Joomla 1.7 Tips – Publish a single article in a module position.
Joomla standard installation does not allow you to publish a single article in a module position. You can copy your article directly into the ‘Custom HTML’ module but I don’t recommend this option. It is much safer to keep all your articles in one location in the Article Manager. So you will have to install a Joomla Plugin. I’ve used this plugin before. It’s free, Joomla 1.5/Joomla 1.6/Joomla 1.7 compatible and it’s really simple to use. You search and download it from the Joomla Extensions directory and it’s called “Articles Anywhere”.
For example, I have the following scenario:
- I have an article called “Joomla Templates”
- alias = “Joomla-templates”
- I want to display in Module position-7
Below are steps on
- how to install in the Extensions Manager
- check in the Plug-in Manager
- see how to use the “Articles Anywhere” plugin in the Plugin Manager
- Find the Article Alias in Article Manager (because we are going to use the alias in the next step)
- Use the Custom HTML to insert shortcodes to show single article in module in the Module Manager
Install “Articles Anywhere” in the Extensions Manager
- After you download the plugin to your computer, do NOT unzip it.
- Login to your Joomla 1.7 administrator backend
- Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Extension Manager’
- Under the ‘Install’ tab, Upload Package File, Click on ‘Browse’ and select the plugin ZIP file from step 1
- Click on ‘Upload & Install’
- You will see a message that says:
Articles Anywhere (system plugin) has been installed / updated successfully
Check that the Plugin is Activated in the Plugin Manager
- Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Plug-in Manager’
- In the filter, search for “articles anywhere”
- Check in the ‘Enabled’ column that there are green checkmarks
See how to use the “Articles Anywhere” plugin in the Plugin Manager
- Click and edit the plugin name = System – Articles Anywhere
- Under Basic Options, you can see the syntax on how to use this plugin.
- You can just enter this text anywhere and the article will show up.
- Click on ‘Close’
Easily place articles anywhere in your site.
You can place articles using the syntax:
Using the title of the article: {article Some article}…{/article}
Using the alias of the article: {article some-article}…{/article}
Using the id of the module: {article 123}…{/article}Within those tags you can place different tags to place different article data/details:
{text} (the entire text: introtext+fulltext)
{readmore} (a read more link)
{url} (the url to the article)
{introtext}
{fulltext}
{title}
Find the Article Alias in Article Manager
- Click on ‘Content’, ‘Article Manager’
- Find and edit the article (in my example) Joomla Templates
- Copy the alias to your notepad, in my example it’s ‘joomla-templates’
- Click on ‘Close’
Use Custom HTML to insert short code in the Module Manager
- Click on ‘Extensions’, ‘Module Manager’
- Click on ‘New’, Module Type = Custom HTML
- In the module manager – Custom HTML, set the following values:
- Title = Publish single article
- Show Title = Hide
- Position = position-7
- Status = Published
- Access = Public
- Custom output = {article joomla-templates}{title}{introtext}{readmore}{/article}
- This is following the syntax directly from the plugin
Using the alias of the article: {article some-article}…{/article}
After all these steps, go to your Joomla frontend and refresh your website. You should see the single article published on your site now.
Hope that helps,