Category management

To manage the categories in ARS, just click on the Categories button on the Control Panel page, or the Categories link right below the component's name in any ARS page. A standard Joomla! administrator list page appears.

Do note that the search box will filter categories based on their title or description. If you now the numeric ID of a category you can find it quickly by searching for id:1234 where 1234 is the numeric category ID.

You can quickly make a copy of a category by selecting its checkbox on the left-hand column and clicking Actions, Copy in the toolbar. The releases and items belonging to that category will NOT be copied along.

Delete a category by selecting it and clicking on the Actions, Delete. ARS will not let you delete a category if it has any Releases. In this case you will need to delete the Items and the Releases inside that category first. Deleting a category is an irreversible change (there is no Trash functionality in ARS). If you are not sure, unpublish instead of removing the category.

You can edit a category either by clicking on its name in the list.

You can add one or more new categories by clicking on the New button.

Editing or adding a category

The category editor page consists of the following fields:

Title
This is the title of the category displayed to your site's visitors

Alias
This is the alias (slug) appended to the URL pointing to that category's page. It's best to keep it short and only use lowercase unaccented Latin letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), dashes and underscores. Anything else may behave oddly depending on your Joomla and server settings.

Directory Type
You have two options. In a Normal directory you have to manually create releases and items. In a BleedingEdge directory all subdirectories created in the selected Files Directory will result into new releases being created and published without your intervention. Similarly, files uploaded in the subdirectories will be automatically turned into items and published.

Files Directory
This is the path to a directory which contains the files to be published in this category's releases. The paths are given relative to your site's root. This field is mandatory. You can not create a category without assigning it a files directory. You can use the same directory in multiple releases. You can use directories in completely different base folders on each release. If a directory doesn't already exists it will not be created, you will see an error message and your category won't be created.

Please note that ARS uses Joomla!'s API to filter directories. This limits you to using directories under your site's root. If you want to protect your files from direct web access, please create a .htaccess file with the following content inside your files directory:

<IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
<RequireAll>
Require all denied
</RequireAll>
</IfModule>

Enabled Should it be visible to your users? Set to off to hide the category from view.

Access
The Joomla! access level / view level to apply to the release. You can create custom view levels, effectively choosing which user groups should be granted access.

Please note that if a user does not have access to a Category they will not be able to view its Releases, the Items inside a release belonging to that Category or download an Items in a release belonging to that Category.

Show unauthorised links Should a link to the Category be displayed even if the user does not have access to it? Will result in a 403.

Redirect URL for unauthorized If the option above is set to Yes, users without access to the category will be linked to this URL instead. For example, a page on your site which explains how to get access.

This software is still supported. If you select No here the category link will appear with a notice that the software is no longer supported.

Created Date When this Category was first made available. Corresponds to the created_on field in the database. If left blank it will be replaced by the date and time when you click on the Save button.

Created By The user who created this Category. Corresponds to the created_by field in the database. If left blank it will be replaced by your user.

Language Only show this Category when the site is viewed in the selected language. Choose All to always display.

Description
Use the WYSIWYG editor to type in a description to be displayed for this category. You can use plugins freely.

Permissions

The standard Joomla permissions interface which allows you to assign access control permissions for administrative actions per category and user group. Remember that these permissions apply on top of the permissions set in the Components options page. That is to say, if your component-level setting is Deny you can not Allow it at the Category level. This is how Joomla works (Explicit Deny overrides Implied Allow and Explicit Allow).

The permissions are the same as those found in the Component options page.

Please note that the permissions also apply to Releases under this Category and their Items. Releases and Items DO NOT have their own Permissions. This is why there is a Create privilege in the Category's permissions. You obviously cannot create a Category inside a Category; the Create permissions allows you to instead create Releases belonging to this Category and Items inside Releases belonging to this Category.