"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur"

Red Adair

Obix Front End Edit Aid

This package tries to enhance front end article editing, i.e. the creation and modification of articles on the site as opposed to in the administrator.

Raison d'être

There are several reasons why one might consider to offer clients the ability to maintain content in the front end of the website:

  • Joomla administration is comprehensive. Too comprehensive for some.
  • It is not always desirable to give users access to the administrator area and no easy feat to adjust the administrator UI to a users capabilities and access rights.

Minimal requirements

  • Joomla! 4.0
  • PHP 7.4

Installation and configuration

Installation is the same as for any other Joomla package. If it is installed for the first time, as opposed to upgraded, plugins are supposed to be activated automatically. Doesn't do any harm to check though :)

Installation of the package includes:

  • A system plugin.
  • A library with package specific functionality.

Configuration

The plugin itself has a few settings:

  • Hide edit links: When front end editing is enabled, is not always desirable to show the regular Edit link on pages other than the front-end edit page. This option allows removal of those links.
  • Remove YOOtheme assets: For some mysterious reason, YOOtheme assets (CSS and JavaScript) are loaded on none YOOtheme pages. This options allows removal of those assets.

Description

The package, or more precisely the plugin, adds two tabs to the regular menu item edit pages of article related ( com_content), multi item menu items (Category List, Category Blog): Front End Edit Options and Front End Edit Fields.

Front End Edit Options

This tab displays some general options for the menu item:

Enabled
Enables front end editing features for this specific page. It also displays the Front End Edit Fields tab.
Edit Layout
Pick an edit layout. The plugin comes with a custom layout, based on Joomla!'s own article edit layout (.../components/com_content/tmpl/form/edit.php). That original article edit layout is adapted to support the ability to hide superfluous fields from the front end edit form (see Front End Edit Fields below). It's also the default layout.
The list also allows selection of the original article edit layout, not very meaningfully called "Create". If this layout is chosen, setting fields to be hidden, has no effect.
If desired, a customised layout can be made, which should be placed in the in the usual folder for template overrides. With Cassiopea as the default template, that would be folder .../templates/cassiopeia/html/com_content/form. The name of such an override must be different from the default component article edit layout edit.php and may not contain any underscores. Probably the easiest way to get started, is to make a copy of the plugin's custom layout. Custom layouts will be visible in the list in the --- From <template name> Template --- group.
Force menu item
Makes sure Edit links refer to this menu item. Whenever a site menus contain more than one Category List and/or Category Blog menu items, Joomla! activates the first item by default. Enabling this option, makes sure the proper menu item is selected after closing an edit screen.
Author items only
Choose if only articles created by the logged in user or articles of any author will be displayed in the list. By default this setting is set to Yes. If set to No, articles of any user will be displayed, but, if access rights are configured corerctly, the logged in user can only edit its own articles.
Hide YOOtheme builder button
If YOOtheme has been installed and is the active template, hides the "YOOtheme Builder" button appearing at the bottom of the article text field.
Copy to menu items
Copies the settings of the menu-item being edited, to all of the selected menu items.
Rebuild fields form
The XML form containg the field definitions needed for editing of articles, is build dynamically. This options rebuilds the form if necessary.

Front End Edit Fields

This tab is only visible when Enabled on the Front End Edit Options is set to Yes. It allows fields on the article edit form to be hidden. If all fields on a particular tab are hidden, the tab itself is hidden as well. Hiding of fields is only available for core Joomla article fields and not for custom fields. Custom fields should be configured with the proper ACL settings.

Three fields deserve special attention:

Title
This field is required and can not be hidden.
Category
When hidden, a default category can be chosen which will be applied to new articles.
State
When hidden, a default publication state can be chosen which will be applied to new articles.

Usage

  • Create a user group for users that are allowed to manage articles in the front end.
  • Add users to the group.
  • Create a category to which users in the group are allowed to add articles.
  • Set permissions for the category to:
    • Create: Allowed
    • Delete: Allowed
    • Edit: Inherited (Not Allowed)
    • Edit State: Allowed
    • Edit Own: Allowed
  • Create a new menu item and set its "Menu Item Type" to Category List or Category Blog.
  • On the additional Front End Edit Options tab enable front end editing functionality and set any other options to your likings.
  • On the additional Front End Edit Fields tab "turn off" fields you want to hide from the editor and choose sensible defaults for fields that support it.

Joomla! Extensions