LATEST NEWS

ENHANCED V1.3.0
All-in-one news/articles module presenting the latest, featured, popular or
random articles in a consistent fashion with calendar or image.

For Joomla! 2.55+

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Table of Contents
Module Installation ............................................................................................................................................................... 2
Using the module .................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Anatomy of an article............................................................................................................................................................ 4
Calendar option................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Image option ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5
The list of options.................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Basic options ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Head options ..................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Body Options................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Pagination ....................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Advanced options ........................................................................................................................................................... 13
CSS3 and media queries ...................................................................................................................................................... 14
Additional information........................................................................................................................................................ 15

1|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Module Installation
Install the extension through the extension manager.
It will update itself if the module has been previously installed. In case of an update, make sure you read the changes
that have been made and are aware of potential backward compatibility issues.
Important note: the module requires you to previously install the SimplifyYourWeb extension library, found on the
website.

Screenshot 1 - Install (Joomla 3.2)

2|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Using the module

Click on the Module Manager icon in the control panel or go to the menu Extensions -> Module Manager.
Click on New.
Select the Latest News Enhanced module to create an instance of it.

Screenshot 2 - New module (Joomla 3.2)

3|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Anatomy of an article

Calendar option

4|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Image option

5|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

The list of options

Here is the list of available options for the module.

Basic options
Option
Category(s)
K2 Category(s)
Sub-Categories
Count
Start At
Ordering
Featured articles
Date
When no date
News width
Link to article
Link label
Category
Category link label

Description
select the Joomla! standard categories the articles are from (multiple select)
select the K2 categories the articles are from (multiple select)
automatically selects the next level or all levels of a category
the max number of articles that will show (nothing will show all articles found)
the item number to start from
the order in which the articles are presented *
random popular order added modified published - finished touched - title
whether to show featured articles or not
which date should be applied
created - published modified finished
if the date is missing (finish publishing date only), show the article item or not
do not show show before show after
the width of each article block (%)
whether to link to the article or not
an optional label to use instead of the link's title
show the category's name (will show for individual articles if the articles are from
different categories, otherwise will show one link for all)
a specific label to use instead of the article's name
(ex: More news like this)

* if the date is missing when ordering by finish publishing date, the articles are ordered by start publishing date
instead. To show, the articles must be published AND the publishing start date in the past, not the future (Joomla! does
not handle articles that are pending in the front end)
The module will NOT show pending articles (when the publishing up date is still in the future). Pending articles are not
handled in the front end by Joomla!.

6|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Screenshot 3 - Basic options (Joomla 3.2)

7|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Head options
Option
Head type
Head alignment
Image/calendar width
Image/calendar height
Default/calendar image
Keep space
Crop pictures
Thumbnails Cache Path
Reset pictures
Show weekday
Show year
Show time
Format time

Description
Image, calendar or nothing
Show the image or calendar on the left, right or alternate them
The width of the calendar or image
The height of the calendar or image
The image to use as background for the calendar or as a default image
Keeps the space even if there is no image (and no default image) or no calendar to
show
Fit the image into the size selected, cropping it if needed. Otherwise it will show the
full image with the selected size
The temporary path for the thumbnails created (tmp is the default path)
whether to re-create the image thumbnails every time the page is loaded or not (set
to no for better performance in production, but set to yes for testing purposes)
Show the weekday in the calendar (when selected as head type)
Show the year in the calendar (when selected as head type)
Show the time in the calendar (when selected as head type)
The time format according to PHP as found in
http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

Warnings:
The PHP GD extension (php_gd2) is required for the creation of image thumbnails. Make sure this extension is available
on your service providers server.
The PHP 'allow_url_fopen' setting must be enabled in order to access remote image files. Some hosts disable the
option for security reasons.
The module will detect these automatically.

8|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Screenshot 4 - Head options (Joomla 3.2)

9|Page

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Body Options
Option
Font size reference
Letter count max title
Title on one line
HTML header tag
Text introduction
Letter count max
Strip tags
Keep tags
Wrap
Append link
Show hits
Authors
Show author
Author name
Show date
Format date
Hits/Author/Date pos.

10 | P a g e

Description
The reference size of the text for the whole item, except for the calendar head
The max number of letters to show in the title
Forces the title on one line only
The HTML tag to give to the title (will match the template)
the text to show:
article introduction - meta description
the maximum number of letters to show (0 will show nothing, empty will show all)
whether to strip the HTML tags or not (only available if the whole text is shown)
when tags are allowed, keep only the ones specified (empty will keep all tags)
(ex: <p><a><br> will keep new lines and links)
Wrap the text around the head or not
Positioning of the article link label (when present) after the introductory text
Show the hits for the article in question
select from which authors the articles are written from:
anyone me others
show the author
author's name, alias or username
show the article's date or the number of days since it has been written or the number
of days until the date (finish publishing dates only)
The date format according to PHP as found in
http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php
where to put this information compared to the text:
before the title before the text after the text

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Screenshot 5 - Body options (Joomla 3.2)

11 | P a g e

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Pagination
Option
Paginate
Items per page
Links to display
Show first / last
First label
Prev label
Next label
Last label

Description
Adds pagination to the list of items (enable jQuery if not done already on the site)
The number of items to show per page of pagination
The number of page links to display (limits the page numbers when there are many)
Shows the first and last labels alongside the previous and next ones
The first label (defaults to JFIRST, which has to be defined in the language overrides)
The previous label (defaults to the translation of JPREV)
The next label (defaults to the translation of JNEXT)
The last label (defaults to JLAST, which has to be defined in the language overrides)

Screenshot 6 - Pagination options (Joomla 3.2)

12 | P a g e

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Advanced options
Option
Load jQuery
jQuery version
Show errors
CSS overrides
Simplified styles

Description
Load the library if none is present already
The jQuery version to use if enabled
Will show the errors encountered while creating the news items, if any
Additional CSS properties to apply to the module
Set to yes to use a minimal stylesheet that only keeps the modules skeleton without
the extra formatting.
For developers only!

Screenshot 7 - Advanced options (Joomla 3.2)

Note: in Joomla! 3+, the system will automatically detect jQuery when needed.

13 | P a g e

SimplifyYourWeb.com

CSS3 and media queries

Note that all CSS3-enabled styles have fallbacks for browsers that do not support them.
Media queries are used to enhance the user experience in responsive websites.
These media queries will have no effect in browsers that do not support them (like IE8).

14 | P a g e

SimplifyYourWeb.com

Additional information
Please visit the forum at http://www.simplifyyourweb.com/index.php/forum/16-latest-news-enhanced.
For more options, upgrade to the commercial version: Latest News Enhanced Extended.

15 | P a g e