Category Menu Items Not Working

Can't recreate your issue. Tested with latest Cobalt and J!3.3.5

nwrightau the rest just ignore the set menu ID

• Where did you set the ItemID? Did you change the ID in the URL manually?
  (By default, ItemID is taken from your section!)

• Do you want a different ItemID for each category?
  (You may set it here -> Sections -> Categories -> Your Category -> General -> menu ID (Itemid) target

• If you do NOT want different ID's, you may also use the Module "Categories", default layout.
  If necessary, it is also possible to load a module it in your main menu. By override, or 3rd party stuff.

BTW, external menuItem type does not support J! core SEF URL (Alias). But there are some possible workarounds for it.

pepperstreet Can't recreate your issue. Tested with latest Cobalt and J!3.3.5

nwrightau the rest just ignore the set menu ID

• Where did you set the ItemID? Did you change the ID in the URL manually?

  (By default, ItemID is taken from your section!)

• Do you want a different ItemID for each category?

  (You may set it here -> Sections -> Categories -> Your Category -> General -> menu ID (Itemid) target

• If you do NOT want different ID's, you may also use the Module "Categories", default layout.

  If necessary, it is also possible to load a module it in your main menu. By override, or 3rd party stuff.

Category URLs were external url joomla menu items [very clunky process].

Every menu item needs to display like any other Joomla component would, if there is a menu item created for a category then the menu / url should reflect that.

/section/category/item-name

Cobalt seems very complex to get something this basic right. I'm still confused why literally the first category works and the others don't , same settings as far as I can tell.

nwrightau [very clunky process].

Agree. This "issue" has been discussed a lot. Never understood the reasons 100% ... I think it was a mixture of performance/multi-categorization. It seems to reduce the DB queries and speeds up SEF URL building.

Bottomline: You have to deal with that external MenuItem, if you really want to use a core J! menuItem type.

Actually you don´t have to. See my previous comments about categories-module. It can easily serve as a secondary menu.

Benefits:

• Dynamic Category display (hide if empty!)
• Show/hide SubCategories
• show record/item count (total#)
• include single records (optional)
• respects different target ItemID from category parameters (optional)

May I ask, why you have to create those category links as separate menuItems?

Every menu item needs to display like any other Joomla component would, if there is a menu item created for a category then the menu / url should reflect that.
/section/category/item-name

Also had my complaints and questions about the "fixed URL parts" in default SEF router:

• Custom Router - alternative ...

If you really want to customize the URLs, you might have luck with:

• modify default Cobalt SEF router
• MijoSEF + respective Cobalt addon

Related Docs

• Create category menu element
• Optimize SEF links
• Build your own SEF