A quick step-by-step guide on installing and setting up K2

-- by Florante Bautista

K2 is a content component for Joomla! with CCK-like features developed by JoomlaWorks.

It allows you to manage your content in a more fashionable manner. You can publish blog, catalog, directory and magazine using a single component. Its development was started in 2006 but up to now no documentation was published. There's a video tutorial but I wasn't able to watch it because of my slow connection.

I wrote this tutorial for those who want to use and explore K2 but have no idea where to start.

STEP 1. Download the latest version of K2 from the JED or from JoomlaWorks.

STEP 2. Install K2 using the Joomla EXTENSION MANAGER.

STEP 3. Open K2 dashboard from the COMPONENT MENU.

STEP 4. Create EXTRA FIELD GROUPS. Name your field groups Blog, Catalog, Directory or anything you want. Extra Field Groups are used as root for your categories.

STEP 5. Add EXTRA FIELDS for your extra field groups.

Default: Title, Text and Image are the default fields. This could be readily used for your Articles, Blogs or News groups. Add extra field for Directories, Catalogs, and other extra field groups.

STEP 6. Add CATEGORIES. Associate extra field group for your categories. You can create categories for your Blog, Catalog or Directory. Configure your desired parameters.

STEP 7. Add USER GROUPS. Defaults are Registered and Site Owner. If you want certain user group to be able to add item at the frontend, select yes for FRONT-END ITEM EDITING, yes for ADD ITEMS, yes on how they edit an item: OWN or ALL, and yes for PUBLISH, if you want users to publish their own articles.

DO NOT FORGET TO ASSIGN CATEGORIES for your user group. Options are all, none, and select from list.

STEP 8. Assign your existing users their own K2 USER GROUP. Set their gender, add description, and upload an image for their avatar. These details will appear as author’s detail at the bottom of their articles if enabled in your category parameters.

STEP 9. Add tags.

STEP 10. Assign menus using the Menu Manager.

Options:
Copy or form layout
Item – create a menu item directly to an item in K2
Categories – displays a list of items from one or more categories.
Tag – create a menu linking to a tag in K2
User Page (blog) – create a menu item linking to a user page (blog layout)

STEP 11. Publish K2 LOGIN module in module manager.

You can also publish K2 COMMENTS and K2 CONTENTS if you want certain contents and comments appear in your module positions.

STEP 12. Add an item for each category. If you followed Step 7, an ADD AN ITEM menu will appear in K2 login module. This allows certain users to add an item at the frontend.

Frontend editing is a little off because the creator of K2 used a squeezebox instead of a standard form. The save and cancel button can't be seen (or hidden) if you are using desktops or laptops with small screen.

There are other parameters that need to be configured. I'll leave that to you for experimenting and exploring capabilities of K2.