70 00:04:21,069 --> 00:04:23,069 that are worth exploring. 71 00:04:23,070 --> 00:04:28,070 So first of all, I could list my Featured Articles only, I could make this 72 00:04:28,071 --> 00:04:33,071 actually a blog about Featured Articles and I could order those or I could put the 73 00:04:33,072 --> 00:04:36,072 most recent articles first which probably is really what makes sense for my 74 00:04:36,073 --> 00:04:40,073 Solar blog or I could put the Oldest articles first. 75 00:04:40,074 --> 00:04:45,074 I could put them in Alphabetical order or Reverse, in order by Author, in order 76 00:04:45,075 --> 00:04:49,075 by Hits that means in other words how many times somebody has visited a page, so 77 00:04:49,076 --> 00:04:54,076 the most popular pages wind up at the top of a blog, or finally in something 78 00:04:54,077 --> 00:04:57,077 called Article Manager Order. 79 00:04:57,078 --> 00:04:58,078 What is Article Manager Order? 80 00:04:58,079 --> 00:05:01,079 Well, let me show you what that is real quick. 81 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:07,080 I am going to get out of the screen by hitting my Close button and if I go here 82 00:05:07,081 --> 00:05:12,081 to the Article Manager, I have still got this set to Trashed, so let me reset 83 00:05:12,082 --> 00:05:16,082 that just to select status, here is all of my articles. 84 00:05:16,083 --> 00:05:20,083 What you'll notice right now is that for the most part these are in alphabetical order, 85 00:05:20,084 --> 00:05:24,084 I am not sure why Farmers installing solar powers first, maybe I have a 86 00:05:24,085 --> 00:05:26,085 stray space in front of that. 87 00:05:26,086 --> 00:05:30,086 But for the most part this column is in alphabetical order. 88 00:05:30,087 --> 00:05:33,087 What I would like this to be in is in order by category. 89 00:05:33,088 --> 00:05:38,088 So what I am going to do here is I am going to select like this dropdown over 90 00:05:38,089 --> 00:05:40,089 here where it says Select Category. 91 00:05:40,090 --> 00:05:44,090 And I am going to select just my Solar category, that's all I really want to see. 92 00:05:44,091 --> 00:05:49,091 And this is now showing me all of the articles that I have inside of the Solar category. 93 00:05:49,092 --> 00:05:52,092 And they are still in order by Title here. 94 00:05:52,093 --> 00:05:56,093 And what I could do for example is I could sort these by Author or I could sort 95 00:05:56,094 --> 00:06:01,094 them by Date and this will put them in some order with the oldest one down here 96 00:06:01,095 --> 00:06:06,095 at the bottom and the newest one down here at the top as I have sorted by date. 97 00:06:06,096 --> 00:06:11,096 If I wanted these to be in a different order like some sort of order that I fix, 98 00:06:11,097 --> 00:06:13,097 I can click and drag and drop these. 99 00:06:13,098 --> 00:06:19,098 So click on the little down arrows here in this column and if you click on this 100 00:06:19,099 --> 00:06:25,099 little icon, you can click and drag these and that will reorder your articles, 101 00:06:25,100 --> 00:06:28,000 so that they appear in a very specific order. 102 00:06:28,001 --> 00:06:32,001 Let's say I want Announcing first, followed by the Trend, followed by Farmers, 103 00:06:32,002 --> 00:06:36,002 followed by Embry house, this is the exact order that I want things in. 104 00:06:36,003 --> 00:06:38,003 I could go ahead and do that. 105 00:06:38,004 --> 00:06:42,004 And then what happens is, if I just go to my blog here and refresh, nothing is 106 00:06:42,005 --> 00:06:46,005 going to change in terms of the order because by default, I think this is set to 107 00:06:46,006 --> 00:06:49,006 have the most recent article displaying first. 108 00:06:49,007 --> 00:06:55,007 What I will need to do is go back to Menus>Main Menu, go back to my Solar blog 109 00:06:55,008 --> 00:07:03,008 item and go back to Advanced Options and down under Blog Layout options, 110 00:07:03,009 --> 00:07:09,009 then down here I can change my Article Order to Article Manager Order. 111 00:07:09,010 --> 00:07:15,010 And if I say Save, now when I refresh my blog here, this will reorder to exactly 112 00:07:15,011 --> 00:07:17,011 the order that I have inside of the Article Manager. 113 00:07:17,012 --> 00:07:23,012 So the advantage here is that I can put in my articles in whatever way I want, 114 00:07:23,013 --> 00:07:27,013 but I can order them precisely in the order of what I want them to appear, 115 00:07:27,014 --> 00:07:28,014 right here on my page. 116 00:07:28,015 --> 00:07:33,015 The downside to this is now you have to tell your clients about how they need 117 00:07:33,016 --> 00:07:37,016 to reorder their articles inside of the Article Manager and it's part of the 118 00:07:37,017 --> 00:07:40,017 procedure when they put in a new article and it's an extra step for your clients. 119 00:07:40,018 --> 00:07:46,018 So unless you absolutely positively have to have these articles in a certain 120 00:07:46,019 --> 00:07:50,019 order and ordering them something simple like by Date, putting the most recent 121 00:07:50,020 --> 00:07:55,020 one at the top of the page is not going to work for you, use one of those 122 00:07:55,021 --> 00:07:58,021 methods if at all possible because it will just be easier for your client to 123 00:07:58,022 --> 00:08:02,022 maintain the Web site once you're out of the picture you're done building. 124 00:08:02,023 --> 00:08:05,023 But if you have to order these things in a certain order, the Article Manager 125 00:08:05,024 --> 00:08:07,024 order can be very helpful. 126 00:08:07,025 --> 00:08:11,025 And with that wonderful click-and-drag interface, which is new to Joomla 3.0, 127 00:08:11,026 --> 00:08:15,026 it's relatively straightforward to reorder those articles and then have them 128 00:08:15,027 --> 00:08:18,027 appear here on the Solar blog page. 129 00:08:18,028 --> 00:08:23,028 So what I am going to do now is I am just going to switch this back, I really 130 00:08:23,029 --> 00:08:25,029 don't want this to display an Article Manager Order. 131 00:08:25,030 --> 00:08:28,030 So I am just going to switch this back real quick. 132 00:08:28,031 --> 00:08:32,031 Instead of Article Manager Order, I am going to go back to the Most recent first 133 00:08:32,032 --> 00:08:37,032 and I am going to say Save & Close and now when I refresh my Solar blog, there 134 00:08:37,033 --> 00:08:42,033 we go, this will be the oldest article and it will be down at the bottom, 135 00:08:42,034 --> 00:08:44,034 the Most recent article will be at the top.