Contacts in Joomla

1. The Basics

1.1 The Two Building Blocks

The component rests on two simple concepts. Once you understand how they relate, the rest falls into place.

The relationship is easy to remember: a contact belongs to exactly one category. This is the same nested-set category tree that articles use.

1.2 How the Parts Fit Together

Here is the mental model:

Category ── Contact ──┬── Contact form  → email
                      ├── vCard         → download
                      └── Linked user   → profile + author articles

• Contact is the data: who they are, where they are, and how to reach them.
• Category is how you group contacts for list views and access control.
• Form is an optional per-contact email form.
• Linked user ties a contact to a #__users account.

A good way to keep the idea in your head: com_contact is a structured address book where every entry can also be a working contact form.

1.3 Where to Find It

In the Joomla 6 backend, you manage contacts and their categories here:

Components → Contacts → Contacts     (the people and places)
Components → Contacts → Categories   (grouping)

The front-end display is driven by menu items:

Menus → New → Contacts → (Single Contact / List / Featured / Categories)

1.4 What a Contact Actually Holds

The contact edit screen groups its fields into tabs:

The address block itself covers: position, address, suburb, state, country, postcode, telephone, mobile, fax, email, and webpage.

3. Displaying Contacts

3.1 A Contact Does Nothing Without a Menu Item

Like most Joomla content, a contact is just data until a menu item (or a module or plugin) renders it. There are four menu item types:

3.2 The Single Contact View

The single contact view is driven by the contact's Display tab plus the menu item options. A typical layout looks like this:

[ image ]   Name
            Position
            Address block (each line toggleable)
            Telephone / Mobile / Fax / Email / Webpage
            Misc information
            Links (linka...linke)
            Contact form

Every line has a Show / Hide / Use Global setting. The global defaults live in the component Options.

3.3 The Three-level Display Inheritance

Whether a single field shows is resolved in this order, from most specific to most general:

Contact (Display tab)      Show / Hide / Use Global
   └─ Menu item options    Show / Hide / Use Global
        └─ Component Options (global default)

"Use Global" is the glue. Set a value once in Options, then override it per menu item or per contact only where you actually need to.

3.4 List and Category Views

• The List view shows a sortable table: name, position, phone, and so on.
• Columns, the search filter, and pagination are all menu item options.
• The Categories view renders the tree, where each node links to its own list.

3.5 vCard Download

Each contact can offer a downloadable vCard (a .vcf file). This is the standard format that every address book imports.

allow_vcard = 1   →   "Download contact details" link on the contact view

• Joomla ships a dedicated view for it: src/View/Contact/VcfView.php.
• It serialises the name, position, address block, phone, email, and webpage into a .vcf file.
• Visitors click once and the contact lands straight in their phone or mail client.

Toggle Allow vCard Download on the Display tab (or globally in Options). One field, zero extra work: a directory that exports itself.

5. Categories and Access Control

5.1 Contacts Use the Shared Category System

Contact categories are ordinary Joomla categories with extension = com_contact:

#__categories  WHERE extension = 'com_contact'

That means they share the same nested tree, the same Rebuild button, and the same ACL machinery as article categories.

5.2 Why Categories Matter Here

• A List or Categories menu item targets a category, and that becomes your directory.
• You can organise by department, office, region, or team.
• Permissions inherit down the tree (Create, Edit, Edit State, Delete).

For the lft and rgt nested-set details, see the "Focus on Categories" article.

5.3 Access and Language

• The Access level on a contact controls who can view it.
• The Language setting lets a contact appear only on its matching site language.
• Combine the two on a multilingual site: one structure, with people filtered by language.

7. Under the Hood (Developer View)

7.1 One Main Table

The contacts themselves live in a single table:

#__contact_details   the contacts (people/places) + form/display params

Plus rows in the shared #__categories (with extension = com_contact), and the #__fields* tables when custom fields are used.

7.2 Key Columns in #__contact_details

The most important columns are:

id, name, alias            identity + SEF slug
catid                      category id (→ #__categories)
user_id                    linked Joomla user (→ #__users), 0 = none
con_position               job title / position
address, suburb, state,
country, postcode          the address block
telephone, mobile, fax     phone numbers
email_to                   form recipient address
webpage                    website URL
image                      photo / logo
misc                       free HTML "miscellaneous" block
linka...linke / *_name     five generic URL + label slots
default_con                the category's default contact
featured                   featured flag
sortname1/2/3              fields for custom sorting (e.g. last name)
params                     JSON: every show_* toggle + form options
metakey/metadesc/metadata  SEO + robots
published, access, language, ordering, hits, version
publish_up / publish_down  scheduling window

7.3 The MVC Layout

The component is split into an administrator side and a site side:

administrator/components/com_contact/   ← manage contacts + categories
   src/Model/ContactModel.php, ContactsModel.php
   src/Table, src/Controller, tmpl/, forms/contact.xml

components/com_contact/                  ← front-end views
   src/Model/ContactModel.php     (single contact + form submit)
   src/Model/CategoryModel.php    (list in a category)
   src/Model/FeaturedModel.php    (featured list)
   src/Model/CategoriesModel.php  (category tree)
   src/Controller/ContactController.php  (form POST handler)

plugins/...                              ← the six integrations

Note how the five site models map almost one-to-one onto the four menu item types, with the contact model also handling the form submit.

7.4 The Form Submission Flow

When a visitor submits a contact form, the request follows this path:

POST /index.php?option=com_contact&task=contact.submit&id=42
   → ContactController::submit()
   → validate (session check, banned words, CAPTCHA)
   → build + send email (Joomla Mailer)
   → optional copy to submitter
   → redirect (custom URL or back with message)

The component's own controller, not a generic form component, owns the validation and the mailing.

7.5 SEF URLs and the Router

Contact URLs are built and parsed by the component's router:

components/com_contact/src/Service/Router.php

It turns query strings into clean, human-readable paths and back again:

index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=7   ↔   /contact/support/peter-martin

The router is responsible for three jobs:

• Build: generate SEF links for contacts, categories, and featured views.
• Parse: resolve an incoming SEF path back to the right view and id.
• Menu resolution: prefer an existing menu item's segment over a generic path.

Because routing lives inside the component, contact links survive category moves and respect your menu structure automatically.

7.6 Web Services API (Headless)

The component ships REST routes, enabled by the webservices plugin:

api/components/com_contact/src/Controller/ContactController.php

GET  /api/index.php/v1/contact/contacts
GET  /api/index.php/v1/contact/contacts/{id}
POST /api/index.php/v1/contact/contacts        (create)

This opens the door to modern architectures:

Joomla API  →  React / Vue directory  →  custom contact rendering

The data lives in Joomla, but the delivery can live anywhere. Keep in mind that API delivery bypasses the built-in form mailer, so you handle form submissions yourself.

7.7 Programmatic Access

The same nested-set Categories API works for contacts:

use Joomla\CMS\Categories\Categories;

$categories = Categories::getInstance('Contact');
$node       = $categories->get('staff');   // by alias or id
$children   = $node->getChildren();

And the table and model classes live under these namespaces:

Joomla\Component\Contact\Administrator\Table\ContactTable
Joomla\Component\Contact\Site\Model\ContactModel

7.8 Template Overrides

Every view is overridable per template:

components/com_contact/tmpl/contact/default.php
templates/<your_template>/html/com_contact/contact/default.php   ← override

The single-contact view is split into sub-layouts (_address, _user_custom_fields, _links, and more), so you can override just the address block or just the form, instead of the whole page. The rule of thumb: override the view, not the model. Data and presentation stay separate.

7.9 At Scale

The data model is simple, but a few things bite on large directories with thousands of contacts:

Contacts are read-heavy and write-light. Cache the views and index the filter columns, and the component scales comfortably.

9. Best Practices

If you only remember a few things from this article, remember these:

• Create a category before you add contacts; every contact must live in one.
• The form recipient is email_to, not the linked user's account email.
• Master the three-level Show / Hide / Use Global inheritance: set defaults once in Options, override only where needed.
• Link contacts to users to unlock profiles, author boxes, and a single identity.
• Enable the Privacy plugin so contacts are covered by GDPR export and removal.
• Index the filter columns on large directories, and keep the category tree shallow.

11. Summary

Joomla Contacts is a structured address book and a contact-form engine in one, hiding in plain sight. Once you see it that way, you stop reaching for extra extensions for jobs the core already does well.

It gives you:

• Structure: typed fields, an address block, five link slots, and custom fields.
• Forms: per-contact email forms with spam mitigation, no extension needed.
• Identity: link contacts to users, auto-create profiles, and show author boxes.
• Display: four menu views with three-level Show / Hide inheritance.
• Integration: a shared Categories tree, ACL, Smart Search, Privacy, and a REST API.
• Privacy: email cloaking plus GDPR export and removal out of the box.

If you are building a staff directory, a member list, or simply want a reliable contact page that emails the right person, the Contacts component is worth a fresh look. It is the quiet, well-built address book that has been part of Joomla all along.