Introduction

In this video we’ll take a look at the Pro version of Modules Anywhere.

In the previous video we looked at the basics of the Free version. We have already seen how to place a single module - or a module position - anywhere on your website.

We’ve also seen how to customize the style of the module. And how to use the Editor Button to help us along.

Now let’s take a closer look at the exciting features that the Pro version of Modules Anywhere has to offer!

In this video we will be working with the latest Modules Anywhere Pro version 7.8.0. And what you see here is a Joomla 3.9.1 setup.
If you are using newer versions, things might look a bit different.

Parameter overriding

{module title="Login Form" style="well" showtitle="false"}

In the previous video we have seen how to control whether we want to show the title of the module or not.

We did that by adding a “showtitle” attribute to the {module} tag, with a value of either “true” or “false”, depending on our intention.

The Pro version takes it a huge step further, allowing us to override any parameter from the module settings.

This makes it possible to have the same module displayed with different settings.

For example, let’s take a look at this “Animals” module.

As you see, this module is set to display up to 10 articles from the “Animals” category.

But what if in a different place of the website we wanted to display only 3 articles from the “Animals” category? Normally, we would have to duplicate this module and change this “Count” setting.

With Modules Anywhere Pro, we can place the same module, and change the settings on the fly.

So back to our article.

Here we can change the number of articles displayed by the module by simply adding a “count” attribute. Let’s say we want to show only 3 articles.

{module title="Animals" style="well" showtitle="false" count="3"}

There you go. We are using the same module but changing just the setting for the number of displayed items.

We’re back in the “Animals” module now. To find the exact parameter name of the setting we want to override, we can look at the html output of the module edit page. Or use the “Element Inspector” in your browser. We’ll do that.

So we just right-click on the desired field, and select “Inspect” or “Inspect Element” - depending on your browser. Here, in the inspector, we can see the form element and its “name” attribute. It includes jforms[params], and then the actual name of the field. So what we need is the part in the brackets after [params]. In this case, it is ‘count’.

For example, we could even change the Category parameter to something else in our module tag. Let’s see what the field name for the Category setting is.

Here it is. In this case, the field name is ‘catid’. And it is has the category ID as the value. So if we want to overrule this in our {module} tag, we’ll need to find the category ID. Let’s say we want to display the same module but with articles from the “Fruit” category instead. And here we can see that the ID of the “Fruit” category is number 9.

Going back to our article with the module tag, we add a “catid” attribute, and we tell it to show articles from that “Fruit” category, so number 9.

{module title="Animals" style="well" showtitle="false" catid="9"}

Let’’s see what that does.

Now we have our inserted module. It shows us the articles from the Fruit category. But it uses all the other settings from the original Animals module. Like the ordering, filtering and display options.

Imagine the possibilities! We can do this with any module and override any available module parameter.

Frontend Editing

With the Pro version of Modules Anywhere, we can also take advantage of a cool extra feature: the ability to edit modules - placed through Modules Anywhere - on the frontend.

Here in the Modules Anywhere Plugin Settings, we can change the “Frontend Editing” option.
By setting this to “Default”, it means the option will match the “Inline Editing” setting in your Global Configuration.

If that is enabled, we can see this edit button when hovering over the module. And clicking on it brings us to the frontend edit screen of the original module.

Advanced Security Control

The Pro version also offers us advanced Security Control over who can use the extension and where it can be used.

We can disable the use of the plugin tags by certain User Group Levels and in certain Components.

This can be useful on websites with multiple people that have rights to create and publish content.

You can prevent lower level user types to be able to insert modules, or you can avoid Modules Anywhere to be used in components you might not want it to work in.

We will take a more in-depth look at all the Modules Anywhere Plugin Settings in the next video.

Support Forum

And finally, don’t forget that the Pro version of Modules Anywhere also grants you exclusive access to the extension Support Forum, where you can receive prompt answers to any of your questions.

Recap

So just to recap.

We learned how to override any module parameter to further customize the display of our modules.

And we’ve seen more extra features offered by the Pro version, such as Frontend Editing and Advanced Security Control.

Head over to the Modules Anywhere Tutorial for more details on all of the features. Or stay tuned for other videos that look more in depth at specific functionalities.

In the next video we’ll walk through all the settings which help you control how Modules Anywhere works.