On a recent site I was working on, one of the requirements was to pull the most recent news item from a number of different categories into a single module. So in effect they wanted something similar to the news portal component just released by Ijoomla. I researched the possibility of creating it myself and then I came up with a workaround that would save alot of time and be pretty easy to maintain.
It basically involves using a number of copies of the BK news module and inserting it into the base module using the {mosloadposition} tag. Here are the steps.
- Download BK Latest News Module.
- Install the module.
- Edit your preferences, assigning categories, sections and any other parameters that you want to display.
- Assign the number or count of articles you want displayed.
- Assign the module to a module position that is not in your template file eg advert1 is not often used in templates.
- Make sure the module is published and save your settings.
- Repeat these steps for the number of items you want displayed.
- Create the base module by going to modules - site modules in the administrator area.
- Click on New to create a new module.
- In the intro wysiwyg editor area insert the following tag {mosloadposition advert1; where advert1 equals the module position you published the news module to.
- Assign the base module to a module position.
- Ensure the module is published.
After youve completed these steps you should have a single module on the front page or in a module position that is drawing articles from multiple categories ... Simple!
You can then go onto style the base module accordingly with your module class suffixes available in your template or your own custom css.