Hi ARI. I bought the Smart Content package, with a particular interest in the Data Tables. I read all the positive reviews about ease of use, etc., watched the tutorial video, looked over the documentation - and felt completely lost. I've built articles and custom modules in Joomla before - but the discussion of putting plugin code into an article, starting with a module, went right over my head. Need help with this learning curve, so I can use the Tables, and also the other tools in the Smart Content kit.

Essentially what I want to do is create some sort of consistent table format that appears on many catalog and product pages (articles) in my website (selling sheet music downloads), with unique product info for each page.

Is there some way I can create a template of some kind with DropTables to plug into different product pages (Joomla articles) and then just customize the data for each? (Song Titles; song versions available; links to related pages, etc.)

Once established, can the lines of the table be reordered or deleted? And will the data in the table show up in Joomla search? (They do in tables I created in JCE, but don't in another Tabless extension I tried. JCE didn't retain the styling I put into the original table, when it was copied to a new page, or even a new location on the same page. Hence, my search for another tool for this task, without the problems of these other two methods I've tried.)

Hello,

Do you want to show data from a database?

BTW, modules from "ARI Smart Content" extension can be easily inserted into articles with help of "Button - ARI Smart Content Module" plugin. It adds "ARI Smart Content" button to Joomla! editors. Just check that "Button - ARI Smart Content Module" and "System - ARI Smart Content - Load Module" plugins are enabled.

Regards,
ARI Soft

Hi ARI. No, no database involved. I just want to display product information for my music site, as follows:

1) First, in a simple product page, beginning with a table at the top listing available song versions, and linking to the buttons that activate purchase through my shopping cart. See my template for this here: morninglightmusic.org/programs/test-2.

(The table at the top of this page was created in JCE, and contains basic text at the left with version names, and to the right plugged in code generating "Buy Now" and other buttons to facilitate purchase. However, you'll see that when I tried to copy this table, which I intended to do across all my pages, the formatting changed (see the copied table at the bottom of the page.) That's when I went to JED searching for an extension to create prettier tables and other visual elements to display product info within articles.

2) Second, in a simple catalog table listing available products, each linked at a product page (see example here : morninglightmusic.org/programs/test-1. Currently this displays a table created in another extension, DropTables. It's pretty - but can't be searched anymore like when I display this information as core Joomla text, as below the table; or in a table created in JCE. These remain searchable, and also visible within the article. But they looked really "clunky," which is why I was searching for a tool to improve visual display on information in these tables.

I did activate the plugins you noted - thank you! So now I need to understand - do you need to create each table, accordion, carousel, tab, etc. first in the module manager, save it to a specific name, then plug it in with this button within the article? Particularly for product info, that could be hundreds of different modules, routed to hundreds of different pages. What's the best way to handle that? Particularly in a way that keeps the content searchable?

ARI Smart Content - Data Table application from "ARI Smart Content" is used to show data from databases and CSV files. It also supports ability converting static HTML tables to table widget with paging, sorting and other features.

Documentation for the extension is available here. Most of applications from the extension contains a module and a plugin so it is possible to use these application as module or plugin. For example, if you want to add accordion into an article, ARI Smart Content - Accordion plugin can be used for this purpose and the following plugin code can be placed into an article:



Regards,
ARI Soft

So - if I'm using JCE as my editor, I assume I toggle from the WYSIWYG view to the html view to plug in this code?

Will table content be searchable using this method?

What is the difference between a "Data Table" and an "HTML Table?" Which is better for basic display of content like I'm describing (product version, images generated from button code, links to other pages on the website)?

"HTML Table" is used to show data from databases and CSV files as a plain HTML table. "Data Table" is used if want to data in a table with paging, searching, sorting and etc. "Data Table" is also supports server side pagination (useful for a large data).

If "Data Table" is used to convert a static HTML table then this data will be visible in Joomla! search otherwise (when show data from a database or a CSV file), it will not be visible in Joomla! search.

Plugin codes will be visible in design mode of a WYSIWYG editor, but be carefully if want to edit it in design mode because WYSIWYG editors can add extra HTML code or modify the inserted code when cop-paste is used.

Regards,
ARI Soft