Using the Joomla! Contact Component

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Using The Joomla! Contact Component as a Business Directory

Note: This tutorial assumes that you have administrative access when logging into the Joomla! back end.

Log Into Joomla!’s back end:
Go to your Joomla! website and log into the back end by typing in your user details.(Figure 1)

Create a New Category in the Contacts Component:In Joomla!’s back end menu, go to the components menu. In the list of sub menu’s that drop down you will see the contacts manager. The contacts anager also has sub menus that pop out to the right. Select the categories menu. (Figure 2)

Click new to create a new contacts category. (Figure 3)

In the contacts category editor you will have to create a title for the contact category, and then ptionally an alias. (Figure 4)

Note: Category Aliases are totally optional, but strongly recommended for Joomla! 1.5 default Search Engine Optimized URLs. (SEO URLs)

While it isn’t required, you might want to go ahead and put in a description of the contact category you’ve created. (Figure 5)

Once you have a title, alias and description you can save the contact category. Saving the category will take you back to the contact category manager. (Figure 6)

Create a C ontact Entry:Now that you have a contacts category, you can add to it with entries, such as businesses, organizations, etc… Go back to the contacts menu, and rather than clicking categories, click contacts. (Figure 7)

Once you are in the contacts manager, click new to create a new contacts entry. (Figure 8) 

The next screen will display a title, which is required, and optionally an alias. The last area we need to check is the category. This is going to be the category we just created. Click the drop box and select the appropriate category. (Figure 9)

Once you’ve finished adding all the information you want, you can also change parameters on the right to suit. Save the contact, you will be taken back to the Contacts Manager. (Figure 10)

Create a Contact Category Layout: Go to the menus menu, for the purpose of this demonstration, we will be creating a menu item (specifically a contact category layout item) in the main menu menu. (Figure 11)

Once you reach the menu manager for the main menu, on the right there are several icons, click new to create a new menu. (Figure 12)

On the next screen you need to choose why type of menu to create. Select the Contacts type. (Figure 13)

The next screen shows the two different types of contact menu items you can create. For the purpose of a ‘business directory’, you should should select the contact category layout type. (Figure 14)

The menu Item Editor will give you the opportunity to insert a menu Item title, as well as an alias, and then select which menu you want the item to be displayed on. (Figure 15)

There is one last step before you can save the menu item and return to the menu manager, and that is to select the category of contacts you want this menu item to be driven to. This is done through the parameter tab on the right. Select the same category that we created and entered a contact item into. (Figure 16)

The final step will be to save the menu item. (Figure 17)

This method of using the Joomla! Contact Component gives Joomla! 1.5 a nice ‘business directory’ like function. A nice addition to any business directory is showing all the ‘categories’ in once place, so that people can see them all. So, keep reading if you’d like to find out how to do this little extra ‘trick’ to spice up your Joomla! directory.

Additional Trick: Create An Article Displaying All Your Contact Categories