1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 So I've been promising you for several chapters now that we're going to clean up 2 00:00:04,001 --> 00:00:05,001 the way these articles look. 3 00:00:05,002 --> 00:00:10,002 Right now, by default, we have an article title, it links somewhere, 4 00:00:10,003 --> 00:00:11,003 actually it links to itself. 5 00:00:11,004 --> 00:00:16,004 Even if you're not using the Read More functionality, we have a line for an author here; 6 00:00:16,005 --> 00:00:20,005 we have some details listed underneath about the category and the 7 00:00:20,006 --> 00:00:24,006 publication date which is in European format, and the hits that we've gotten 8 00:00:24,007 --> 00:00:25,007 to this particular article. 9 00:00:25,008 --> 00:00:30,008 And I know many of you just want to get rid of all of this stuff, so do I. 10 00:00:30,009 --> 00:00:35,009 So, that's what I am going to cover in this next video is how we can clean up 11 00:00:35,010 --> 00:00:36,010 the way these articles appear. 12 00:00:36,011 --> 00:00:39,011 And there are many different ways that we can do that. 13 00:00:39,012 --> 00:00:43,012 We can do this on an article by article basis, we can do it for an entire menu, 14 00:00:43,013 --> 00:00:45,013 or we can do it globally. 15 00:00:45,014 --> 00:00:47,014 So I am going to start with globally. 16 00:00:47,015 --> 00:00:52,015 Because it's probably true that you want to get rid of as much of the stuff 17 00:00:52,016 --> 00:00:56,016 globally as possible, and then go back to Menus or Articles to make exceptions 18 00:00:56,017 --> 00:00:59,017 to any of the global rules that you will set up. 19 00:00:59,018 --> 00:01:02,018 So I am going to start by going to my back end of Joomla! 20 00:01:02,019 --> 00:01:07,019 and I am going to go to Content>Article Manager, and I am going to click on this 21 00:01:07,020 --> 00:01:08,020 Options button up here. 22 00:01:08,021 --> 00:01:12,021 This is a button that's only available to super administrators and it allows 23 00:01:12,022 --> 00:01:19,022 me to turn on and off the various aspects of the Web page that I want to see or not see. 24 00:01:19,023 --> 00:01:24,023 So first of all, under Articles, I can choose to show the title or not. 25 00:01:24,024 --> 00:01:28,024 If I hide the article title, then I just have text on the page without 26 00:01:28,025 --> 00:01:29,025 the article title present. 27 00:01:29,026 --> 00:01:33,026 That's probably a bad idea for the design that I'm putting together, 28 00:01:33,027 --> 00:01:34,027 so I am going to leave that to Show. 29 00:01:34,028 --> 00:01:39,028 However, I probably don't want those titles linked because they link to themselves. 30 00:01:39,029 --> 00:01:42,029 This work is great on a page like our Solar blog. 31 00:01:42,030 --> 00:01:47,030 Because I can click on the title of the article, and go to the full text of that 32 00:01:47,031 --> 00:01:49,031 article, the same as I can click on the Read More. 33 00:01:49,032 --> 00:01:53,032 But, it really doesn't work on a page like the K-Eco Energy Bulbs. 34 00:01:53,033 --> 00:01:56,033 When I click on that, I am just reloading my Web page. 35 00:01:56,034 --> 00:01:58,034 So it's a little bit frustrating. 36 00:01:58,035 --> 00:02:03,035 So what I am going to do is turn off the Link Titles Globally, and maybe I will 37 00:02:03,036 --> 00:02:05,036 override those later in the Solar blog. 38 00:02:05,037 --> 00:02:07,037 I'm going to show my intro text. 39 00:02:07,038 --> 00:02:11,038 That's the little bit of text that starts off one of our blog posts. 40 00:02:11,039 --> 00:02:15,039 So, if I go to my Solar blog, this tiny little bit of text down here in the 41 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:19,040 bottom is my intro text, I do want to show that when it's present. 42 00:02:19,041 --> 00:02:24,041 The position of the article info can be Above, or Below or Split, and the 43 00:02:24,042 --> 00:02:29,042 Article Info is this information that's here at the top of the article. 44 00:02:29,043 --> 00:02:31,043 I can choose to show the category or not. 45 00:02:31,044 --> 00:02:32,044 I am going to hide it. 46 00:02:32,045 --> 00:02:34,045 I don't want to link it either. 47 00:02:34,046 --> 00:02:38,046 And scrolling on down a little further, I don't want to show my author, I don't 48 00:02:38,047 --> 00:02:40,047 want to show a publication date. 49 00:02:40,048 --> 00:02:46,048 The navigation refers to, choose one of these articles here, if I go into 50 00:02:46,049 --> 00:02:51,049 the Trend in alternative energy usage, I have two buttons at the bottom of 51 00:02:51,050 --> 00:02:53,050 every article; it's Previous and Next. 52 00:02:53,051 --> 00:02:58,051 And what these do is navigate me through the category of information. 53 00:02:58,052 --> 00:03:03,052 So I can click on these buttons and then read all of the content within a 54 00:03:03,053 --> 00:03:07,053 particular category and when I get to the bottom there's only one Previous Button. 55 00:03:07,054 --> 00:03:12,054 So then, I'll go back through my previous links to go back up to the 56 00:03:12,055 --> 00:03:14,055 first article in that series. 57 00:03:14,056 --> 00:03:18,056 I find those buttons kind of confusing because you don't know what's next. 58 00:03:18,057 --> 00:03:21,057 When somebody explains to you what those buttons do, then they're great. 59 00:03:21,058 --> 00:03:25,058 But, it's likely that most people are going to be looking at your Web site 60 00:03:25,059 --> 00:03:26,059 do not know what those buttons do. 61 00:03:26,060 --> 00:03:28,060 So I just usually choose to turn them off. 62 00:03:28,061 --> 00:03:31,061 That's called navigation for some reason. 63 00:03:31,062 --> 00:03:35,062 I am going to go ahead and turn that off and hide it. 64 00:03:35,063 --> 00:03:38,063 I can choose to show my Read More links or not. 65 00:03:38,064 --> 00:03:39,064 I'm going to Show them. 66 00:03:39,065 --> 00:03:43,065 One of the things that you might have been wondering about is showing the tile 67 00:03:43,066 --> 00:03:44,066 with the Read More link. 68 00:03:44,067 --> 00:03:52,067 So once again, here on my Solar blog page, hit Back a few times here, go back my Solar blog. 69 00:03:52,068 --> 00:03:58,068 What I have here is these Read More links, but it doesn't just say reports. 70 00:03:58,069 --> 00:04:00,069 It says, Read More: 71 00:04:00,070 --> 00:04:04,070 Farmers installing solar power in record numbers and some of you are probably 72 00:04:04,071 --> 00:04:08,071 wondering why that has all of that text there? 73 00:04:08,072 --> 00:04:13,072 Well, search engines tend to weight text that occurs in a link more heavily, 74 00:04:13,073 --> 00:04:16,073 and these Read More items are just links. 75 00:04:16,074 --> 00:04:22,074 And so by putting these extra words including the title in it, we are increasing 76 00:04:22,075 --> 00:04:25,075 the weight of those particular keywords that were used in the title. 77 00:04:25,076 --> 00:04:29,076 Furthermore, if you have a disability of some kind, and you're looking at a blog 78 00:04:29,077 --> 00:04:34,077 whether you have 100 posts on the page, you might have 100 links that all say Read More. 79 00:04:34,078 --> 00:04:37,078 You don't know what each individual Read More link will take you to. 80 00:04:37,079 --> 00:04:42,079 So, by turning off that additional text, you are decreasing the accessibility of 81 00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:46,080 your Web site, and you may be impacting your search engine optimization. 82 00:04:46,081 --> 00:04:50,081 Having said all of that, some people really just want the text that says Read More, 83 00:04:50,082 --> 00:04:52,082 and this is where you would configure that. 84 00:04:52,083 --> 00:04:57,083 So, you might want to show the Read More link, but you don't want to necessarily 85 00:04:57,084 --> 00:04:58,084 show the title with it. 86 00:04:58,085 --> 00:05:01,085 The Read More Limit would put a limit on the number of characters in the 87 00:05:01,086 --> 00:05:02,086 title for the article. 88 00:05:02,087 --> 00:05:06,087 So if you have a very long title, in this case, it only shows the first 100 89 00:05:06,088 --> 00:05:09,088 characters of that title before it cuts it off. 90 00:05:09,089 --> 00:05:16,089 The last part of this is showing the icons, the print icon, the e-mail icon and hits. 91 00:05:16,090 --> 00:05:21,090 So right now on our Web page, we have hits that are located here. 92 00:05:21,091 --> 00:05:25,091 And then we have this funny looking gear icon that occurs over here on the side. 93 00:05:25,092 --> 00:05:29,092 And if you click on the gear icon, what you find located here is a 94 00:05:29,093 --> 00:05:33,093 printer-friendly version of this page, and Email this to a friend. 95 00:05:33,094 --> 00:05:38,094 So, if I was to go to the print version of this page, it comes up in a pop-up 96 00:05:38,095 --> 00:05:42,095 window with everything on the screen, and I can click the Print button to print 97 00:05:42,096 --> 00:05:43,096 off just this article. 98 00:05:43,097 --> 00:05:50,097 The Email to a friend will come up in a window, and I can fill in my e-mail information. 99 00:05:50,098 --> 00:05:55,098 But, there's no way I can put in a block of text or say why I am sending this link. 100 00:05:55,099 --> 00:05:58,099 I would just fill this out, and it would e-mail the link for this particular 101 00:05:58,100 --> 00:05:59,100 article to somebody. 102 00:05:59,101 --> 00:06:04,001 And my sense for these at this point in time is that we don't see a whole lot of 103 00:06:04,002 --> 00:06:08,002 e-mail to a friend anymore on a lot of these Web sites because so many people are 104 00:06:08,003 --> 00:06:09,003 sharing things through social media. 105 00:06:09,004 --> 00:06:13,004 And there doesn't seem to be as much printing going on anymore as there used to 106 00:06:13,005 --> 00:06:17,005 be either, and of course you can always just print these pages off through your 107 00:06:17,006 --> 00:06:21,006 Web browser anyway, or people tend to copy them and paste them into Microsoft 108 00:06:21,007 --> 00:06:25,007 Word if they want to control the way that the page looks when they print it. 109 00:06:25,008 --> 00:06:28,008 So I tend to not want to have these items showing at all. 110 00:06:28,009 --> 00:06:32,009 So you might think that simply by hiding the icons that would be sufficient. 111 00:06:32,010 --> 00:06:38,010 So, I am just going to save so far. So I am just going to hit my Save button here. 112 00:06:38,011 --> 00:06:41,011 All the changes that I've made so far are now saved. 113 00:06:41,012 --> 00:06:49,012 And if I refresh my Solar blog here, you see that my articles are no longer linked. 114 00:06:49,013 --> 00:06:53,013 But, I still have the Hits showing here in the details, and I still have this 115 00:06:53,014 --> 00:06:57,014 dropdown and the icon that's associated with it, with links underneath that 116 00:06:57,015 --> 00:06:58,015 say Print and Email. 117 00:06:58,016 --> 00:06:59,016 Why are they still here? 118 00:06:59,017 --> 00:07:07,017 Well, this Show Icons item only hid the icons next to the words Print and Email. 119 00:07:07,018 --> 00:07:12,018 They did not get rid of the dropdown or the big icon or anything else. 120 00:07:12,019 --> 00:07:16,019 So if you want the Print and the Email options to go away entirely, what you 121 00:07:16,020 --> 00:07:20,020 have to do is Hide the Print icon even though you already hid the icon and you 122 00:07:20,021 --> 00:07:23,021 have to hide the Email icon even though you already hid that as well. 123 00:07:23,022 --> 00:07:27,022 This will actually by setting all three of these to hide, will get rid of those 124 00:07:27,023 --> 00:07:29,023 items on the page altogether. 125 00:07:29,024 --> 00:07:32,024 And of course, we'll want to get rid of hits as well. 126 00:07:32,025 --> 00:07:39,025 So if we go ahead and say Save, and I refresh my page, those details with the 127 00:07:39,026 --> 00:07:44,026 hits are now gone, and the dropdown that showed up over here that had the 128 00:07:44,027 --> 00:07:47,027 Print and Email items on it is also gone. 129 00:07:47,028 --> 00:07:50,028 So, the page looks a little bit better. 130 00:07:50,029 --> 00:07:53,029 It works particularly well here on the Products page where I just want a title 131 00:07:53,030 --> 00:07:55,030 at the top followed by my text. 132 00:07:55,031 --> 00:07:59,031 It works great on the Eco Energy Bulbs page. 133 00:07:59,032 --> 00:08:04,032 But, here under the Solar blog, I may actually want those Linked Titles back 134 00:08:04,033 --> 00:08:05,033 again so that I can click on those. 135 00:08:05,034 --> 00:08:09,034 Maybe I don't want to show the Read More buttons after all, maybe I just like to 136 00:08:09,035 --> 00:08:13,035 have clickable titles where people can click on them to go to the full version, 137 00:08:13,036 --> 00:08:15,036 It would clean up the look a little bit. 138 00:08:15,037 --> 00:08:18,037 Some of you might be wondering about these Read More buttons and their styling, 139 00:08:18,038 --> 00:08:22,038 the fact that they look big, horsey, buttony kind of Read More kind of things, 140 00:08:22,039 --> 00:08:25,039 that's all under control of the CSS. What Joomla! puts out is 141 00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:28,040 just a link text for Read More, so we could change the styling 142 00:08:28,041 --> 00:08:33,041 if we wanted to make those links a little bit more subtle. 143 00:08:33,042 --> 00:08:35,042 But, that's kind of beyond the scope of this course. 144 00:08:35,043 --> 00:08:40,043 So, as we generally look around the site, things are definitely improved by the 145 00:08:40,044 --> 00:08:41,044 global changes that we've made. 146 00:08:41,045 --> 00:08:46,045 But, there might be a few places where we would like to override those settings, 147 00:08:46,046 --> 00:08:49,046 and I'll show you how to do that in the next video.