This reference guide discusses the use and configuration options of every module that’s included with Joomla 4 by default.
Module Locations
Modules are located either on the Site and can be displayed on the frontend, or they can be administrator modules which are shown in dashboards on the backend.
They can be managed from pages within the administration panel under Menu → Content → Site Modules or Menu → Content → Administrator Modules.
There are 24 site modules and 25 administrator modules included with Joomla at the time of writing.
Site Modules
Here are all the site modules with details. I’ve added stars next to the most important ones, check marks next to the ones you might use, and skulls next to the ones I think are obsolete or useless.
Description: This module will show a calendar containing the months of all archived articles. Only useful if you actually intend on using the article archive to keep old articles for reference. The dates are based on when the article was created, not when it was published or archived.
You should have a menu item linking to the archive as well before using this module, to configure how the archive appears.
Module Options:
- # of Months: The amount of months the calendar displays, starting from the latest month an article was archived.
Caching: Available
Description: This module displays a list of all the categories under a selected parent category.
You should have a menu item linking to the archive as well before using this module, to configure how the archive appears.
Module Options:
- Parent Category: The selected top-level category to retrieve other categories from.
- Category Descriptions: Select if you want the category description displayed under each category listed.
- Number of Articles: If enabled, displays a number in parentheses next to the category title. This number corresponds to the number of published articles in this category.
- Subcategories: Whether to show subcategories of the categories in the list within the module.
- # First Subcategories: The number of categories to show on the top level of the list. Look at the screenshot of the module. If I set this to 2 it would only display “Uncategoried” and “Blog” rather than all 5 categories.
- Maximum Level Depth: How far down in subcategories it will display. For example, if set to 1, it will display the subcategories of each item in the list, but not the subcategories of the subcategories.
Caching: Available
Description: Not to be confused with the previous option, which lists the categories themselves, this module will list the articles within a selected category. This module is highly customizable.
Module Options:
- Mode: Normal or Dynamic. If set to Normal, it will display the articles from the options set in the “Filtering Options” tab in the order set by the “Ordering Options” tab. If set to Dynamic, this module will display the articles from the category of the page the user is currently viewing. For example, if the user is on a page in the Blog category of your website, it displays all articles from the Blog category.
Filtering Options: These options are used to filter which articles are displayed in the list.
- Count: The amount of articles to show in this module. If zero, show all.
- Featured Articles: Whether or not to display featured articles.
- Category Filtering Type: Inclusive or Exclusive. If inclusive, it will display articles from all the categories selected. If exclusive, it will display articles from every category except the category selected.
- Category: The category(ies) you are including or excluding in this list.
- Child Category Articles: Whether to include or exclude articles within subcategories of the selected categories.
- Tags: Include/exclude articles with these tags
- Author Filtering Type:
- Inclusive – show articles from these selected authors
- Exclusive – show articles except for articles written by these authors
- Authors: The author(s) whose articles you are including or excluding per the above settings
- Author Alias Filtering Type: The same filtering as with authors, but with the author aliases instead.
- Article IDs to Exclude: Specific article IDs (number may be found in Article Manager), to exclude from the list. As a comma separated list (e.g. 1, 2, 5, 9)
- Date Filtering: If an option is selected, it will only show articles from certain selected dates
- Off: No date filtering is done
- Date Range: Filter by different date options from a certain date to a certain date.
- Relative Date: Filter by using the last number of days from the article’s creation date, publish date, or date modified.
Ordering Options: These options set the order the articles appear in the list.
- Article Field to Order By: Select how the articles are sorted. Alphabetically by title, numerically by hits, random, etc.
- Ordering Direction: Ascending or Descending. Ascending is first letter to last letter, least number to greatest number, or oldest date to newest date. Keep in mind, the first item is at the top of the list, so ascending by creation date will show the oldest created item at the top, to newest created at bottom.
Grouping Options
- Article Grouping: If selected, the module will group articles by author, tags, year, etc. The articles within each group are sorted according to the ordering options set in the previous tab.
- Grouping Direction: The direction of the groupings, ascending or descending.
Display Options Various display options related to the article properties.
- Linked Titles: Clicking the article title will take you to the article itself. Probably set to yes.
- Date: Show a selected date property (you choose what is displayed and the format).
- Category: Display the category each article belongs to in parenthesis next to the article title.
- Hits: Show hits in parenthesis next to the article title. Note that hits is not a labeled property, which may confuse users, unless you title the module “Article Hits” or something.
- Author: Displays the article’s author next to the title.
- Tags: Displays the article’s tags, which are clickable, after each article.
- Introtext: Shows a set number of characters taken from the beginning of the article.
- Read More Link: Shows a link after each article directing the user to the article itself.
Note: Display settings show information in this order by default, unless your template overrides the layout. It’s Title, Hits, Author, Category, Date, Tags, Introtext, Read more link.
Caching: Available
Description: This module displays the latest articles from selected categories, or all categories.
You could also achieve most of this with the Articles – Category module if you set the settings right.
Module Options:
- Category: The categories we’re checking for latest articles from. If none are selected, it will check articles from all categories.
- Articles to Display: The number of articles to display in this list.
- Featured Articles: Show featured articles or exclude them from the list.
- Order: Select what date property you’re using to get the latest article. By creation date? Publish date? Recently touched means last edit date. I’m not sure why they said “recently touched” here.
- Authors: Filter by who created the article. Notably, there are options to filter by last added or modified by ME. That means this module may be set so authors can see a list of their own recent articles here.
Caching: Available
Description: This module displays the most read articles in all categories or a particular category. Most read is based on HITS.
Module Options:
- Category: The categories we’re checking most hit articles from. If none are selected, it will check articles from all categories.
- Articles to Display: The number of articles to display in this list.
- Featured Articles: Show featured articles or exclude them from the list.
- Date Filtering: Provides an option to filter the most hits within a range of dates. The dates may be specific, or relative to the current date.
Caching: Available
Description: The newsflash module displays the introtext of several articles in a category of your selection. Note that it’s not animated or anything – it literally just displays the introtext, and a few other options, if selected. If you want to display the introtext of several articles and link to them, you can do it with this module. You could have it show the latest 5 articles from a category containing headline news, for example.
Suggested Positioning: Not on a sidebar, ideally in a module position with a decent amount of width above or below the main content.
If you’re looking for something more interactive, animated, or fancy, search the Joomla Extension Directory. There are better ways to display articles.
Module Options:
- Category: The category(ies) you’re sourcing the newsflash articles from.
- Tags: The tag(s) you’re sourcing from.
- Show Article Images: Show or hide images contained within the article as part of the newsflash.
- Show Intro/Full Image: Show the intro image set in the Images and Links tab of each article as part of the newsflash.
- Article Title: Show or hide the title of the article above the contents of the article.
- Linked Titles: Clicking the title links to the article, or not.
- Header Level: The heading tag to use for the title element. Higher numbers means smaller headings, usually.
- Trigger Plugin Events: If using content plugins, trigger them when displaying the newsflash.
- Last Separator: I have no idea what this option does. If you figure it out, let me know in the comments.
- Intro Text: Show the text that comes before the read more break in an article. If set to no, the contents of the article will not be shown.
- Read More Link: Show a read more link to each article after the article is displayed.
- Number of Articles: Amount of articles to show in the newsflash.
- Featured Articles: Show or exclude featured articles from the newsflash.
- Exclude Current Article: Exclude the article being shown on the current page from the newsflash, so it doesn’t appear twice on one page.
- Order Results: How to order the articles in the newsflash
- Direction: Ascending (least to greatest, oldest to newest) or descending (reverse that).
Layout Options: Default (Horizontal) or Vertical. Vertical seems to add more space between articles.
Caching: Available
Description: This module displays a list of other articles that are related to the article the user is currently viewing based on the keywords set in the SEO keywords metadata field under each article’s publishing options tab.
Module Options:
- Date: Show or hide the date the article was created next to the article in the list. There is no other date source available.
- Maximum Articles: The maximum amount of articles to show in this module.
Caching: Available
Description: This module shows a banner from the Banners component. The Banners component can be used to add image advertisements to your website. If you have sponsors, you could put their banners here.
If you’re looking to make money through advertising as a start up, you’ll be better off using Google AdSense or another ad network to deliver ads. They’re much more targeted and you’ll probably make more money that way. Unless you have sponsors lining up demanding their presence on your site, this is kind of a dated method. Most websites don’t manage their own ads this way anymore. Regardless, here are the options.
Module Options:
- Target: When a user clicks the ad, does it open in the same tab (parent) or a new tab? If set to parent window, the user will be leaving your website when they click the ad.
- Count: The number of banners to display at once. Default is 5, but 1 or 2 might be a better option. You don’t want to overwhelm visitors with ads.
- Client: Only show ads from a particular client. Clients are set in the Banners component.
- Category: Only show ads from certain banner categories. Might make sense if your site has lots of different content, and certain banners are more relevant to certain areas.
- Select by Keyword: If yes, the banners are displayed based on matching the keywords set in the banner with the meta keywords set on the page the user is viewing.
- Randomize: If yes, banners meeting the criteria above will be displayed in random order.
- Header Text: The text that is shown above the banners.
- Footer Text: The text shown below the banners.
Caching: Available
Description: Breadcrumbs show the user what page they are on your site based on the navigation structure you set up with your menus.
Module Options:
- You are here: Show the text “you are here” before the location.
- Home: Show home as the first item in any breadcrumbs dispaly.
- Text for Home Entry: Leave blank for Home. Change if you want it to be your site’s name, or if you used a different name for your home page.
- Last: Show the last item in the navigation list. This is the page the user is currently on.
Caching: Available
Description: The custom module will show any HTML code. By default, it gives you the WYSIWYG editor. You can do a lot with this module. At a simple level, you could use it to display a custom message on certain pages. You could also embed HTML here or add additional scripts and styles to certain pages. I use this to embed my Google AdSense advertisement code, so you can see annoying advertisements on this website.
Module Options:
- Custom HTML Area: You can put any valid HTML here. If pasting HTML from somewhere else, turn the WYSIWYG editor OFF by clicking toggle editor at the bottom.
Additional Options (Options Tab):
- Prepare Content: If you use any plugins and want them to work within this module, enable this option. It makes plugins work here.
- Select a Background Image: An easy way to add a custom background image to the module if you don’t know how HTML/CSS works.
Caching: Available
Description: The feed display allows you to show items from an RSS or Atom feed. Just copy/paste the feed URL and it will load the items.
I used a feed from CNN. The articles were so depressing I blurred them out to keep them off this site and protect my happy bubble. The world we live in…
RSS feeds aren’t as popular as they used to be.
This module is only for displaying feeds. To generate a feed from your content, use the Syndication Feeds module instead.
Module Options:
- Feed URL: The URL of the feed you’re using. Usually ends with .rss
- RTL Feed: RTL means right to left. If you’re feed is in a language that’s RTL, enable this option.
- Feed Title: Show the title of the feed in the module.
- Feed Description: Show the description found for the feed under the title.
- Feed Date: Show the date the feed is from.
- Feed Image: Show the image from the feed. Usually a logo from the provider.
- Items to Display: How many items to load from the feed.
- Item Description: Show text description of each item, if provided.
- Publication Date: Show the date each individual item was published at the end of each item.
- Word Count: How many words to show from the description.
Caching: Available
Description: This module just shows a copyright notice, the name of your site, and a link to Joomla. You could achieve the same thing with the custom module if you wanted, and get rid of the backlink to Joomla. If you like supporting Joomla, keep it.
Module Options:
- There are no specific module options. It uses the site title set in Global Config.
Caching: Available
Description: This module allows your users to switch the language they’re viewing content in.
Note that you have to already have separate content languages installed and configured. You need separate menus for each language, content items in each language, etc.
Without the content language options configured properly, nothing will show when you publish this module. It will be a blank box.
If you’ve got all that configured, here are the options for this module:
Description: This module simply shows the usernames of the people who most recently registered accounts on your website.
For security and privacy reasons, you might not want this module to be accessible to everyone, as some people use their real names in usernames.
Description: The login module allows registered users to log into your website. If registration is enabled, it will show a link allowing the user to create an account. Also contains links to reset passwords and username via email if they forgot.
When the user is logged in, the login module will display their name or username.
Module Options:
- Pre-text: The text or HTML shown directly above the login form.
- Post-text: The text or HTML shown directly below the login form.
- Login Redirection Page: The page the user is taken to when they’re successfully logged in. You could make this their user profile, or just an article that says “Welcome!”. Default is home page.
- Logout Redirection Page: Where the user is taken when they log out. Default is home.
- Registration Page: The page the user is taken to when they click the button to create an account. May be useful if you’re using a third party extension to handle user registration. Default if blank is the Joomla User Registration page.
- Greeting: Says “Hi,” and the person’s name or username when they’re logged in.
- Name/Username: Show the name or username with greeting.
- Profile Link: Show a link to the users profile in the login form when the user is logged in.
- Display Labels: Next to the fields of the login form, show icons or text labels.
Caching: Not Available
Description: The menu module displays a menu from the menu manager.
The way menus are displayed can be highly influenced by the template and style options you’re using. Read your template’s documentation for more information on placing and styling menus.
The main menu usually goes in the menu module position.
Module Options:
- Select Menu: The menu this module is displaying
- Base Item: The base item for this menu. This may be used to display only a portion of a menu. The way this works ties in with the next menu item option (start level). If the start level is the same level as this item, it will show all items at this level, and then only the child items of this menu item. If you only want to show the children menu items of this base item, you must set the start level to be 1 level below the level of this item.
- Start Level: Which level to begin listing menu items from. 1 lists all top-level menu items, 2 lists their children, 3 is their children’s children, and so on.
- End Level: How deep this menu goes. If you have many levels of child menu items, you might not want to show them all at once.
- Sub-menu Items: If set to show, will show sub-menu items according to the levels set in the previous option. If set to Hide, will only show the start level items.
Advanced/Developer Notes:
The advanced tab has some more options specific to menus. The Joomla menu module displays each menu item as part of an unordered list.
- Menu Tag ID: The html ID attribute assigned to the unordered list containing all the menu items.
- Menu Class: A class added to the unordered list element containing all the menu items.
Caching: Available
Description: This module displays a randomly selected image from a path of your choosing.
Module Options:
- Image Type: The file type to look for. e.g. jpg, webp, png
- Image Folder: Where to pull the random images from, based on the root directory of your Joomla installation. For example, if you have a folder called “random” in your images folder, you would put images/random here.
- Link: Where it takes the user when they click the image. Can be external or internal. Target is self (opens in current window/tab).
- Width: The width to constrain images displayed in this module to. Note that this does not resize the actual images, just affects how they’re displayed.
- Height: The height, if any, to constrain images to. If blank, will use whatever height preserves the aspect ratio of the original image.
Caching: Not Available
Description: Displays a text box the user can type search queries into. The search results are handled by the Smart Search component.
Most templates have a dedicated module position for search.
Module Options:
- Search Filter: You can filter search results based on a filter defined in the filters area of the smart search component settings.
- Search Suggestions: Some top results will load immediately as the user is typing.
- Advanced Search: Display the advanced search options in the search module
- Hide: Don’t show the advanced search options
- Show: Show all the options
- Link to Component: Show a link to the advanced search options
- Search Field Label: Label the search box as “Search”
- Alternative Label: Use different text in the label set in the last step
- Search Button: Show or hide the search button next to the search box. Otherwise, the user can just hit enter/return to search.
- OpenSearch: OpenSearch is a standard open format for using and getting results from search engines. An example would be the search results you see in your browser window when you type something in the address bar. You probably don’t need this feature unless you plan on allowing your users to access your search results from outside your website in some manner.
- OpenSearch Name: The name of your site’s search engine used in OpenSearch
- Set ItemID: If your website has a link to the search page in its menu somewhere, set this to match that item.
Caching: Not Available
Description: Displays some basic information about your website. May be useful for administrators. Not information you need to make public.
All of this information can be found in one form or another in the Admin panel.
You must show at least one option, or this module won’t display anything.
Module Options:
- Server Information: Displays Operating System, PHP Version, MySQLi Version, Server’s Current Time, Caching Status, and Gzip status.
- Site Information: Displays the total number of users and articles your site contains.
- Hit Counter: Displays the total number of hits across all articles.
- Increase Counter: Inflates the hit counter by this number.
Caching: Not Available
Description: Creates a link to an RSS or Atom feed generated by Joomla for whatever page the module is being displayed on. The module should be on a category page of some sort (category list, category blog). If it’s displaying something else, the module will not be shown.
The user may use this link to show a feed on their own Joomla site, or it may be used with a feed reader.
RSS feeds may be useful for blind users using assistive technologies, or in situations where connections are heavily restricted and loading your entire site is implausible.
Module Options:
- Label: The label given to the feed – the text shown in the module that the user clicks to get to the feed.
- Display Label: Display the above label or not. If set to not, it will just show the RSS logo by itself.
- Feed Format: Feeds may be generated in either RSS or Atom format. Select your choice here.
Caching: Not Available
Description: This module displays the most popular article tags used in your website. It’s based on the number of items in that tag category.
Module Options:
- Parent Tag: You may restrict tags shown to tags under one parent tag, if you want. Leaving this blank uses all tags across all articles.
- Maximum Tags: The maximum amount of tags to show in the list.
- Time Period: The time period to include tags from. If you want it to ignore older tags for relevance, you could set it to only use the last month or the last year of tags.
- Order: The value the tags are ordered by – default starts with number of items
- Direction: The direction of the order. Ascending is going up in value, descending is going down. So descending by number of items will sort from highest number of items to least.
- Display Number of Items: Display the number of items associated with each tag next to the tag labels
- Show No results text: Displays the message “no results” if there are no results found.
Cloud Layout
You can use a cloud layout by setting the layout setting in the advanced tab to “cloud” instead of “default.” This will display the tags in a cloud, where the size of each tag is based on the number of items attached to that tag. There are some cloud layout options as well:
- Minimum Font Size: The font size for smaller items (tags with less items in them appear smaller)
- Maximum Font Size: The font size for tags with the most items
Caching: Available
Description: This module displays related articles based on the tags the article currently being viewed has. For example, if two articles have the same 3 tags, they’ll be closely related. Each article page would likely show a link to the other in this list.
Module Options:
- Maximum Items: The maximum amount of articles to show
- Match Type: How the similarities are found
- Any: Includes articles with any of the same tags as this article.
- All: Includes only articles with all the same tags as this article.
- Half: Includes articles with at least half the same tags as this article.
- Order Results: How the articles are ordered – By number of matching tags (the default) probably makes the most sense.
Caching: Available
Description: Displays the total number of guests and registered users online, the usernames of the logged in users online, or both.
Module Options:
- Display: Select if you want it to show number of guests and registered users online, their usernames, or both.
- Filter Groups: You must show usernames or both in the above option. If yes, this will only show the usernames of users of the current user group and below. For example, guests will not be able to see any usernames. Registered users can see all other registered users online. Super Users can see every username that’s online. etc.
Caching: Not Available
Description: An iFrame is an area that displays another webpage within a webpage. iFrames are most commonly used to embed YouTube videos and similar content hosted elsewhere. If you have an embed code, you’re probably better off embedding it by pasting into a custom module rather than using this module.
Module Options:
- URL: The URL of the page being embedded.
- Auto Add http:// Adds the http:// at the start of the URL if not provided.
- Width: The width of the iFrame in web pixels or percent.
- Height: The height of the iFrame in web pixels or percent.
- Auto Height: Automatically sets the height to match the content, in which case the last option may be ignored.
- Target Name: The name of the iFrame if being used by other scripts.
- Lazy Loading: Only load this content when the user scrolls down to it.
Caching: Available – the contents of the iFrame itself are not cached, unless the page being displayed in the iFrame itself uses caching.