Joomla Tutorials and Blog Posts

Advanced Module Manager Tutorial

June 21, 2011 | Written by Ed Andrea

23789Joomla gives you very limited control over the placement of modules. This extension from NoNumber will let you place them anywhere within your site, and even allow you to control the time and day they are published or unpublished.

With the Modules Anywhere plugin, you can get ultimate control over placement and display.

Advanced Module Manager is an extension that changes the way your Module manager works. It adds a multitude of functions, like:

  • See what modules are active for the menu item you are editing
  • Edit modules in modal popup windows
  • Option to not show modules that have no output (handy for things like dynamic menus)
  • Option to show modules on all pages, except the selected menu items (reverse functionality of normal selection)

Video on How to Use Advanced Module Manager

Whitelabel player for videos with bumpers. Doesn't start automatically so use for demos and tutorials.

Step 1 - Download and Install

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Download Here: http://www.nonumber.nl/extensions/advancedmodulemanager

After you download. Install it using the standard Joomla install function. Go to your admin panel in Joomla.

Choose Extensions > Install/Uninstall from the menu.

You can find complete directions on installing modules and plugins by clicking here - or try clicking on the context sensitive help icon on the extension manager page.

If all goes well you will get a "Success" message, and a notice to clear your browsers cache, here's a link with some cache clearing instructions if you need them. Clearing the cache will allow the changes made by the plugin to be viewed immediately.

Step 2 - Open the Module Manager

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Click Extensions > Module Manager

You will see that the page now says "Advanced Module Manager" and has some new features.

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New Features:

  1. The page is now titled Advanced Module Manager
  2. There is a new column with a multi-color icon at the top, and a new editing icon next to the module title.
  3. A new Selection Menu allowing you to sort and isolate articles on specific pages.

The new editing icon allows you to edit the modules in a pop-up without having to navigate to another page.
The new color column will allow you to sort the modules by color, a new feature that is added and we'll explain below.

Click the icon with the image of the pencil next to the Module Title in the module list. You'll get a pop-up window displaying the controls.

Step 3 - Edit a module

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On the left, side of the screen you will see you have some new controls.

  1. Hide if empty: Will hide the module completely if there is no content.
  2. Position: a new drop down makes it a little easier to change the position
  3. Color: Allows you to color code the modules. You can them sort them by color in the list view. To change the color, click directly on the Hexcode (#FFFFFF) to open the color chooser.

Step 4 - Module Assignment: Detailed Control

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Click the green triangle next to Module Assignment to see your options. Scroll down and you will see a long list of finely detailed options that allow you to create a placement profile for this module.

Step 4 - Making Assignments

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To see the choices under each section of the controls,
 

Click one of the radio buttons to Assign to: Selection or Exclude Selection

Ignore is the default selection, which will assign it to all sections or pages. The choices will be hidden if "Ignore" is clicked.

Step 5 - Making assignments while editing Menu Items

tutuploadsStep_5_-_Making_assignments_while_editing_Menu_Items..png

A new feature is the ability to edit the modules while you are creating or editing menu items. To see how this works:

Click Menus>Main Menu* (with the asterisk) .

Click on the "Home" menu item to edit it.

You will see a new section called "Active Modules" This will show you a list of all the modules assigned to this menu item. Clicking on the module name will open the pop-up and let you make assignments directly from this page without making you go to another page.


 

Comments  

 
#1 kailash malav 2011-07-11 00:20
Currently i m working on joomla 1.5 but new version of joomla really give advance features.thanks for sharing it with us .
 
 
#2 iowawebco 2011-08-12 12:00
It's an extension that's available for Joomla 1.5 too :)

You can download it from the following link:
nonumber.nl/.../...

Kind regards,
Nick
 
 
#3 niloofar 2011-10-15 10:22
Hi! I am using this extension on joomla 1.7. The problem is that in module assignment, some of the menus are missing, two head menus and their child menus! so I can't assign the module to desired menu! These hidden menus are text editors but their submenus are category blog type!

I appreciate any help
 
 
#4 iowawebco 2011-10-15 18:05
Hi Niloofar,

There shouldn't be any that are hidden. I would double check again. Also, you might try creating a new menu and then copying the menu items from the old menu to the new menus in case there was something buggy with the old menu.

Kind regards,
Nick
 
 
#5 niloofar 2011-10-16 05:21
I checked it too, it's just about the menus which are typed 'Text separator'. As soon as I changed the type to 'Category Blog' they appeared again on the list, with all their sub menus.
I have another problem now! I don't want the module to appear on full article page, and what I did was to go to components and Exclude selection and I chose article, but as soon as I save the new setting the module disappears totally on the front-end. I basically can't touch any of the Joomla!content's parameters 'coz I lose the module on the homepage.
 
 
#6 iowawebco 2011-10-16 16:15
Hi Niloofar,

Try setting the matching method to "any" rather than "all".

Kind regards,
Nick
 
 
#7 Ron 2011-11-02 16:46
I have installed this module into my 1.7.1 installation. I do not seem to have the pencil/paper icon next to my module names nor the multicolored column.

Any suggestions?

I did manage to get the plugin to work though. Great job.
 
 
#8 iowawebco 2011-11-03 01:12
Hi and welcome, Ron!

There's not even a color field? Could you give it a try in another browser please?

Kind regards,
Nick
 

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