Note: The solution in this post is a modification to a core file. Proceed at your own risk, and keep in mind that a Joomla update may wipe out your changes.
We got a request from a client of ours to display articles from multiple categories on an existing category blog page. As a Joomla administrator, you probably know that a basic installation of Joomla can’t do this. In fact, this is the main reason (in most cases) why a Joomla website uses K2 for content management instead of Joomla’s core.
Luckily, we have done this before for another client, so we processed the request swiftly. Here’s what we did:
- We logged in to the Joomla backend and we opened the existing menu item pointing to the category blog page.
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We checked the string in the Link field, which was this one:
index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=50
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We took note of the number “50” (which is the ID of the category) in the above string.
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We then gathered the IDs of all the categories which the client wanted their articles displayed under the above category blog page. Here are the IDs: 77, 81, 107, 155.
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We opened the file articles.php which is located under the components/com_content/models folder.
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Just below the following line:
$categoryEquals = 'a.catid ' . $type . (int) $categoryId;We added the following line:
if ( (int) $categoryId == '50'){ $categoryEquals .= ' OR a.catid IN (\'71\', \'81\', \'107\', \'155\')'; }Note: Of course, you will need to replace “50” with your category number. You will also need to replace “71, “81”, etc… with the IDs of the additional categories you want to display articles from.
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That’s it! After doing the above, the category blog menu item displayed articles from all the above categories.
Note that you will need to create hidden menu items of type Category Blog, each pointing to a category in the above list to ensure that SEF links are properly generated for your articles.
But, what about using subcategories to display articles from multiple categories?
Well, you can do that, provided the multiple categories are immediate children of the main category (e.g. the category with ID “50” in the case of our client). If this is the case, then all you need to do is to open the menu item pointing to the main category, and then click on the Blog Layout tab, and finally set the value of Include Subcategories to “Yes”.
However, if you are stuck with dispersed categories that are not children of the main category, then the quickest solution would be to use our core modification above.
We hope that you enjoyed our simple post for displaying articles from multiple categories on a category blog. If you need help with the implementation, then just contact us. We always love having more clients, our work is super fast, our expertise is top notch, and our prices are super affordable!