Sermons List - 'root' category missing

Just upgraded a site from SermonSpeaker 4.3.0 to 4.5.8, and Sermons List menu Basic Options mentions a 'root' category in the field description, but there isn't one in the droplist. Previously there was a root (or something like that) category choice which would allow me to have all my categories pull in sermons to the list page.

How do I get this back?

Thanks,

Mike

Since SermonSpeaker 4.4.4, categories are required and the "root" category is no longer used.
See www.sermonspeaker.net/documentation/rele...onspeaker-4-4-4.html .

To achieve the same behavior, you would have to create a new parent category and put the existing ones as child of it. The menu item then points to the new parent one and you choose in the SermonSpeaker options to include the items from subcategories in the list.

Well, that's not really ideal. That's actually a step backwards - almost like reverting to the Joomla 1.5 behavior of Sections & Categories. As I understood it, the whole point of the change to Categories in Joomla 2.5 & beyond was to not require some top level Category (Section in J 1.5) to contain all the others.

I can understand making Category required. But shouldn't there be an option to include ALL categories for those who want to display all their SermonSpeaker sermons in one list? Forcing users to create a top level category to contain all the other categories in order to accomplish this is really the same as the old 'root' item - it just creates an arbitrary 'root' category & forces users to deal w/ everything one level down. Which is not ideal & is certainly more hassle.

Requiring a category on a sermon, or a speaker is markedly different than requiring a category for a menu item. Is there a chance you might consider a change to this menu item behavior? Looking at Joomla core, not all menu items require a specific category be choosen. 'List All Categories' includes a 'Root' item for choosing a top level category.

Thanks,

Mike

Well, that's not really ideal. That's actually a step backwards - almost like reverting to the Joomla 1.5 behavior of Sections & Categories. As I understood it, the whole point of the change to Categories in Joomla 2.5 & beyond was to not require some top level Category (Section in J 1.5) to contain all the others.

It's actually not a step backward. The difference to Joomla 1.5 is that you are not restricted to a two level "sections and categories" structure. You can nest the categories as deep as you wish now.
The category is always requried in the menu item. This didn't change. Have a look at how the Joomla article component (com_content) does it. There is no "root" category you can select there as well.

In fact, it was basically an error on my part to include it into SermonSpeaker. I initially thought it would be easier but it ended up needing special code all over the place and making the feature buggy.

But shouldn't there be an option to include ALL categories for those who want to display all their SermonSpeaker sermons in one list?

There is such an option. You just need a SermonSpeaker "root" category for that. You can show all sermons from the subcategories in one list. You can even say how many levels you want to include. The visitor doesn't even have to know they are from different categories.

Requiring a category on a sermon, or a speaker is markedly different than requiring a category for a menu item. Is there a chance you might consider a change to this menu item behavior? Looking at Joomla core, not all menu items require a specific category be choosen. 'List All Categories' includes a 'Root' item for choosing a top level category.

No, I will not reconsider this behavior as it's the way Joomla core works
The "List All Categories" item for com_content will only list the categories from com_content, without any articles. The same is true for the "Categories List" menu item in SermonSpeaker where you also can select a "Root" category. That's needed here because you couldn't list the top category otherwise.

Thomas,

all valid points you make. It's possible that I was in too much of a hurry & not explaining my thoughts well. I apologize if I came off confrontational. I'm just trying to find a good solution for the church that I'm assisting...

You are correct that the multilevel categories are more flexible in Joomla 2.5. However, forcing the end-users to created an arbitrary root level category is still forcing a constraint similar to the Sections level of Joomla 1.5 onto the end users. Is it not fair to argue that the entire Categories module that is in the Joomla core IS the root category level?

What I'm suggesting is the same way that the Categories module behaves in the Admin site. For any given component (which is a different filter), you start at the root level (0 I believe in the db). You don't have to have an extra level defined. Then you can filter down using the category drop-list.

I assume this would only need to be a change in the model, and I have seen code that looks for a category filter in the articles component on the Admin side. Similar code might work here. If I could find a fair fix for the model that didn't require bug fixes everywhere, would you consider it for merge?

Thank you,

Mike

If I could find a fair fix for the model that didn't require bug fixes everywhere, would you consider it for merge?

Only if Joomla core also changes it.
I'm sticking to the way core handles such things. This makes my life so much easier.

I used to support the root category in earlier versions (mainly due to history) and I had to add special rules to the database queries all over the place. Mainly related to ACL where the root category behaves different from all other categories. But I think there was other things as well.

It may sound easy to do, but it's not. It's really much easier to just create a parent category if you need that.