JACL affecting Category Blog layout? Way to select JACL blocks specifically?

synapsis

I have a dilemma. I want to use this template because I like the JA Content Listing blocks on the homepage -- BUT, I only want that to show the same five blocks -- Live Events, Cinema, Concessions, Video Rentals, and La Prima Tazza Coffeehouse (as it looks now).

I can set these to show by setting it to Show Featured Only -- but then I can never feature another article ever again, or it will show up and bump something out of the module.

So my thought was to create a special category JUST for this module to use, but that breaks the links between those items and the content in the categories I want them linked to. The idea being that when you click one, you're taken to a Category Blog layout, displaying all of the content in that category.

ON THAT NOTE, for some reason, I cannot show multiple Full (Leading) Articles on the Category Blog layout -- and I'm pretty certain it's because of JACL. Can you help me around this?

Right now, no matter how many leading articles I set, or intro articles I set to zero, I still get the same JACL (intro image and title only) layout. You can view this on the Video Rental page.

I've beat my head against the wall on this for a while. I hope there's a workaround here.

Matt

saguaros

Hi Matt,

Could you clarify in more details like which module / which article you want to show and which page you want to link to so I can check?

synapsis

The JACL module in position body-top-1 called Homepage Featured Services, is the JA Content Listing blocks I am referring to on the homepage.

As for the Category Blog layout issue, you can view it on the Video Rental page (https://libertyhall.stpcreative.com/video-rentals)

I hope this clears my question up a bit.

synapsis

I thought I was very clear in my original post, but I'll try again...

I want the homepage module position body-top-1 to show EXACTLY as it does right now. It's perfect. What I want is for category blog layouts to show full (leading) articles. What it shows now is the same as what the JACL (Homepage Featured Services) module on the homepage is showing (intro image and title only), no matter how many leading articles I set it to show, or how many intro articles I disallow.

If we can fix this, I'll live with not being able to use featured articles -- though I would REALLY prefer a better way to determine what shows up on the homepage JACL module (Homepage Featured Services).

My first thought was to set a single category for those articles -- but that breaks their connection to the content I'd put in say, the Cinema or Live Events categories for any category blog layouts I hope to use on those pages.

Right now, if you click on one, it takes you to the right page. IF I break those category connections, and set a single category to show on the homepage module (Homepage Featured Services at body-top-1), then it no longer has a good link.

I really hope I've made this clear, and that it's just a simple fix I'm overlooking because J4 is just so different than J3.9 in its interface.

Matt

synapsis

I'm thinking there's something in the template style -- an override of the blog category layout file(s) -- that's causing this, maybe? It's gotta be related to the JACL module's styling that's affecting the standard category blog layout also (leading articles vs. intro articles, etc).

It's really holding up my progress. I hope to hear from you on Monday. Thank you!

synapsis

Any ideas where JA-Blockk would be messing up my category blog layouts? I really need some help on this. It's a major sticking point for my site.

saguaros

Hi Matt

It seems to be issue of category blog in template, I will pass to the dev team for further checking on the Category Blog page of template.

Regards

synapsis

Thank you. Please let them know this one is becoming urgent.

saguaros

synapsis

I updated the file: /templates/ja_blockk/local/html/com_content/category/blog.php

You can try to set the leading items or columns for category blog page now.

synapsis

Whatever you attempted does not seem to have had any effect. Please look at it further. If I'm doing something wrong, I hope we'd have found it together by now.

I'm also having other issues with this template (see other threads created by me), but I've put too much time and effort into this site to start over now. I really hope you can help, because the time I've lost has really added up.

saguaros

synapsis

In the menu item settings of 'Video Rentals' page, you're setting to show articles from category: Video Rental Store and this category has 3 articles which are showing all now as leading items.

Could you check again?

synapsis

Please share a screen shot of what you are seeing, because I'm still seeing what I posted above: Nothing more than the Intro Image and headline.

Category Blog Layout for the main menu Video Rentals link (not the sub-menu items), is supposed to show all single-articles in the Video Rentals category, in their full-length layout (aka Leading Articles), one after the other, end to end. It's still just showing the Intro Image and title.

I have caching turned off on my browser and I've manually cleared it as well. If you're seeing something different than I posted in the picture above, I'd love to see it.

Matt

synapsis

Oh boy, I think I figured it out... somehow Intro Text was set to Hide on the menu link I want to show full articles. This was preventing it from showing the full text, because (as I totally forgot), the Intro Text IS the full article, when there's no Read More inserted into the article!

Man... this new J4 layout is taking a toll on my sanity.

Apparently I was being overly harsh on you guys for this one -- though the change you made DID fix the other issues I was having with third-party component layouts. So I hope we can chalk this up to a win.

You may now consider this issue closed, with my deepest thanks for your patience and help. Just wish we could have gotten here sooner. 🙂

synapsis

saguaros

synapsis Glad to hear that you sorted it out!