This can already be done using the Articles - Category module. Just embed it in an article and you are good to go. See https://brian.teeman.net/site-map as an example

While I don't have a need for this, I could see it as handy for a 100% blog type site where you want the front page to display ALL articles. I think all this would take is to modify the blog menu item to allow for multiple categories or All. This would be similar to the way the category function works in the new custom fields. It allows you to choose All or pick specific categories. Not sure if you'd just remove the subcategory levels option (since the admin could just add all the subs to the option) or if you'd leave it in since some sites may have dozens of subcategories.

Again you can do this already - you just need to have a parent category - this is exactly what I do on https://brian.teeman.net

True, but it forces you to now have another directory in the url structure (unless you use something like sh404SEF). Seems like it would be a handy feature in my opinion. Saves an extra (and forced) structure layer.

A plain "show all articles" menu item is not feasible with the way Joomla handles routing. That will create more issues than it will bring improvements.

@mbabker I'm not doubting the accuracy of your statement, but why is it unfeasible if it can be achieved by using a module?

@brianteeman thanks, I did not know this. It does seem like a bit of a hack and I would suggest a newcomer may find this an odd way of doing things. But it serves my purpose so thanks.

Because a module doesn't have routing capabilities. By creating a menu item with the same configuration, that menu item would then get accounted for when generating URIs.

So can this be closed then?

True, but it forces you to now have another directory in the url structure

@brianpeat no not really. On my site the content is in the following category structure
blog
--joomla
--web

But you won't see the "blog" anywhere in the url

@brianteeman ah, I suppose it's because blog is the same as home in this scenario so it never appears?

Exactly. So the initial comment that this is not ideal for SEO was incorrect.

That makes sense. I still think it would be nice to be able to pick and choose categories for the blog, but honestly if you just stick the ones you want under a parent it works the same anyway, so yeah, I'd say close this one.

and you still can pick and chose the categories for the blog. If you dont want a category in the blog dont put it in the parent blog category ;)

In some cases the site is a blog, so in that instance you would not want a root category called blog. It can remain closed as I do not have a better solution, but in terms of UX this is a pretty big fail in my opinion.

Please explain why this is a fail.

On 30 Mar 2017 12:38 p.m., "uglyeoin" notifications@github.com wrote:

In some cases the site is a blog, so in that instance you would not want a
root category called blog. It can remain closed as I do not have a better
solution, but in terms of UX this is a pretty big fail in my opinion.

—
You are receiving this because you modified the open/close state.
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
#14972 (comment),
or mute the thread
https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABPH8Ty_DsjtDEPCp8BRsCIzSra9vK0Hks5rq5RBgaJpZM4Mrvkc
.

I don't believe a new user will intuitively be able to work this out. I have been using Joomla! since 2008 and I didn't know this. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think a user would expect to be able to choose "all categories" from their menu item. Maybe it is something for @cpfeifer to look at and do some user research as 1 persons [my] opinion is hardly evidence.

My point is that it doesn't matter how easy it is, if it "feels" like a hack or workaround, and feels difficult to a new user, then that's the reputation we'll get. A lot of this stuff is just perception.

What is the real world usage for this? Why it is important to have this feature and who is it important to? Those are the questions we need to ask for any new feature concept.

I hear what you're saying, but I don't think this is the solution. It would be better to address the category / article / menu item workflow, the number of steps, options and screens required to do this is the real reason it's so difficult for users to understand.

I'm not sure I understood your answer, but happy to discuss, in private if you prefer. The use case for me would be blog style websites only. The only time it could work is when you want to show all of your content on one page. Even then there's a chance you have Ts & Cs that you don't really want on your blog page. It might be preferable in that instance to show all articles except category X

I understand what you're saying. The question we need to find an answer to is how many users want this and how badly do they want it.

There are many features in Joomla that let you select "All Categories" or pick them individually, but not in a menu item. I personally have never thought of this or ever had the need to do it, but after thinking about this a bit it could be very useful and used in many different ways. I think it's an idea worth exploring.

Again, I'm just going to warn that attempting to do this as a component view has ramifications that loading the data in a module doesn't. Item routing being the main one. So anyone considering attempting this MUST tackle that issue as well. It's not as simple as "copy what this module can do into a component view and done".

I still dont see the usecase for this that can not already be achieved.

PS Please dont fall into the trap of making Joomla into another CMS.

I don't believe it's a priority, but it's worth exploring in my opinion. That does not mean anything more than it says.

It seems like a big job, I found it a little unintuitive but I don't have the skills to fix it. @mbabker makes a good point, it would need some way of routing it and copying the module won't work.

@brianteeman I don't believe in thinking like that. If something is useful and another CMS can do it then I have no problem with Joomla! also doing it. I'm not in the camp of "we can't do that, we're not them". I do think it would be better to move towards content as "items" not necessarily articles, but then I'm starting to sound like that other CMS instead ha ha.

@cpfeifer clear as day ha ha.

If you want to close this go ahead, at the moment I don't have the time or the skills to fix.