The reference field is not something that is new in Joomla 1.6 and up. Joomla 1.5 had a ‘Key Reference’ field in the articles advanced parameters tab. What is different is where the field is now found and the way the data entered is utilised.
In Joomla 1.5 the content of the key reference field wasn’t actually utilised at all. It was a spare field which you could use in a template override to quote an external reference, or change the name in the language files and use for whatever you want.
In Joomla 3 there is a new field in the Metadata Options called ‘External Reference’ which comes with the tooltip ‘An optional reference used to link to external data sources’. The reason why the field has moved from parameters to metadata is obvious – it is now used to output a meta tag, but what is this xreference tag and more to the point, what is it used for?
Continue reading “What is the xreference Meta and Joomla External Reference Field?”