The DirectPHP plugin which I released in March 2008 allows you to include PHP commands in content items only.

This article shows you how to include PHP commands right inside Section/Category description.

You can see a live example here.

Solutions

1. Download and install. First you need to download and install the plugin DirectPHP for Section/Category Description.

2. Publish the plugin. Go to Mambots - Site Mambots and make sure the plugin is published.
3. Add Trigger #1. In the original Joomla installation, there is no trigger during the display of Section/Category description. When there is no trigger, none of the plugin gets called. In order for Joomla to call the new plugin that we have just installed to include a module, we need to add a trigger.

Note: If you've already installed the plugin loadmodule for Section/Category Description, you can skip this step.
The same trigger will trigger both plugins.

1. Go to the folder <Joomla root folder>/components/com_content, you will see a file called content.html.php.
2. Open this file content.html.php in your favorite editor.
3. Go to around Line 28. In the function showContentList(), add the three lines highlighted in yellow to the start of the function as follows:

class HTML_content {
    /**
    * Draws a Content List
    * Used by Content Category & Content Section
    */
    function showContentList( $title, &$items, &$access, $id=0, $sectionid=NULL, 
        $gid, &$params, &$pageNav, $other_categories, &$lists, $order, 
        $categories_exist ) {

        global $_MAMBOTS;
        $_MAMBOTS->loadBotGroup( 'content' );
        $results = $_MAMBOTS->trigger( 'onBeforeDisplayTitle', array( &$title) );

        global $Itemid, $mosConfig_live_site;

        if ( $sectionid ) {
            $id = $sectionid;
        }

4. Add Trigger #2. You need one more trigger if you're using the "Blog - Content Category".
1. Go to the folder <Joomla root folder>/components/com_content, you will see a file called content.php.
2. Open this file content.php in your favorite editor.
3. Go to around Line 1227. In the function BlogOutput(), add the three lines highlighted in yellow to the start of the function as follows:

// Secrion/Category Description & Image
if ( $menu && $menu->componentid && ( $descrip || $descrip_image ) ) {
	$link = $mosConfig_live_site .'/images/stories/'. $description->image;
	echo '<tr>';
	echo '<td valign="top">';
	if ( $descrip_image && $description->image ) {
		echo '<img src="'. $link .'" align="'. 
		    $description->image_position .'" hspace="6" alt="" />';
	}
	if ( $descrip && $description->description ) {
		global $_MAMBOTS;
		$_MAMBOTS->loadBotGroup( 'content' );
		$results = $_MAMBOTS->trigger(
		    'onBeforeDisplayTitle', array( &$description) );
		echo $description->description;
	}
	echo '<br/><br/>';
	echo '</td>';
	echo '</tr>';
}

// Leading story output
if ( $leading ) {
	echo '<tr>';
	echo '<td valign="top">';

4. Save and close this file.

5. That's it! You can now include PHP commands right inside the Section/Category description!
6. To try if it works, edit any section or category description, and copy the following text into the description:

Current date and time is: <?php echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s');?>

You should see the current date and time displayed in the section or category description.

7. There are more examples in DirectPHP plugin. You will also find explanations on how to customize the block list.

Very Important Note about the Editor!!!

If you're using the default TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor, you will face one problem. When you first enter PHP commands into the editor, encapsulated in <?php ... ?>, everything's ok. But as soon as you click the save button, all your PHP commands will disappear!

Don't worry. They are all still there. But the problem is, unlike content items, the default TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor refuses to display anything in tags.

There are two solutions to this.

1. Go to Site - Global Configuration, and set Default WYSIWYG Editor to "No WYSIWYG Editor", and edit everything in plain HTML and PHP codes.
2. Install another editor such as JoomlaFCK that allows you to easily switch between WYSIWYG mode and Source Code mode.

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