Thank you for the clear and specific instructions. Worked great.

Jack Sacre said:if you select a top level category though you can use your category description as a fixed introduction to the site, then you set the cat. settings to display items from subcategories and then select 'only featured items'.
Just another way of doing it I guess.

B Kemler said:Actually, I don't think you need to create a top level category, since the Categories Layout will let you select multiple categories. Here are detailed instructions. 1. Go to Menus > Main Menu.
2. Click on the menu item with the gold star in the default column. This is likely called Home.
3. Unless your home page is already a K2 Categories view, in the box labeled Menu Item Type, click Change Type.
4. Change it to "K2 Categories".
5. Under Parameters (Basic) > Select Categories, select all of your categories (or if you only want the featured items from certain categories, select those).
6. Under Parameters (Basic) > Featured Items, select "Show only featured items".
7. Set whatever other parameters you want and save.

Now your home page will show only items that you have set as Featured.

To Jack Sacre (and everyone else who wishes to respond): You bring up an interesting issue:

On a test/web server I am migrating my existing site with SCORES of pre-existing articles to The RocketTheme template Vortex and using RocketTheme extensions (by which i was introduced to K2). I've imported all my articles to K2 and want to see what it's like to do everything through K2/RocketTheme extensions (and their dependencies).

The problem: FRONT PAGE MANAGER! Even when I created a new K2-Based menu the Breadcrumbs still say "Home --> Home" ...the 1st home being the "real" Joomla Front Page Manager. I didn't have the luxury of starting from scratch from K2, so tell me:

Do i have to empty out Content\Front Page Manager OR disable that module (if such a thing is possible) OR destroy/disable my original menus OR WHAT to make sure that only my K2-based "front page" is available to visitors???!?

Now that I've migrated all my sections/categories/articles to K2 should I delete the originals (having plenty of backups of the original configuration, of course)??????

The other thing is: I have several pre-existing sections, each with plenty of categories; in K2 should I take my "Home Page" section-turned-category and make the other K2-converted sections/categories subcategories of that one?

Jack Sacre said:Create a top level category and have it as the home page item, then in its paremeters set it to only show Featured items. place your other categories underneath that category and then flag the items you want displayed on the front page as featured. It works a treat for me.

I am doing the same thing, moving my old site to be K2. I have folloed the advice above and this is where I am at. ignore completely the joomla frontpage manager.
articles: import them into K2 using the tool provided.
categories will also be imported. If not simply make new ones and change the items to the new ones as necessary.
menus: just associate your menu item with K2items or categories as required and they will change.
In main menu select the default i.e. home. and clikc on the gold star. then edit that menu item and change type to a K2 category or item. Once you have made the home item the default then the breadcrumbs will also link to that item. I have not tried the featured item idea yet but the rest works just fine.

There are a couple of things we've noticed when using the "featured" approach for homepage items.

1) is that the page navigation doesn't seem to work - you click on "next" or the page number, and you go nowhere.

2) the parameter "rules" from the categories that content items are pulled from, are also ignored. For example, all the categories are set to show first 60 words as intro text, but when the homepage menu link is set up to display only featured items (from several categories), it shows the entire item! Not ideal. We fixed with a bit of quick and dirty coding but would prefer a better solution.

Anybody got any ideas?

Caron Rose is showing why the "Category" approach as a "FrontPage Manager" cannot work.

When selecting a featured item, it becomes active but under de "Home" menu item, not the one pointing to the category it is associated with.

Say you have a menu with two items, "Home" and "Press Releases". The "Home" menu item points to all "Featured" articles under every K2 categories. The "Press Releases" menu item points to all the articles under the "Press Releases" K2 category.
Now if a new press released is marked as "Featured", then it will appear on the FrontPage and if you click on its Title to further read the article's content, the active menu item will be "Home" and not "Press Release" !
From the site's structure stand point, i am under "Press Release" and not under "Home".
In fact, there is a special Flash Banner that is only suppose to be displayed on the FrontPage. Because of this problem, it becomes visible under each press releases also !... Proving that the "Category" approach to implement a FrontPage manager cannot work !

K2 needs a frontPage manager as part of the Extension itself !


caron rose said:There are a couple of things we've noticed when using the "featured" approach for homepage items.
1) is that the page navigation doesn't seem to work - you click on "next" or the page number, and you go nowhere.

2) the parameter "rules" from the categories that content items are pulled from, are also ignored. For example, all the categories are set to show first 60 words as intro text, but when the homepage menu link is set up to display only featured items (from several categories), it shows the entire item! Not ideal. We fixed with a bit of quick and dirty coding but would prefer a better solution.

Anybody got any ideas?

Here is my solution. I found it through trial and error and have probably misused K2 functionality :-) All comments are welcome. Hopefully next K2 makes all this a bit easier.

My setup:
- Joomla 1.5.20
- K2 2.4.1
- onecssperk2template 1.2.3

1) add K2 categories, let's say you have
- toplevelcat
-- subcat1
--- subsubcat11
-- subcat2
--- subsubcat21
--- subsubcat22
-- subcatnotused

2) add K2 items under each categories
- leave subcatnotused category empty
- mark few items in different categories as featured

3) add two menus with menu manager
- mainmenu
- featuredmenu

4) add few menu items to mainmenu and configure one
- title: Home
- K2 >> Itemslist / Category and mark it as default
- select only categories toplevelcat and notusedcat
- select show only featured items

5) add menu item to featuredmenu and configure it
- title: Featured
- K2 >> Itemslist / Category
- select all categories
- select show only featured items

6) Optional step to show user path when item is selected
- add mod_breadcrumbs in module manager
- assign all other menus except Home

7) add other modules in module manager
- assign all other menus except Home

With these steps you should have
- front page with only featured items listed from various categories and selected modules
- when you select one item it opens to full page (of course this depends on your template and css settings)
- open item have following path e.g. Home - Featured - subcat2 - subsubcat22 - ItemTitle, where
-> Home goes back to front page showing all modules and listing featured items
-> Featured shows featured items in full page
-> subcat2 shows that category and its child items
-> subsubcat22 shows only that category items

I am one step from perfect solution to my needs. My problems:
- k2.css is used in frontpage aka Home even custom template is selected for that menu item
- k2.css is used in Home - Featured page even custom template is selected for that menu item
- all other categories and items use custom template, no matter what is selected from category???
-> I'd like to use custom template everywhere

Feature request:
- community.getk2.org/forum/topics/how-to-override-k2css-used-by

Known bug:
- community.getk2.org/forum/topics/k2-category-item-layout

Marko

I have disabled k2.css from onecssperk2template plugin parameters. But still my Home and Featured pages are using it. Why?
Plugin Parameters
- keep k2 Css -> No
- Force original category theme -> No
- Force default Theme -> No
- Allow multi Css -> No

Pictures from my test environment:

Home page

Featured item

Marko Seppälä said:I am one step from perfect solution to my needs. My problems: - k2.css is used in frontpage aka Home even custom template is selected for that menu item - k2.css is used in Home - Featured page even custom template is selected for that menu item - all other categories and items use custom template, no matter what is selected from category??? -> I'd like to use custom template everywhere

Hi Marko,

Can you tell me what kind of K2 link type you use for your front & featured pages ?

Which version of OneCss plugin is installed ?

Olivier


Marko Seppälä said:I have disabled k2.css from onecssperk2template plugin parameters. But still my Home and Featured pages are using it. Why? Plugin Parameters
- keep k2 Css -> No
- Force original category theme -> No
- Force default Theme -> No
- Allow multi Css -> No

Pictures from my test environment:

Home page

Featured item

Marko Seppälä said:I am one step from perfect solution to my needs. My problems: - k2.css is used in frontpage aka Home even custom template is selected for that menu item - k2.css is used in Home - Featured page even custom template is selected for that menu item - all other categories and items use custom template, no matter what is selected from category??? -> I'd like to use custom template everywhere

Both menu item types are K2 » Itemlist / Category
OneCss version is 1.2.3

On front page left side is used mod_k2_content module which is also using k2.css instead of my custom template as I have configured it to module parameters. Blaah.


Olivier Nolbert said:Hi Marko, Can you tell me what kind of K2 link type you use for your front & featured pages ?
Which version of OneCss plugin is installed ?

Olivier


Marko Seppälä said:I have disabled k2.css from onecssperk2template plugin parameters. But still my Home and Featured pages are using it. Why? Plugin Parameters - keep k2 Css -> No - Force original category theme -> No - Force default Theme -> No
- Allow multi Css -> No

Pictures from my test environment:

Home page

Featured item

Marko Seppälä said:I am one step from perfect solution to my needs. My problems: - k2.css is used in frontpage aka Home even custom template is selected for that menu item - k2.css is used in Home - Featured page even custom template is selected for that menu item - all other categories and items use custom template, no matter what is selected from category??? -> I'd like to use custom template everywhere

Marko,

Try to set 'Allow Multi Css' to yes. This will load each item custom css even if you're in a multi categories view.

The plugin only works with K2 views, not with K2 modules. So if you've added a template & a css for your module, you should have to load your custom module css from your custom module template.

Olivier