RAXO Group Support

Basic Options



SOURCE SELECTION



This is the most important module parameter. Here you define the area on your site where the module will look for Joomla articles to display. There are four options available:

All Categories
By selecting "All categories" you make that module to work with all articles on your site. This option is often used together with filters by tags, by author or by date.


Selected Categories



Here you can select one or several categories (Ctrl + click) where the module will look for articles to display. This option works together with Category Filter.

• Include - the module will search within only those categories you selected;
• Exclude - the module will search within all other categories, excluding the categories selected.

If you select a parent category, the module will show articles only from this category. If you want to show articles from its subcategories you just need to select them too.


Current Category



The module can display lists of items dynamically, depending on the current category. So when publishing the module in a certain category, the module automatically detects the current Joomla category and displays articles only from it. This option is extremely useful when you place one module in several categories.

• Include - the module displays Joomla articles only from current category;
• Exclude - the module displays Joomla articles from all other categories, excluding articles from the current category.

Certain Articles



To display some specific articles in the module you just insert the article IDs separated by a comma in this field. It doesn’t matter if these articles belong to one or several categories.


FILTER SETTINGS

Here you decide on how to process (filtrate, order) the content selected.



All the items in the module display are divided into two groups - TOP items and items. This smart structure lets you easily enhance the most important news by creating particular views for TOP items with e.g. larger text and bigger thumbnails. Besides, TOP and regular articles can have their own sets of content elements like date, author, hits, number of comments, ratings, etc.

Number of TOP items
Set the number of TOP items to display in the module block.
Some module templates don’t use TOP items (e.g. All-mode Bricks), so in this case, you need to set TOP items = 0.

Number of Items
Set the number of items to display in the module block.

Joomla! Tags


Select from the list of available tags and the module will display only the articles that use the tags selected. If you want to filter the articles only by tags (not by categories), then select “All Categories” in the field Categories (see the documentation above).

Authors


This extremely useful filter helps you to form lists of articles written by a concrete author or several authors.
There are many ways how you can apply author filters to your Joomla site.

Create a list of Joomla articles by a certain author

The module can filter all the articles from every category of your site by an author. You just select this author from the list of author names in the module settings. The same way you can use author alias.

Articles by a certain author from selected Joomla categories

Sometimes you need to show articles by an author but from certain categories, not from all categories. RAXO module can do that. In the module parameters, you select Joomla categories and then just use filter by the selected author or author alias.

List of articles by several authors

You can select several authors at the same time and in this case, the module will retrieve articles submitted by these selected authors. In the same way, you can select several author alias names. Moreover, you can use filters by author and author alias together.

Articles added by a logged-in Joomla user

This filter lets an authorized site user (e.g. the author who submits content to your site) view only the articles added by him. So with RAXO module, you can easily display only the articles written by the user who has logged into your Joomla website. This function will be useful for creating some kind of profile pages, etc.

Exclude Joomla articles added by a logged-in user

This filter is similar to the previous one but works the opposite way. When your Joomla user authorities on your website he sees articles written by any other author, and his own articles are excluded from the module output.


Featured Items


You’ll often use this filter for the modules placed on your main page or category pages on your site where 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.

Date Filtering


RAXO modules provide you with lots of date filters so you can easily and flexibly display articles from a specific date or date range.

Date Filtering - Predefined Date Filters:
These filters let you quickly select items from the specified time frame:

• today - retrieve articles only from the current day;
• this week - retrieve articles only from the current week;
• this month - retrieve articles only from the current month;
• this year - retrieve articles only from the current year.

Date Filtering - Date Range:


With this filter 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.

Date Filtering - Relative Date Range:


With this filter you can 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 also 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.

Note for Date Range and Relative Date Range filters. It is not necessary to set both dates. If you specify only one of them, the module is still able to do the job.

Ordering


RAXO modules have really rich ordering options (up to 16 variants) so you have a great tool to organize the content the way you want quickly and effortlessly.

• 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 articles go first;
• Popular Last - the less visited 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; If you set to display only Featured articles in the module, this ordering will work as Direct Joomla Featured Articles Ordering.
• Reverse Joomla Content Manager - the articles are listed in Joomla Content Manager reverse order; If you set to display only Featured articles in the module, this ordering will work as Reverse Joomla Featured Articles Ordering.
• 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.
• Exact ID order - the articles are listed in the order you specified in Articles field of Source Selection area.
• Random - the articles are listed in the random order.

Display Options



LAYOUT SELECTION



Module Layout
Select the module layout. You have at least 4 built-in templates, or more if you have installed the ready-to-use additional module templates.

Module Class
Is generally used in CSS to apply individual styling for a certain module copy. RAXO modules use this parameter for a range of tasks, e.g. to switch between the templates color schemes.


TEXT SETTINGS



Here you define text settings. It’s up to you whether to have the same or different settings for TOP items and items.

Show Title
Show or hide the titles of the articles.

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. The great thing about this limitation function is that it doesn’t cut words no matter what number of characters you set.

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

Intro Text Limit
Set the number of characters to enable this function or leave blank if you don’t need it. The great thing about this limitation function is that it doesn’t cut words no matter what number of characters you set.

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


FIELDS SETTINGS



In this block you select which fields (or content elements) to display or hide in the module output. Again, you may have the same or different settings for TOP and regular items.

Show Date - show the article date.

Show Category - show the category name the article belongs to.

Show Author - show the author name or author alias of the article.

Show Rating - show the rating of the article.

Show Hits - show the number of hits for the article.

Show Comments - show the number of comments of the article.


IMAGE SETTINGS



Display Image
Select to enable images for TOP items and items.

Thumbnail Width and Height
Set the width and height value in pixels for TOP items and items.

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
Select whether to crop or not the images while creating thumbnails. This parameter works only if both width and height are set and applies for both TOP items and items.

If you disable “Crop Image” option but set thumbnail width and height, the thumbnail will fit into these parameters.

Advanced Options



MODULE BLOCK DETAILS



Block Name
Write a title for the whole module block. Leave blank if you don’t need this option.

Block Name Link
Insert a link assigned to the block name, usually to the respective category. You can copy this link from your site menu.

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

Button Link
Insert a link for “Show all” text, you can use link to the respective category or whatever 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.

Current Article
This option allows you to automatically remove currently viewed article from the list of Joomla articles displayed in the module. When your site visitor reads an article you can offer him a list of other articles for reading. And it's not reasonable to include a currently viewed article in this list, right? Besides, this is beneficial from an SEO point of view to avoid articles linking to themselves.

Exclude Articles
Insert article IDs separated by commas to exclude some articles from the module output.

Non-Public Content
Show or hide the intro of the access-restricted articles. This function is perfect to reveal some short teasers of the paid content. When clicking read more link users that don’t have the required permission will be redirected to a sign-up page.

Hide on Article Pages
It’s an extremely useful feature for cases when you want to show the module on the category page, but want to hide it on article pages that belong to this category.

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
Preserve some formatting by inserting allowed tags into the field, e.g. “a strong” to preserve links and bold text in the module output.

Plugins Support
This parameter enables support for content plugins. It will be helpful for cases when e.g. you use plugins to insert some info or images in the articles and want the module to process this content.


ADVANCED FIELDS SETTINGS



Category as Link
Enable or disable the link to the respective category.

Date Type


Select which date type of your articles the module should use Creation date, Modification date or
Start Publishing date. By default, the module uses the 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.

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 country-specific formats.

To create the data format you need to use these available symbols:
d - day
m - month (04), F - month (April)
Y - year,
H - hour, i - minutes, s - seconds

Comment System


Select the commenting system that is used on your site. RAXO modules support the most popular commenting systems.


ADVANCED IMAGE SETTINGS



Thumbnail Source


For thumbnails 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's body.
• Automatic selection
  This is an awesome option that 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 find.

If none images are found, the module shows default image

Link for Image
With this option, you make thumbnails in the module clickable and linked to article pages.

Image Title
Replace the original image title with the article title.

Default Image


If your articles don't have any images, the module can show 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 the default image - select "None Selected".

You also can use your own image (e.g. company’s logo, a special category symbol) as a default image. Default images are located in this folder:
../modules/mod_raxo_module_name/tools/
So you just add your image (allowed file types are: png, gif, jpg, or webp) to this folder and use it for your purposes.


CACHE SETTINGS



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.