Category Layouts

[pheinrichs]

Is it possible to use unique layouts for each different category?

Thanks

[ColinM]

Hi
Depends on what you are looking for in 'unique'!  Firstly there is on one set of Layouts that are active so in a general sense the answer is no.  However if you have only a few categories then different 'layouts' could be effected in the terms of content.

To help could you advise the sort of thing you are considering in the way of different layouts. And also why? Sure there must be a reason but I cannot think of one!!
Colin

[pheinrichs]

I run a church website that contains a number of different types of download categories.  I was hoping to customize the layout to show different attributes (ie. mp3_tag) on some but not others.  I also use the custom fields for information such as sermon title, speaker name etc which is important for some categories but completely irrelevant for others (ie. meeting minutes).  It would be a great feature to have the ability to choose custom layouts for each category.

[ColinM]

Hi
If there is no information put in a field then nothing is output, including the title of the line is output  So if there is no MP3 file associated with the download nothing will appear.  Similarly if a Custom field is blank nothing is output.

Specifically you could have uploads (create) for each class you want and for te upload form to  only ask the specific questions by assigning to different Groups.  For example suppose you have a Joomla  user group call Sermons and another one called Minutes.  They could each 'ask' for different types of information.

So you can effectively achieve what you want in this situation by making use of jDownloads User Group Settings.  The following sounds more difficult to do than it is in practice; it is about setting up those who can create downloads.  It depends on how much you know about Joomla User Groups, ACL permissions and View Access Levels. There is some specific jDownloads documentation. For simplicity set up a User Group for each class with just one unique member, and also a set of View Access Levels each of which has just one group in it. The result is that you have a conceptual 'creator' for each of your classes, each of which would correspond to a Category.  Who can see and download from multiple categories is not affected by this setup.

You can decide in the jDownloads User Group Settings exactly which 'question' is asked for each user group.   This means that you could have a Create menu item for each Category with a View Access set up with only one user group in it. In the menu item you can preset the category which will hold the file, and in the User Groups settings you can stop individual groups being able to change the Category.

In jDownloads User Groups Settings you need to give these groups a Ranking setting, one could be say 345, another 513. The actual values are not important  but they are of significance because if you have a user who is a member of both groups jDownloads will use the User Groups Settings of the higher one. Using above 100 gets you clear of the regular Joomla groups.

If you need more help please post
Colin

[pheinrichs]

Thanks very much for your detailed response.  Much appreciated.  Sounds like it will work.

Also thanks for your continued great work on the jdownloads project.

Paul