thx, but need also fix metakey and all another views.

This looks like a global architectural error.
Because the priority of parameters is first Menu Item, then Item.

On the meta, it's the other way around.

I've been tested - the PR works fine in article view mode. And I agree with @Septdir - other pages need this fix too.

I made the same fix for category view in com_content. I agree that it should be fixed for all, but we should do the fix for a component at a time, easier to test.

Will be happy to review and apply fix for other components, in separate PR.

I've been tested - the PR, all done

Could you two please go to https://issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/39588 and report your test result there so that your test will be counted and this PR could be merged ?

Is this really something that is safe to do. Doesn't it change the existing
expected behaviour of everyone's sits and how they may appear on search
engines etc. ??

Is this really something that is safe to do. Doesn't it change the existing expected behaviour of everyone's sits and how they may appear on search engines etc. ??

There are two ways:

1. Make announcement and warns everyone to check sites and fix descriptions. (it requires making some actions, but it is worth to do to comply with the fixed architecture)
2. Keep it as is, but add a notification in the documentation about such a "feature".

@brianteeman, I don't think this change will cause serious problems.
Because now the meta settings in the menu item simply do not work if the fields are filled in the item.

If this is not corrected, then it turns out that the Joomla based logic: "Menu item has the highest priority" does not work.

Moreover, h1 works according to the principle "The menu item has the highest priority" and the rest of the meta does not.

There is also another problem. Now if you fill in the meta fields in the item, then it will not be possible to make 2 different menu items with different layouts and different meta descriptions.

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 68da900

This question has already been raised in 2017 #15102
But remained unanswered. I skimmed through the history and did not see that someone changed the priorities of the meta. This "problem" has been around for a very long time.

Accept this change or not is up to us. However, this is clear a bug fix to make meta description works in the same way with everything else: If the active menu item is linked directly to the item, the settings from menu item will take higher priority than the settings from the item itself. We can see it with the way we handle article layout or the way we merge item parameters with menu item parameters https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/blob/4.2-dev/components/com_content/src/View/Article/HtmlView.php#L143-L174

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 44c87d9

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 44c87d9

A couple of comments with respect to the B/C break concern mentioned by @brianteeman

Prior:

• article description wins over direct link menu item description

Proposed:

• direct link menu item wins over article

Biggest case FOR the change: the page title ("Browser title") works the "expected" way (menu wins over article) while description is currently the other way around. Really hard to figure out and handle.

B/C break:

• happens if someone created a description in BOTH direct link menu item and article, and these descriptions are different

Likely reason is if someone entered a desc in menu item (as they did with a page title) then wanted to change it, forgot about the menu item and changed it in article options.

In that case, the change in this PR will revert back to the wrong, old description.

These cases will exist, no doubt, due to description working the opposite to title. So that change is definitely a B/C break.

I still think it's worth the change despite that, due to inconsistency with how similar setting Browser title behaves.

RTC since there are two successful tests. Will add RLDQ label so that release lead can make final decision about this.

I spoke with several people about this change.
Everyone agrees that it is correct. The menu item must have the highest priority.

However, in fact, this is a change in long-used logic and can cause problems.

They gave me an example.

At the time of site assembly, a person created an article and a menu item. In the menu item in metadesc, I wrote "f ***" for the test, then at the stage of filling the correct metadesc was filled in the articles and everyone forgot about the menu item.

And after merge pr metadesc will become "f***" and get into search engines.

Therefore, I don’t think that people will be against making meta fields with the correct priority, but I think it’s better to postpone the release of changes to the minor version, and preferably to the major version.

Then it will be possible to add a warning before the update, and when upgrading to a major version, sites check more carefully.

As mentioned before this will impact users' sites so this is not fit for a patch or feature release. We all agree, this is a good fix but needs to go into the next major release.

Same as any other PRs for the same issue needs to be based on the 5.0-dev branch.

@joomdonation Could you rebase this to the 5.0-dev branch please?

Sorry, I messed up the PR while changing the branch. Will close this new and do a new PR later.