DOCs: Related Articles & Related K2 Items modules parameters

[Admin]

Basic Options



SOURCE SELECTION



In this section you define three main things:

• what relation type between articles the module should use to search for related articles;
• you can specify in what categories the module must look for related articles or set the module to search around all of your site;
• if you need you can exclude some articles from the module output.

Relation Type

There are four options to select relation type for similar article suggestion:

• Author - the module will search for other articles of the same author or author alias.
• Keywords - the module will search for articles with the same meta keywords;
• Tags - the module will search for articles with the same tags;
• Not specified - no relation type is selected, so the module won’t search for related articles. However, other module settings will still be valid, e.g. you can display popular articles from the current category.

Category Selection

Here you specify the categories within which the module should search for related articles:

• only current category;
• selected categories;
• all categories.

Current Category - the module will automatically search for related articles only in the category the article is located in.
This is an extremely useful option that can save your time and efforts when your task is to display related articles from current categories and there are lots of categories. This option will help you to avoid boring work to configure an individual module copy for each category. With RAXO Related Articles (or RAXO Related K2 Items) module you just configure one module copy and publish it in e.g. 50 categories. And the module will automatically defines the current category and shows articles only from the current category.

Selected Categories - after pressing this button you can select one or several categories, and the next parameter will help you manage flexibly what to do with these selected categories.

Category Filter: Include - the module will search for related articles within the selected categories only.
Category Filter: Exclude - the module will search for related articles in all categories, excluding the selected ones.

All Categories - for your convenience we made selection of all categories a separate button.

Exclude Articles - here you can exclude specific articles from the module output by inserting Article IDs separated by comma.


FILTER SETTINGS



In this section you decide how the module will process (filtrate, order) the content selected.

Number of Items
Set how many articles to display in the module block.

Date Filtering
The modules have lots of date filters to allow you easily and flexibly display articles from a specific date or date range.



Date Filtering - Predefined Date Filters
With these filters you can quickly set a time frame:

• today - retrieves articles only for the current day;
• this week - retrieves articles only of the current week;
• this month - retrieves articles only of the current month;
• this year - retrieves articles only of the current year.

Date Filtering - Date Range



Here you can specify a certain time period:

• start date - the module retrieves items dated after the specified date;
• end date - the module retrieves items dated before the specified date.

You can set both start and end dates, or you can specify only one of these dates (either start date or end date), and the module will filtrate and display articles accordingly.

Date Filtering - Relative Date Range



With this filter you are able to set a certain time period which is not based on fixed calendar dates but is tied to the current date. Since the current date moves forward with every calendar day, relative date range changes the same way.

• from X days ago - set the start day of the range relative to the current day;
• to X days ago - set the end day of the range relative to the current day.

It is not necessary to set both dates. When you specify only one of them, the module is still able to do the job.


Featured Items



This filter will be useful when for some reason you need to show only marked news and omit the others.

There are three options:

• Show with other - show both featured and standard articles;
• Only featured items show - show only featured items;
• Hide - exclude featured articles from the module display.

Combining this option and some ordering parameters you can get a new ordering option - Featured Articles Ordering. What it means:
If you select Only featured items show and Joomla Direct/Reverse Ordering (in Ordering options), the module will show only featured items in the same ordering as in Joomla featured articles manager.


Ordering



RAXO Related Articles and RAXO Related K2 items have lots of ordering options (up to 15 variants) so it’s really easy and fast to display articles in the order you want.

• By Date (newest first) - direct ordering by the article date;
• By Date (oldest first) - reverse ordering by the article date;
• Title Alphabetical (A-Z) - direct alphabetical ordering;
• Title Alphabetical (Z-A) - reverse alphabetical ordering;
• Popular First - the most visited (with biggest number of hits) articles go first;
• Popular Last - the less visited (with the least number of hits) articles go first;
• Most Rated - the articles with the highest rating go first;
• Least Rated - the articles with the lowest rating go first;
• Most Commented - most commented articles go first;
• Least Commented - least commented articles go first;
• Direct Joomla Content Manager - the articles are listed in the same order as in Joomla Content Manager;
• Reverse Joomla Content Manager - the articles are listed in Joomla Content Manager reverse order;
• Ascending order by ID - the articles are listed by article ID from the lowest value to the highest value.
• Descending order by ID - the articles are listed by article ID from the highest value to the lowest value.
• Random - the articles are listed in the random order.

[Admin]

Display Options



LAYOUT SELECTION



Our clients find layout support a remarkable module feature.
RAXO Related Articles and RAXO Related K2 Items modules are packed with four beautiful and fully responsive built-in module layouts which you can use right out of the box. These layouts immediately add professionally designed look to your site pages.
Besides, you can use these layouts as a base or as an example for creating your own module layouts to fit your specific site needs. There can be as many layouts as you wish, and the only limit is your imagination.

Module Layout
Here you select the module layout from the drop-down list. Right after the module purchase there will be four layouts (link to built-in) available. Also, you can add to the list your own module layouts or some of ready-to-use additional layouts offered on our site.

Module Class
Here you insert one or several classes separated by comma that will be added to CSS class of the module. This allows for individual module styling.
This option can be applied for a range of tasks. E.g. we widely use that to switch between the templates color schemes.


TEXT SETTINGS



Show Title
Show or hide article titles in the module output.

Title Limit
You can cut long titles to make them of the same length. Set the number of characters to enable this function or leave blank if you don’t need it. This smart limitation function doesn’t cut words no matter what number of characters you set.

Show Intro Text
Show or hide article intro text in the module output.

Intro Text Limit
Set the number of characters to enable this function or leave blank if you don’t need it. This smart limitation function doesn’t cut words no matter what number of characters you set.

Read More Text
Write your version of read more text (e.g. “see full story”, “more details”) to enable read more link or leave blank if you don’t want to show read more links in the module block.


FIELDS SETTINGS



In this section you select which content elements you want to display in the module output.

Show Date
Show or hide the article date.

Show Category
Show or hide the category name the article belongs to.

Show Author
Show or hide the author name or author alias of the article.

Show Rating
Show or hide the rating of the article.

Show Hits
Show or hide the number of hits for the article.

Show Comments
Show or hide the number of comments of the article.


IMAGE SETTINGS



Display Image
Press “Show” button to enable images in the module output.
Press “Hide” button to display module block without any images.

Thumbnail Size
Set thumbnail size in px. The first field defines thumbnail width, the second field defines thumbnail height.

There are several ways how to work with thumbnails:

• You can set both width and height and the module will reduce or enlarge the image accordingly.
• You can set only one side - either width or height - and the module will calculate the other side automatically preserving the image ratio.
• If you set to display images and don't specify thumbnail width and height, the module will show original images as they are in your articles.

Crop Image
Enable or disable crop image function for creating thumbnails. This parameter works only if both width and height are set.
If you disable “Crop Image” option but set thumbnail width and height, the module will fit thumbnails into these dimensions.

[Admin]

Advanced Options



MODULE BLOCK DETAILS



Block Name
Here you can write any title for the whole module block. Leave blank if you don’t need this option.

Block Name Link
Insert a link for the block name. Often this link goes to some related category, but you are free to use any link. You can copy a link from your site menu.

“Show All” Text
Write your own version of read more text for the whole module block. Leave blank if you don’t need this option.

“Show All” Link
Insert a link for “Show all” text, you can use link to the related category or to any other page you want.



ADVANCED SETTINGS



Skipped Items
The number of items to skip in the module. You can use this option to avoid appearing the same articles in module blocks e.g. when you use two module instances with identical settings on one page.

Clean (X)HTML
This function cleans your text from HTML tags. If you use text limitation we strongly recommend you enable this function.

Allowed HTML Tags
This function preserves some formatting by inserting allowed tags into the field, e.g. “a strong” to preserve links and bold text in the module output.


ADVANCED FIELDS SETTINGS



Category as Link
Enable or disable the link to the category name in the module output.

Date Format
The module is used worldwide, and date formats used in different countries may differ. You can adjust the date view in the module output according to international or your country specific formats.
Use these available characters ( http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php ):

• d - Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros (01 to 31);
• D - A textual representation of a day, three letters (Mon through Sun);
• m - Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros (01 through 12);
• F - A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March;
• Y - A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits (2016);
• h - 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros (01 through 12);
• H - 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros (00 through 23);
• i - Minutes with leading zeros (00 to 59);
• s - Seconds, with leading zeros (00 through 59).

Date Type



The module supports all three Joomla article date types. Here you can select which date type the module should use:

• Creation date;
• Modification date;
• Start Publishing date.

By default, the module uses article creation date. When you select another date type, the module starts using it for all date related fields, orderings by date, and date filtering.

Comment System



RAXO Related Articles and RAXO Related K2 Items support the most popular commenting systems.
To enable comment support you just need to select the commenting system that is used on your site.


ADVANCED IMAGE SETTINGS




Thumbnail Source



For thumbnail creation the module can use several sources of images:

• Joomla intro image
  The module uses images only from Joomla Intro Image field.
• Joomla full article image
  The module uses images only from Joomla Full Article Image field.
• First image from article text
  The module uses the first image found in article body.
• Automatic selection
  This is an awesome option which allows you to display thumbnails no matter where the original image is. Automatic Selection checks all the sources in the order as in the list above, and creates thumbnails from the first image found.
  If none images are found, the module shows a default image.

Link for Image
By enabling this option you make thumbnails in the module clickable and linked to the corresponding article pages.

Image Title
By enabling this option you replace original image title with article title.

Default Image



If your articles don't have any images, you still can make the module output more presentable by showing a default image. For your convenience the module is packed with three default images for different thumbnail sizes.
If you don't want to use default image - select "None Selected".
There is one more useful way you apply default image option on your site. You can use your own image (e.g. company’s logo or a special category symbol) as a default image.

Default images are located in this folder: ../modules/mod_raxo_MODULENAME/tools/
So add your image (allowed types are *.png *.gif or *.jpg) to this folder and use it for your purposes.



CACHE SETTINGS



We’d like to pull your attention to this parameters, because they are important for your site performance. Well-chosen module caching can be speed up your page load time and reduce server load.

Caching
Here you enable or disable caching of the content displayed in the module.

Cache Time
Specify the time (in seconds) for module cache file to be stored before it is refreshed.