In a Joomla site, we should keep a standard regarding how things should look. Standards imply that someone has taken the time to write something like what you’re reading. Reason for this: Good looking stuff doesn’t just happen. It takes some planning and time.
Anatomy of a Joomla Story
First, all stories (same thing as what others call a “post”) have at least four elements.
1.) A descriptive title 2.) Some intro copy 3.) A thumbnail image and 4.) The rest of the story
The Thumbnail
All stories should have an intro thumbnail. Why? Because people relate to images, not text, and it looks better. So decide on a size and stick to it for all stories. Suggested size is something about 150 or less in width. You can vary the height based on the amount of intro text. (It’s more important to lock the width than trying to do both)
Intro Text
Every story should have about the same amount of intro text.You do this because at some point, you’re going to display multiple stories on the same page. This is especially important when you’re displaying in more than one column. Look at any newspaper. The front page is always the same. The story begins, but then has you flipping back to page 8 to read the rest. Same concept applies here.
Above is an example of how a 2 column layout might appear with similar sized thumbnails and intro text.
Read More vs Page Break
You use Read More when there’s just one more page to view. If however you have 10 pages that make up a story, it’s better to use the Page Break function so that readers can jump to any page within.
Uploading Images with Media Manager
You have two ways to do this. FTP or the Joomla Media Manager. As we have already written one of these for FTP, this time we’ll cover the Media Manager. Both Joomla 1.0.x and 1.5, to get to the Media Manager, log into the backend and look for the button:
Find The Image
For a story, you will need to upload two (or more) images. The thumbnail and the other one(s).
When you’re done finding the image, then click …
Where are my images?
It’s important to remember where you upload your images. Therefore, this too should be included as part of your documented process. e.g., All images that you plan to use within stories, should be in the /stories directory. If you have lots of categories, then it’s a good idea to have category directories within. e.g., stories/cat1
If you don’t remember where you uploaded images, it will be tough to insert them into the actual stories later.
Inserting the Thumbnail
Remember where you put that image?
You must indicate the location of the image, usually starting with images.
Align Thumbnails LEFT
Thumbnails should be aligned left, generally speaking. (sometimes people like to align right)
If you are a lefty, then do this:
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