3. Article Blog
This section allows you to configure the following options only on Article Listing View(Featured & Category Blog Menu types).
Article type Icons Article type icons illustrate which type of content that particular article (post) has. The icon appears in the top right corner of the article. Enable or Disable it to show/hide it on articles listing view.
Article Badge Use article badge to indicate a specific post. It appears on the top left corner of the respective post. Enable/Disable it to show the badges for listing view.
Read Time This option shows the estimated reading time of the article. Choose to show/hide it on the articles list view.
The following options are applicable to a single article view using Astroid’s blogging functionalities. You can access these under Single Article Options under Article/Blog section in Astroid Template Manager.
- Author Info: The Author information is displayed underneath the article, the author information is updated in the Author profile in User Tab.
- Article Rating: Article rating/review shows the star rating for a single article and allows a user to give a star rating. This basically enhances the Joomla’s core voting functionality feature which displays a drop-down menu to rate the article, instead, it modifies it by allowing the star functionality and also displays the number of votes received.
- Related Articles: Allows you to display a list of related posts underneath the article post. The list is based on the meta keyword of the post which makes them more relevant and more likely to display. The settings also allow displaying the number of the related article you want to display.
- Social Buttons Type: You can also enable the Social Share buttons under each article. You can use AddThis or ShareThis content sharing platform in order to add social buttons.
- AddThis: AddThis provides an HTML and Javascript code that displays sharing tools on your site. Customize the Share button you would like to use.
- Create an account to AddThis.
- Implement/customize Share Buttons.
- Click on Activate Tool button to start to build the code.
- AddThis will generate a code snippet for you.
- Copy the code and paste it into the code editor.
- ShareThis: AddThis provides an HTML and Javascript code that displays sharing tools on your site. Customize the Share button you would like to use.
- Register to ShareThis.
- Navigate to the Share Buttons > Inline Share Buttons tab on the left sidebar.
- Customize your share buttons accordingly.
- Get the property ID from the Property Settings page from the lower part of the left sidebar.
- Paste in the property ID in the ShareThis field
- Open Graph Open Graph allows you to identify which elements of your page you want to show when someone share’s your page. Here you don’t need to mess with scripts or tags. Simply add your Facebook App ID and Twitter Username. You can even set different OG Title, OG descriptions and OG Image for each article.
- Comments This option allows a comment system on each article post so that users will be able to leave comments under their own names. Choose between the platforms Facebook, Disqus, HyperComments or IntenseDebate.
In Astroid v2.4.0 we have updated the Blog Options for the articles depending upon their views. This document describes the working of the different options in Single Article view only.
Firstly we need to know that every article has its own Blog Options that let you manage the settings of the article on your site uniquely, this comes as the top priority setting.
Next in line is Category level Single Blog Options. When there are different categories for different set of articles then managing every article with similar settings would be difficult therefore we have the blog options at the category level.
After this comes the final level in the Astroid backend that is the Single Article Options, which will manage each of the articles single view settings irrespective of their categories. That also includes some more configuration options like Article Rating and Open Graph to name a few.
The options at both articles & category levels are same as the ones in the Astroid backend settings in order to inherit its properties. The options listed are as follows:
- AUTHOR INFO- Choose whether you want to show or hide the info about the article’s author below the content or not. If not then choose inherit.
- RELATED ARTICLES- Choose whether you want to show or hide the articles related to the parent article or not. If show, then you have to set the following options:-
- ARTICLE COUNT- Choose the number of related articles, either Inherit meaning the count set for that category of articles or the number listed in Astroid settings, or Custom means to add a number only for the specific article.
- RELATED ARTICLE TYPE ICON- Choose whether you want to show or hide the post type icon on the related articles, or inherit its value from Astroid settings.
- RELATED ARTICLE BADGE- Choose whether you want to show or hide the article’s badge on the related articles, or inherit its value from Astroid settings.
- READ TIME- Set whether you want to show the read time or hide it from a single article view. This does not affect the article’s read time in List view.
- SOCIAL SHARE- Configure the social share for every article from the Astroid settings, but here you can choose to Hide it for that specific article.
- COMMENTS- Configure the comment section for each article from the Astroid settings, but here you can choose to Hide it for that specific article.
Article List view means when you have selected the menu type as Featured Article or Category Blog then a list of the articles. Some options like Article type icon and badges are only visible on the list view.
How to configure Article Type Icon:- Any article can be converted to the following 5 types other than just being a Regular article. Each type has its own set of options that are as follows:
- Video Options: If you choose a video type then you have the option of adding either a Youtube or Vimeo video link and choosing whether you want to show the thumbnail or not and where would you want to position it within the article.
- Gallery Options: If you choose a gallery type article then set its width, add images, set its position within the article, choose to show or hide the thumbnail & navigation.
- Audio Options: If you choose your type as audio then you can set it either as Spotify or Soundcloud types only. In case of Spotify you need to add the song URL & in case of Soundcloud you need to add the embed code.
- Review Options: For a review type article, you need to mention every detail of the review like title, summary, good & bad points, ratings, what are the review criteria and their ratings and more such.
- Quote Options: For a quote-type article, you simply need to write the quote and its author and set its position within the article.
Article badge signifies the popularity of the article among others. This option appears just below the article type icon configuration. We also have a list of some of the common article badges used like Editor’s Choice, Best Seller, Trending, Hot, Best Price and Custom.
If you choose Custom type badge then you have the following options available:
- Badge Label- Add a label name of your choice.
- Badge BG Color- Set the background color of the badge.
- Badge Text Color- Set the color of badge text.
Open Graph is a protocol that helps you manage the content of your website or an article in this case on any social media platform like Facebook. Enabling this will help you improve the SEO, if not then there is a good chance that unrelated images might appear or the description be inaccurate while sharing the articles.
Every article can have its own open graph settings, that has the following options:
- OG TITLE- Enter the title that will appear while sharing the article link.
- OG DESCRIPTION- Enter the description that will describe the article shared.
- IMAGE- Select the image related to the article, that will appear will article sharing.
To get this into working you need to enable Open Graph from the Astroid Backend settings. With astroid you have 2 platforms where open graph settings can be managed that are Twitter & Facebook.
In case of Facebook integration, enter the App ID.
In case of Twitter integration, add the username & select the card type.
As recommended by you guys we have now added the Custom comment option in the Astroid, wherein you can choose your type for the comments under blogs & articles apart from the different types available. In this you can create your own comments php file and display it on the frontend. The steps to create that file is as follows:
- Create a default_comments.php file on the following path: JOOMLA_ROOT/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/frontend/blog/modules
- After creating the file just choose comments as Custom. And it’s done!
