> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://playground.e107sk.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://playground.e107sk.com/e107-aragorn-theme/plugins/news/news-grid.md).

# News grid

The news grid is a menu that shows recent articles as a card grid. In Aragorn it is meant for the home page, as one section among the featurebox sections — not for `news.php`, which has its own listing.

## Placing it

Two ways, both valid.

### Menu Manager

**Admin → Menus**, drag *News Grid* into a menu area of the home layout. Its settings — how many items, which category, which layout — are on the menu's own configuration form.

### Directly in the layout

Write it into `layouts/home_layout.html`:

```html
{MENU: path=news/news_grid&caption=Latest news&limit=6&source=latest&featured=1&layout=col-lg-4}
```

This route is useful when the grid should always be in a fixed position and you would rather not have it movable from the admin area.

## Parameters

| Parameter  | Does                                              |
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| `layout`   | Which card layout — see the table below           |
| `limit`    | How many articles                                 |
| `source`   | `latest`, `sticky`, or a category                 |
| `featured` | How many of the first articles get the large card |
| `caption`  | Section heading — see below                       |

## Available layouts

| `layout` value | Result                                              |
| -------------- | --------------------------------------------------- |
| `col-lg-4`     | Three cards per row on large screens, two on medium |
| `col-md-4`     | Three per row                                       |
| `col-md-3`     | Four per row                                        |
| `col-md-6`     | Two per row                                         |
| `media-list`   | Compact rows with a thumbnail, no cards             |

The first article can be given a full-width horizontal card by setting `featured` to `1`.

## Section heading

The grid only gets Aragorn's section wrapper — the `<section>` band with a centred heading — when a **caption** is set. Without one, the cards are output on their own with no wrapper and no heading, and any `{SETSTYLE=...}` before the menu appears to do nothing.

```html
{SETSTYLE=section}
{MENU: path=news/news_grid&caption=Latest news&limit=6&layout=col-lg-4}
```

There is no in-between: either a caption and the section band, or neither. For a band with no heading, write the `<section>` markup around the menu in the layout file yourself.

The same applies to the Menu Manager route — fill in the menu's caption field.

{% hint style="info" %}
If a grid has no articles to show — an empty category, or `sticky` with no sticky articles — nothing is output at all, not even an empty band. Sections that can legitimately be empty will not leave a gap on the page.
{% endhint %}

## Link to all news

Every grid layout ends with a *All news* button linking to the full news listing, so the grid can sit on a landing page without the article list behind it. The button's label comes from `LAN_THEME_NEWS_ALL` in the theme's language file; translate it there.

## Known issue: the Featured setting

{% hint style="danger" %}
The **Featured** setting on the Menu Manager form has no effect — this is a bug in e107 itself, not in the theme, and it has been reported upstream. The form saves the value under a different name than the one the news renderer reads.

Until it is fixed, place the grid directly in the layout instead and write `featured=1` in the parameters, which works correctly.
{% endhint %}