Fields in jDownloads

jDownloads 3.9 and higher releases support Joomla! Fields.  These are more powerful and have more types than the jDownloads Custom Fields available in earlier jDownloads releases.  One consequence is that the 3.2 Custom Fields are no longer supported in jDownloads 3.9.

When upgrading from the jD3.2 series to the 3.9 series the old style jD Custom fields are automatically converted to Joomla Fields.

Also of course Fields and Field Groups may be multilingual. But note that the Fields and Field Groups discussed here are those that have been created in jDownloads.

Field titles and contents are displayed in the frontend  using placeholders {jdfield_title id} and {jdfield id} where id is the relevant id of the required Field created in jDownloads.

Please ensure that there is only a single space between jdfield_title and the id value, simarly just a single space between jdfield and the id value.

In this example we will first create a Field Group as placing Fields in a group simplifies using them when subsequently creating or editing Downloads.  One instance is that when creating a Field then the permissions are taken from those set in its Field Group.  Another is that when editting in the frontend all the Fields in a Field Group are shown in a single tab.

Fields do not have to be in a Field Group, in effect when not in an explicit group they then belong in the 'ungrouped' group!

Select in the jDownloads Control Panel and then click on .  The Field Group Create panel will appear.

Give the group a suitable Title which in this example is 'Field Group1-ALL'.
Note:The ALL  is my convention here to denote that the default language setting  'All' has been used. Later in this article, in the multilingual section, there are three more Field Groups called 'Field-Group-EN', 'Fied-Group-FR' and 'Field-Group-DE' for Enlish, French and German languages respectively.

The Options tab has just one setting 'Display When Read-Only'.

This is best left at the default value 'Yes'.  This setting will, by default, be inherited by any Field that is a member of the Field Group.

On the Permissions Tab set up the relevant permissions for those User Groups that are to be allowed to create/edit in the Front End.
Note You should first Save the new Field Group before setting up Permissions. This is to do with the way Joomla saves permissions.  Basically the permissions are stored in the Assets table. It needs an index to the Field Group before it can save the permissions but this index is not allocated until the FG is saved.

The next step is to create the relevant Fields.  In this example there are three Fields, a simple 'Text' field, a 'Colour' field and a 'Radio' field.

So select   and then click on which will open the Fields create/edit form.  Here we initially show details of creating a Text  type as that covers most required fields.  Field types like Text and Colour only have one Text and one Value to enter.  Later we also show creating a Radio field as it has multiple text/value possibilities.

When there is no Default Value then the Field will not be shown until it is editted and given a value in the relevant Download.

If you do specify a Default Value then this value will appear in all Downloads that have not had an explicit value entered.

Ensure you set the Field Group by using the pull down.

Important!! Always leave the Category as All as Joomla! only supports its own article categories!

The Options tab basically deals with how the Field text and value are to be shown in the Front End, but note the Automatic Display setting.

The items in the 'Form Options' section allow styling how the text and value will appear also in the Edit Form.

The settings in the 'Render Options' section mainly style the look of the Text and Value as they are to appear in the frontend view.

However the Automatic Display setting controls where the text and value will appear in the Front End.  This is discussed in more detail later.

As a starting point it is strongly suggested the 'Automatic Display' option is set to 'Do not Automatically Display'.

And then do a . 

'

The Publishing Tab allows setting or changing the created Date.

The Created By, Modified Date and Modified By entries  are auto filled.

'

The default setting for permissions is that they are inherited from the Permissions set in the Field Group.  But they do need to be set separately if the Field is not in a Field Group.  If the Fields have been 'imported' from the 'custom fields'  of jD 3.2 site then you will need to set the permisions on every field type separately.

Setting up the Options, Publishing and Permissions tabs is similar in all Field types.

To add the Radio Text and Values click on the button for each radio button you wish to have.  Enter in the  Text  column the 'question' that the user will see, and in the Value column specify the vaue, which is actually text, that will be returned to the code when the button is selected in the front end.

Field types like Text and Colour only have one Text and one Value to enter.

In a multilingual site only those of the same language as currently in use and the All languge items are shown in the frontend.

Thus when editing or creating a Download there will be 'tabs' for the 'All' group and the relevant language.  If there are 'ungrouped' fields then they will also have a tab.  In practice a true multilingual site would not have the 'All' set; and in a non multilingual site there would normally only the 'All' setting would be used as the language selector.

Diferent views occur for non-multilingual sites, where all content has ALL for the Download Language, and Multilingual sites which use language specifiers such as {de-DE}.

As illustrated below if the language field is set for ALL then when editting the 'language' Field Groups as well as the ALL Field Group are shown.  This is to enable consistency across languages for the 'answer'.

But of course when showing in a non multi language site only the Field Groups set to ALL are shown.

Example views of the tabs that are present when editing/creating a Download in the frontend for a mixed multilingual and 'All' site are shown below.  In a 'pure' multilingual site there would be no ALL Field Group.

In the first two examples there are tabs for the current language and for All.

For a 'pure' multilingual site there would be no 'All' tab.

One is free to set completely different 'questions' and response values.

Whilst the response values would be different in different Downloads, it is clearly good practice to make the 'question' text logically identical across languages.

Showing jDownloads fields in the front end is only available in a Download or Download Details layout information block;

The Downloads use the place holders {jdfield_title id} and {jdfield id} where id is the relevant id of the required field.

In this example the Fields are shown as part of the Information section of the Compact layout.

The situation with Fields in multilingual sites is similar but to work properly you need to use the jDownloads multilingual placeholders like {en-Gb}, {de-DE} and so on to select the appropriate one.

 

Colin M  March 2020, updated May 2021, March 2022