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[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#469919

For my solution, one of the con is that if Joomla decides to use external reference for something else in the future, it will cause complication. It’s really unclear why that field is there, and the name “External Reference” seems like its suggesting something. Perhaps it was meant to do this lol *shurge*. The 2nd con is that I’m only providing the example code for readmore, so you will need replicate it on other hyperlinks yourself, but I’ve made the guide as detailed as possible for you to understand the core of the code.

As for Hero’s solution, the con is it’s not easy to modify the code in the event that Joomla updates their redirect plugin/component in future revisions. Looking at the code, I think it suffers from this error too if not mistaken.
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=21946

And since you are using the redirect component’s UI to handle url links, it might be hard to manage over time because there’s too many error urls in there as well. While my method defines the url inside the article’s external reference field instead, so it can be easily found and change in the future. Also, I don’t think his redirect function opens the url in a new tab though. It looks like it just redirects the current window. And when people hover over the readmore / hyperlink they will see the joomla article link(before redirect) instead of the external link. Not ideal, if you are picky.

Both methods still have it’s pros though, but I don’t think there’s a need to list everything out. You know, I don’t really want to get Hero angry for criticizing his work lol. His just trying to help you too =) And his method is easier to implement since you won’t need to do any code modification yourself.

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1. seaneo

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#469920

absolutely regarding HeRo’s (and yours!) help – this is much appreciated believe me.

By the way, com_content is only in public_html/next/components folder?
I googled it but saw other references also depending on template, etc. Sorry for my ignorance on this matter, I’m learning!
Because I don’t see a /category folder in the /com_content folder..

[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#469922

Why are you modifying the component folder?

In the ftp, the path is this “/templates/ja_wall/html/com_content/category/blog_item.php” you only need to modify the template file.

Btw, it seems that external reference is indeed used for something by Joomla according to these two article to pull meta information from an external source. But I don’t think it matters to you since you probably won’t need any meta information for that link.
http://www.ostraining.com/support-forum/joomla-support/the-meaning-of-external-reference/
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1724490&seqNum=3

But this brings about a big con in my method which I just remember. The actual link to the article is actually still there if someone tries to access it with a direct url on his browser. The item id can still be found in the source code after all. Perhaps you would need a redirect function to avoid that situation then, in which case you would be combining my solution along with Hero’s solution =) Up to you, I’m just offering suggestions.

Still I’m concern about SEO with what you are doing, you gonna need to make sure that you edit every single hyperlink that points to the article so that Google won’t index the actual item’s url.

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1. seaneo

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#469931

ok Arucardx, I made the code changes, and from what I see there is no change. I cleared caches on back-end and front-end…what do you see?

1) Go to http://173.254.15.37/next/
2) Click on the left menu “Where to sleep”
3) click on Xumec

(I did add the external URL to the External Reference in the Xumec article.

Your SEO concerns are awesome, no to mention future Joomla updates, and I think I will be okay with that, for the moment, I just need this link thing to work urgently, thanks

[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#469933

That code modification was for readmore button. But your site has no readmore button =) It only has hyperlink on image & title.

Try displaying the readmore button, it should work since I did tested the code on my other dev site.

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1. seaneo

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#469939

AWESOME! that’s exactly what I need it to do – THANK YOU!

how can I get it to work on the hyperlink and the image hyper link too? gracias!

edit: frankly, I would prefer not show have that black box with the “+” in it as it takes up so much screen space, especially when users tend to click on images and/or the link just below it these days

[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#469941

Well, you can disable the readmore button if you don’t like it displayed. And then just customize the modification code to apply on title & image.

But like I said, I’m only providing the example code for readmore. You will need to read the guide I wrote then replicate it yourself over title and image. I have already shown you a working code of how it can be done.

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1. seaneo

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#469942

that’s my my downfall, I would not know where to start to ” customize the modification code to apply on title & image.” code for me is like Chinese! lol ..I do know how to follow instructions though:)

Any chance you could shoot me the code modification for the title & image? thanks in advance

[HeR0 Friend HeR0Join date: August 2011Posts: 3626Downloads:0Uploads:61 Thanks: 33 Thanked: 588 times in 549 posts]

#469955

Hi Seaneo
1: Global Configuration > Site tab > SEO Settings> enable Use URL rewriting , Search Engine Friendly URLs
2: change htaccess.txt to .htaccess file
3: download file and replace plugins/systemredirectredirect.php file

Regards,
<em>@seaneo 342074 wrote:</em><blockquote>Thanks HeRo,

1) I looked through all 5 tabs in Global configuration and can’t find “Use Apache mod_rewrite in the Global Configuration options of your Joomla! installation” – where is it?

2) I located the .htaccess.txt file in the /public_html/next folder – but I am not clear which to rename it to?

3) So after I solve question 1 and 2, I download the redirect file you posted and install it and try again?

Hopefully you can help me answer these 3 questions, let me know – thank you!</blockquote>

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#470126

Thanks Hero, is there a possibility this will conflict with the changes I made according to post # 20 by Arucardx? thanks much

[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#470137

There won’t be a conflict, the coding changes I wrote is only for the template, while Hero’s suggestion is more about Joomla setting. Not to mention, the steps to enable url rewriting for SEF url in Joomla is a standard step, something everyone should do.

As for the .htaccess well… its a standard step as well in order to get rewrite working, but I doubt you know what htaccess controls so simple advise to you. Rename htaccess.txt only if the joomla root folder doesn’t have a .htaccess already. If there is one already, then it may contain some special setting by your host.

The redirect.php is just replacing a plugin file. It may produce php errors or bugged behavior or it may not. Still that in its own is another issue.

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1. seaneo

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#470151

Thank you Arucardx!

Question:

Since I can’t get an answer from Joomlart about:

http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/multilingual-with-language-flags-ja-wall/#post-469642

..and I need to make this site live urgently, what could be a code adjust to to utilize the same solution you gave me on this thread, but to handle the above challenge?

The ONLY difference is that in the case of the above, the browser should not open a new tab/window

Thanks so much in advance,

[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#470206

I’ve written a full guide for this along with the complete modification over in the guide section.
http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/linking-wall-articles-to-external-url-joomla-2-5/

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1. seaneo

[seaneo Friend seaneoJoin date: December 2009Posts: 421Downloads:4Uploads:49 Thanks: 244 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#470363

Thanks Arucardx,

Working on this now,

I have not updated to 1.05 yet, due to all the complaints I see on this forum about it, do you think it’s okay to coast along in the prior version until the bugs are worked out in 1.05?

I’ve accepted that all the code changes I make I have to duplicate in 1.05 , but I pick the lesser of two potential evils at this moment,

Thoughts?

thanks in advance,

[arucardx Friend arucardxJoin date: July 2010Posts: 346Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 21 Thanked: 138 times in 104 posts]

#470479

I recommend updating to the next version when you can instead of jumping across multiple versions in one shot. The is cause, its easier to track new changes and make modifications to your own changes as neccessery when you can compare between the next and previous versions.

But when you update across multiple versions in one shot, unless you are very skilled or the code hasn’t changed much, you may end up getting lost and fail to implement your changes. This is actually one of the reason why alot of people do not update because they hold off out of fear, then eventually the fear kept them away and they gave up without trying.

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1. seaneo

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