ERIC TIGGELER | DUTCH JOOMLA! DAYS 2013

Eric Tiggeler

• Copywriter

• Books on writing

• Books on Joomla 1.5,

1.6, 1.7, 2.5, 3.0 …

NEW IN JOOMLA 3.1:

TAGS

TAGS

1. Waarom do you need tags?2. Joomla Tags Tutorial3. Creating and assigning tags4. What does the site visitor see?5. Menu links pointing to tags6. Tag modules7. Tags in Joomla: the verdict

1 WHY DO YOU NEED

TAGS?

Tags solve a problem you didn’t know

you had.

Joomla 1.5 : The bad old days

Fixed structure: Section, Category, Article Imposed limitations on the ways you could

organize site contents

Article

Category

Section Recipies

Lunch

Recipe 1 Recipe 2

Dinner

Recipe 1 Recipe 2

Joomla 1.6: nested categories

The biggest yay! moment in recent Joomla! history

No more limitations on organizing content

Using nested categories

An example: organizing recipies Something you couldn’t achieve with 1.5:

Articles

Category level 3

Category level 2

Main level category Recipies

Lunch

Fast

Recipe1 Recipe 2

Vegetarian

Recipe 3

Dinner

Meat

Recipe1 Recipe 2

However … Each article can be assigned to only one

category Recipes site: you have to create multiple

categories for “vegetarian” recipes

Articles

Category level 3

Category level 2

Main level category Recipies

Lunch

Fast

Recipe 1 Recipe 2

Vegetarian

Recipe 3

Dinner

Meat

Recipe 1

Vegetarian

Recipe 2

The problem with categories

Sometimes properties (such as “vegetarian”) fit in more than one category

Sometimes it’s hard to keep the site structure simple and logical -- hard to classify content for content managers -- hard to find content for site visitors

That’s the problem which is solved by using

What can you do with tags?

As used in other CMSes:

a label assigned to content

The difference with categories: you’re not

restricted to a fixed tree structure

Any article can have as many tags as you like

Easier to classify and navigate content

A promising new feature

An additional system to organize content:

Articles

Category level 2

Top level category Recipes

Lunch

Recipe 1

Recipe 2

Recipe 3

Dinner

Recipe 1

Recipe 2

Tag: ‘Vegetarian’

2 JOOMLA TAGS

TUTORIAL

Let’s try out Tags in a test site

Install Joomla 3.1 or higher The final release will be available on

joomla.org The current beta release is found on

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/

Installing Joomla 3.1

Let’s create a ‘Recipe Repository’

Joomla has been installed

The output: a new, empty site

Optionally: changing color and logo

Now we’ve got a site we can fill with content

Adding content in three steps

In Joomla, you’ll usually follow these three steps:

1 Create categories 2 Create articles 3 Add menu links

Step 1: creating categories In this example:

1 top level category, 3 subcategories

Recipes Breakfast Lunch Dinner

Step 2: creating articles

Add a few articles (recipes) to each of the three categories: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Create a couple of ‘Special’ articles

Step 3: creating menu links

Three menu links of the Category Blog type: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

The outcome: a website!

homepage

The outcome: a website!

category blog page

Is that all there is? Not any more

Up to version 3.0:

1. categories 2. articles (+ Special articles) 3. menu links

In Joomla 3.1+: 4. creating and assigning tags

3 CREATINGAND

ASSIGNINGTAGS

Using the Tags Component

Components > Tags

Creating our first tag

For our recipes repository: Tags > New > ‘Vegetarian’

The tag has been added

The list of tags appears in the Tags component screen

Assigning tags to articles

Open an article Details > Tags Type until the tag

has been found Autocomplete - Enter!

Multiple tags per article

You can add as many tags to an article as you like

A shortcut to creating tags

Make a tag straight from the article screen Enter the new tag text in the Tags field Enter, Save, done!

4 WHATDOES THE

VISITOR SEE?

This is what tags look like on the front end

Tag labels appear: In teasers of Special articles Above the full article text

This is what tags look like on the front end

Click on the tag ‘Vegetarian’ The output: a simple list of titles

Improving the tags page

Components > Tags > Options Show tag name: Show Tag Image: Show Tag Description: Show

Showing article teasers

Components> Tags > Options Item Images:

Show Item description:

Show

Is this all? No!

You can display “tag results” in three different ways: 1 Automatically: through the tag hyperlink 2 Through menu links to tag pages 3 Through two new modules

5 USINGTAG

MENULINKS

Menu links pointing to tag pages

Menu > Main Menu > New Three new Menu Item Types

Menu links pointing to tag pages

Menu > Main Menu > New Three new Menu Item Types

Tagged Items Compact list of tagged items List of all tags

Menu links pointing to tag pages

Let’s create a Tagged Items menu link

What’s the output of the newMenu Item Types?

As an example: Tagged items

Customizing the menu link

You can change the Tagged Items page lay-out through the Menu Item Options settings

Including multiple tags

The Tagged Items menu link can also point to combinations of tags

Combining multiple tags

‘Vegetarian’ + ‘Pasta’ =

6 TAG MODULES

Displaying tags in a module

Apart from the new Menu Item Types for tags there are also two new modules for tags:

Using the Popular Tags module

Module Manager > New > Popular Tags

The output of Popular Tags This is what the module output looks like:

Similar Tags module

It doesn’t display similar tags … … but it does display links to articles that have

one or more tags in common with the current article

Can be useful to direct visitors to related content (from ‘Pasta’ naar ‘Pasta’, ‘Vegetarian’)

Similar Tags module

This is what the output of the Similar Tags module looks like

7 TAGS:THE VERDICT

Hoe good are Tags in Joomla?

To say it’s a great new feature would be an understatement …

It’s great, it’s chill, it’s dope, it’s fresh!

It’s a combination of a component, Menu Item Types and modules

Even nested tags are possible You can also tag the output of other components,

such as Contacts Great for SEO (the findability of your content

increases)

Hoe can you use them?

You can make it as simple or complex as you want

As an addition to categories Categories for the main ‘sections’ Tags for specific article properties

As an alternative for categories A full-blown, flexible system to organize content … You could even stop using categories

The art of tagging

Help your visitor to easily find content: use the words that your site visitor would use when searching the site

Don’t add too many tags per article Don’t use different tags pointing to the same

content Don’t use general (‘gerechten’) Avoid ‘tag stuffing’

ENJOY!

TAGS IN JOOMLA

Eric Tiggeler

www.joomm.net