When the Articles link is selected, it expands to display the options shown in Figure 7-7.
Table 7-3 briefly describes the options in the Articles node.
Let’s look at each option in detail. To see what each menu item type does, you don’t have to create a new menu item for each one. Instead, you can create a menu item of one menu item type, observe its impact from the front end, edit it to set it to the next menu item type in the option list, and so on. Before creating a menu item of any type, however, you need to do a little groundwork.
For example, the Archived Articles menu item type is meant to display the articles that are archived (temporarily removed) from the web site. So, until you archive some articles from the web site, this menu item type will not show any effect. So click the Save & Close button from the toolbar to save whatever information you have entered for the new menu item (except the selection of the desired menu item type).
1. Archived Articles
This menu item type is used to show the list of articles that have been archived. “Archived” means that the contents are not currently required and are in a stored format. These articles can be searched by date. To try it out, open the Article Manager (Content ➤ Article Manager).
In the Article Manager, you see a list of articles, some provided by Joomla and others created by you. Select a few articles in the list and click the Archive icon in the toolbar to change the status of the articles from the published state to the archived state. Let’s select the three articles that are marked in Figure 7-8 and archive them.
The archived articles become invisible from the list of articles that are displayed in the Article Manager list (see Figure 7-9). It also means that the selected articles will not be displayed on the web site (by default) and are in the archived state.
These archived articles can be seen from the front end when a menu item of type Archived Articles is selected by the visitor. Let’s set the menu item New Electronics Among Cameras And Cell Phones that you created in the Electronic Products menu to display archived articles.
Open the Menu Manager by selecting the Menu Manager option. Open the Electronic Products menu by clicking its title. You’ll find the menu item, New Electronics Among Cameras And Cell Phones in the Menu Manager: Menu Items page that opens up (see Figure 7-10). Click the menu item title to open it in edit mode. Click the Menu Item Type combo box (refer to Figure 7-5) to select the menu item type. From the list of menu item types, select the Articles node to expand it and you’ll see all the menu item types in it (refer
to Figure 7-7). You have already entered the rest of the information about the menu item. So after selecting the menu item type, click the Save & Close icon to save the changes made in the menu item. Your new menu item, New Electronics Among Cameras And Cell Phones, appears in the Menu Manager: Menu Items list, as shown in Figure 7-10.
After refreshing the front end of the site, you see the new menu item, New Electronics Among Cameras And Cell Phones, at the bottom of the site (because you have chosen the footer position for its module).
When selected, the menu item will display a list of all the articles that have been archived (because the menu item type chosen was Archived Articles), as shown in Figure 7-11.
You can also see all the archived articles from a particular date by using the drop-down boxes.
Source: Harwani B M (2015), Foundations of Joomla!, Apress; 2nd ed edition