Estimated Reading Time

Installation

This plugin is installed as a regular Joomla Plugin, so just grab the installation package and put it into your Joomla! Extension installer and click install.

Usage

After installing the plugin go to the plugin manager in your Joomla! site and click on the plugin name for configuring it.

You can configure following settings:

  • Excluded Categories. Use this to specify categories which articles will not show Estimated Reading Time.

  • Use Default Styling. With this setting you can specify if you want to use default styling or specify your custom style below.

  • Custom Styling. Here you can add your custom css for the article reading time text. Text here will be included in a style HTML property of the container tag.

  • Hide Output. This option makes the plugin to not add the reading time to your article layout. This is useful if you want to use reading time directly in a template override for your article.

Template Overrides

Since version 3.4.0 you can now use template overrides to customize plugin output and you can also integrate reading time values directly in your article template overrides.

Customizing plugin output with templates overrides

You just need to copy the file:

plugins/content/readingtime/tmpl/default

to the folder

templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/plg_content_readingtime/default.php

and modify styling there as per your needs.

Adding reading time directly to your template overrides.

If you want to include reading time information directly into your template override, since version 3.4.0 you can easily do it. If you check the item object in your article template, you will notice there is a new property called readingtime. This property is an object with 3 properties:

  • $this->item->readingtime->slowtime : The slower time your users might take reading the article
  • $this->item->readingtime->quicktime : The quicker time your users might take reading the article
  • $this->item->readingtime->formattedtime : The plugin output, which you can override using directions in previous section.
  • $this->item->readingtime->wordCount (Since 3.5.1) : The number of words in the article.

Demo

We currently have no demo site for this, but you can see in action in the blog of ManualesJoomla.es where we show the plugin using a template overrides and even a language override!!

Translation Credits

Estimated Reading Time plugin is available in English, Spanish and Dutch. Thanks to:

  • Arabic - Hayat
  • Dutch - Wouter Franken
  • French - Marc-Antoine Thevenet
  • German - Alexander Schmidt
  • Italian - Vicenzo (tecnico10)
  • Spanish - Carlos Cámara
  • Slovenian -  Ervin Bizjak (www.radiotomi.si)
  • Turkish

If you want to become a translator, please let me know contacting me through the custom work form.

Help needed

If you speak a language which is not listed above, please send me a line ;).

Extensions Hepta