Frontend Editor lets you decide which fields an author sees when they edit a Joomla article on the site. You build a form profile in the administrator and attach it to a menu item. Articles opened or created through that menu item use the profile; every other menu item keeps the standard Joomla form.

How it fits together

• Form profile: the layout of the edit form. It holds the tabs, the columns, the fields and their order, the values for new articles and the buttons under the form.
• Menu item: a Category List, Category Blog or Create Article menu item. It decides which profile is used.
• System plugin: shows the form as the profile lays it out and applies the profile when the article is saved.

Your first profile in five steps

1. Go to Components > Frontend Editor and click New.
2. Enter a Profile name, for example News.
3. On the Form tab you start with the complete standard Joomla form in four tabs: Content, Images and Links, Options and Publishing. Remove what your client does not need, and drag fields back from Available fields. Title and Category are needed for every new article.
4. Open the Menu Assignment tab and tick the menu items that should use this profile.
5. Click Save, then Preview on the site in the toolbar to open the form on the frontend.

The author then gets this form on the site:

Next steps

• Create a form profile: tabs, columns and buttons.
• Field settings: labels, help texts, required fields.
• Hidden fields and default values: give a field a value without showing it.