Smart Content Filter

Content Source

Version: 1.6.0

Content Source

The Content Source tab controls which articles enter the module pool.

Category Selection
  • Categories: Choose the Joomla article categories available as frontend filters and as the content pool.
  • Include Child Categories: Includes articles from child categories under the selected categories.
  • Exclude Categories: Remove specific categories from the article pool.
  • Exclude Article IDs: Hide individual articles by ID (comma-separated).
  • Filter by Current Language: Limit articles to the active page language (and All). From 1.5.3 this also limits the tag filter: only tags used by those articles are listed, and each tag must itself be All or match the page language. Keep this on for multilingual sites so one module can serve Spanish and English without separate Include Tags lists.
  • Featured Articles: Show all, hide featured, or show only featured articles.
  • Items Per Load: Number of articles loaded per AJAX request (1–100).
Multilingual Sites

Smart Content Filter follows Joomla multilingual content. Use separate Spanish and English articles, attach language-specific tags to matching articles, and set each tag Language in Components > Tags. With Filter by Current Language enabled, the same module instance can show the correct tags on each language page.

Joomla Tags do not have Multilingual Associations like Categories. Language on the tag item, plus article language, is the supported model.

UI labels such as Search, Tag, and Sort are Joomla language strings. Translate them with core System > Manage > Language Overrides for each frontend language. Turn on System > Global Configuration > System > Debug Language temporarily to see the exact constant names on the page.

Links to Your Articles

After you save, this tab reports whether Joomla can build short links to the listed articles. Joomla shortens an article URL only where a published Articles menu item covers the article category or one of its parents. Where none exists, Joomla falls back to /component/content/article/my-article?catid=8&Itemid=101, which works but is untidy, and no module can shorten it because the com_content router owns that decision.

The notice names the menu item Joomla will route through, or lists the categories that have none. To fix missing coverage, add one Articles menu item of type Category Blog or Category List for the parent category, and set Display in Menu to No if you do not want it in your navigation.

RSS Feed Link

From 1.5.4, set RSS Feed Link to Yes on Content Source to add RSS and Atom discovery links to the page head, the same as Integration → RSS Feed Link on a Category Blog menu item. No Category Blog menu entry is required.

  • RSS Feed Category: Optional. Pick which category feed to expose when several are selected under Categories. Leave empty to use the first selected category.
  • The feed lists articles from that category using core Joomla syndication. It does not mirror live tag, search, or sort filters on the module.
  • Include in Feed (intro vs full text) follows global or component feed settings, not a Category Blog menu item Integration tab.
Article Requirements
  • Articles must be published.
  • Articles must be within the selected categories, or within child categories when enabled.
  • Article access level must be available to the current visitor.
  • Article language must match the current site language or be set to All.
  • Publish up and publish down dates are respected.

Frontend filter chrome (Show All, category style, Filters Display) lives on the Filters tab. Card image and intro options live on Card Content.