Customising how Downloads are listed in different Categories -May 2025

Introduction

It is sometimes desirable to independently configure the way in which the Downloads in a Category are listed on a page.

These include:For example one category could list Downloads by date but another Category could list them in alphabetical order.
Some questions on the way Downloads are shown in a Category are noted below.

what sort order should be the default for this category?
is the sort bar to be shown on this category?
should Tags be shown?
are the pagination buttons to be shown?
is text such as 'Page 1 of 3' to be shown?
how many Downloads should be shown for each page?
show only featured Downloads?

The display of an individual Download entry is still controlled by the active Downloads Layout but the order is selectable as are the other attributtes as shown above.

By default the way Downloads are listed on a Category page is set in the main jDownloads Configuration

tab. This article shows how to select the way Downloads may be listed in a particular Category.

This is achieved by using several jDownloads 'Single Category' Menu items as a Hidden Menu. Only those Categories that you wish to have different listing to the default need to have a hidden menu. This scheme works because jDownloads looks first to see if a category has a menu associated with it.

Actually of course the Single Category menu items could also appear in a visible menu or as a mixture in visible and hidden menus. But for simplicity it is assummed here that only Hidden Menus will be used.

Create Hidden Menu

First we create the new Menu as it is a convenient place to place all the 'hidden' menu items.
Click on

then on

. At top left Select

.This will bring up a blank menu creation form.

Fill in the Title and a Menu Type fields such as shown opposite. It is convenient to make the Title and the Unique Name the same.

Then

This will be the menu that will hold the relevant Menu Items.

We now have the new menu so the next step is to populate it with relevant Menu Items that will have menu items to show the Downloads in specified Categories in different .

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The new Menu has a note saying "Add a module for this item" but because the menu is to be hidden we will not be adding a module.
That is we have now created a suitable hidden menu which will have the relevant menu items.

Adding Menu Items

Again select click on

the new menu, which in this example is called 'jD Hidden Menu set', will show a view like the one opposite.

We need to create the menu items that will allow setting up how a category is displayed, so click on the

button as shown opposite.

The next screen is the form for adding or editing the details of a Menu Item, as shown on the first image on the right.

Give the menu item a name, which in this example is 'Topcat Sub1b'. It is useful to use the same name as the intended category as that is easier to remember!

Click on

which will show a list of Components that support menu items as illustrated on the far right.

Click on jDownloads.

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This will show those menu item types specific to jDownloads as illustrated in the first image on the right.

Click on Single Category as indicated.

This in turn will show a view like the one on the far right.

Use the

button to choose the required Category

Use the pull down to select the required category, which in this example is
topcat-sub1b as indicated immediately opposite.

The view on the far right shows the setup of the menu item so far.

Ensure that the menu item has been set as Published and that Access is Public or otherwise set as required. Both of these are on the righthand side of the Details view. separate27

There is one other step which is to set the menu item hidden.

As indicated opposite, go to the Link Type tab and set option 'Display in Menu' to No.

Now use

on the main toolbar.

If you click on Menus and then on JdHidden Menu Set

The list of the menu items shows that Topcat Sub1b is

as shown below.

Customising the Category

To customise the attributes for the category then select the Lists Layouts tab as illustrated opposite.

This shows a variety of ways in which the attributes may selected specific to this category.

This example just shows how to select a specific sort order for the Downloads in the category but there are many other possible options that override the defaults set in the jDownloads Configuration.

Just repeat the sequence of adding Single Category menu items in the hidden menu and set the specific List Layouts as desired for each 'non standard' set of attributes.

Clearly setting the jDownload Options attributes to the most commonly required settings minimises the number of hidden menu items.