Cobalt 8 sections+categories menu

1. I would definitely recommend you to use one section for all your courses.

2. To create link in menu to category, just copy it in category index and add menu element "External link"

3. You can whats quickstart video tutorial

I have discovered one thing.

I can do -mostly- what I want this way.

First, I go to modules, and create a new module using the cobalt category module as a base. I set it to list the section "course lists", and I set the layout to default.

Then I go to the menu, and I edit the link for whatever first level category. In advanced tab I go to the dropdown menu settings and I set the type to "module", and select the module I created in the previous step from the list.

The thing seems to work, but for the fact that it seems to list ALL the 2nd level categories no matter what 1st level one you select.

One way around this (I haven't tried yet) would be to use the other way: to make separate sections for the first level categories.

This stuff is a bit confussing and I need some rest already hehe, time to sleep 'till tomorrow.

I was able to do this the way described above, it's in inanfor.com, in case you want to see how's it going.

I would have liked to be able to do this within a single section, that would ease the administration, but it's good enough for me.

I was just about to offer you Category module as I read your had discovered it yourself :)

I added category parameter to category module for next release.

Is there some git branch or patch that I can test?

Unfortunately this module was refactored heavily. No easy patch :)

Thank you anyway. It was mostly curiosity, I already have a working solution for this one and it's already working nicely. It will be a bit more difficult to maintain, but five sections is not too much.

Cheers :)

Uh, I was using the method described above on a template which is based on gantry.

It has a top bar with drop down menus which displayed the categories menu when hovering each section item. But I have moved the courses menu to the sidebar instead, and I want to use it now as a regular menú. It now can't seem to be able to display the child items. The dropdown menu settings for each link are still set in module mode, and pointing to the relevant module. I can click the section names (1st level menu items) and the categories page is presented without problems. But I get no children in the menu. :(

I think this is problem of mod_menu as you do not use anything of Cobalt here. You create menu in Joomla and use Joomla module.

Well, the five top level elements of the menu (which are supposed to be the roots of the dropdown menus) are of type "Cobalt-Module-Categories", and the menu elements themselves are of type cobalt8->list of section articles.

Whether the problem is with cobalt or joomla, I don't know. But the grantry top menu toy seems to be able to expand the menu tree without a problem, while de dropdown joomla menus seem not to see beyond the first level...

No clear to me what you mean. Please add a screenshot.

Here you can see the gantry menu with one of its dropdown elements open.

The five 1st level items in the top bar are cobalt menu items, of the type "List of section articles", as shown in the next one:

Each one of this five items in the top bar points to a module of the type "cobalt - module - categories", as shown in the next screenshot. These modules list the categories inside a given cobalt section, right? And I am using them as a source to fill in the menus.

Those sections have a number of categories, which are the 2nd level elements that you can see in the menu which is shown in the first screenshot.

The menu items are configured to point to these category list modules using an option that I have found in their advanced config tab, which is nice. That's illustrated in the next shots:

That's all, I think. Now, the problem: when using the gantry top bar menu (screenshot 1) these dropdown menu options seem to do their job. The menú is expanded using the contents of the category list modules, and I get the child items as in the screenshot. But when I use a regular menu the dropdown settings seem to be completely ignored. This is always true, not only for standard joomla menu modules, but also for many other similar modules that I have tried (accordions, extended menus, etc). They all seem to ignore the dropdown settings, except, that is, for the gantry menú.

The menú in the left column of the website is a standard joomla menú, and is using as a base the exact same menú that the top bar uses. However, I don't get any children on it. And I have no idea why. As said, I have tried lots of different menu modules, and the base menu is always the same "Cursos" menu that I use for the top bar.

The site can be visited at inanfor.com, in case you want to take a look. The top bar has been disabled because it won't go into the final site, but I can enable it if you want to check something or whatever.

If you need some more info or screenshots just ask.

Thank you for all the attention :)

In case someone else stumbles with this in the future (and just in case I need it for reference as well), I have managed to get this working with roknavmenu, which is the only menu capable of expanding the children in a category list module based menu.

The accordion-like effect has been achieved using css, no mystery there. The hard part will be strip the default dropdown menu from all the default css, unless you want to edit directly the default template, which I did not want.

I still cannot understand how you managed to show module instead on menu elements. :D Read your post twice but only more confusion :) I am sorry being so dumb.

Look the last screenshot, I just used the "Child item type", setting it to "module" instead of "menu items". And then, selected the right module from the list below.

The module is a cobalt category list module.

This, in combination with the roknavmenu, gives me the intended effect, which is showing the items listed by the module as childrens of the menu item.

I only have one question: if this is not the intended effect of the "child item type" feature, then, what's it for? I am new to joomla, and sometimes I miss the obvious so just bear with me hehe :D

I see now i got it.

I completely did not knew about this feature. What is the element type that allow to set module as child?

I think it is not only fo cases like yours. For example you can put login module to LOGIN menu item and see login form poped up on that menu. Or you cam create very graphic rich and text reach menu not only automatically fetch other categories.

Seems like I discovered a hidden feature :lol:

Well, the menu items have to be of type Cobalt8->List of section articles, as shown here:

Then, you select the "home category", which, if I understand correctly is not truly a "category", but a cobalt 8 SECTION. I think this is only relevant when you click the parent item, so it shouldn't really impact the children.

Then you go into the advanced tab, and here is where you make the magic work (but only in roknavmenu, as said).

So, I know it can be done, but there's something that roknavmenu is doing differently to make this work. Note that, even in roknavmenu, this only works if you configure the roknavmenu as a dropdown menu (it has several modes, in case you never tried it, and only "dropdown" achieves the wanted effect). So you have to choose that mode and then use css to tune it.

Got it :) Good feature :)