DinkyTags

plg_system_dinkytags — a small, dependency-free Joomla system plugin that emits correct, complete, non-duplicated Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags for frontend pages.

Joomla core (verified on 6.1.x) ships no og:* / twitter:* meta for com_content articles, categories or the home page, so links shared to Facebook, LinkedIn, X, WhatsApp, Slack, Signal, Discord or Mastodon fall back to the site logo or nothing. DinkyTags fills that gap: drop it in, set a default image, done — portable across sites, configured entirely through plugin parameters.

• Target: Joomla 5.1+ and 6.x, PHP 8.2+, site client only.
• License: GNU General Public License v3 or later — see LICENSE.
• Architecture: .doc/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Install

Install the package zip (plg_system_dinkytags-<x.y.z>.zip) through System → Install → Extensions, then enable System - DinkyTags under System → Plugins. Set at least default_image. That is the whole setup.

To build the zip from source you need Phing:

phing package

The zip and a matching update.xml land in .releases/.

What it does

Page	og:type	Title	Description	Image
Single article	article	article title	meta description or intro-text excerpt	article image → custom field → first inline <img> → category image → default_image
Category blog / list	website	category title	category description → site meta description	category image → default_image
Featured	website	menu item title	site meta description	default_image
Home	website	site name	site meta description	home_image → default_image
Any other HTML page	website	page title (site-name affix stripped)	document meta description	default_image

For articles it also emits article:published_time, article:modified_time, article:section, one article:tag per tag, and article:author (toggle with emit_article_meta). og:url reuses the page's existing rel=canonical when present.

It stays silent on: non-HTML output, tmpl=component / print=1, the offline page, the error page, admin / CLI / API, and — while Skip certain components is on (the default) — any component in excluded_components (default com_icagenda, which emits its own Open Graph for event pages).

Parameters

Tags

• Handle these views (enabled_views) — tick the contexts that should get tags.
• Default image (default_image) — site-wide fallback share image, ideally 1200×630. Empty ⇒ no og:image rather than a placeholder.
• Home page image (home_image) — overrides the default on the home page only.
• Article description from (description_source) — metadesc-first (default) or introtext-first.
• Description length (description_length) — character cap, word-boundary cut, default 200.
• Image custom field (image_custom_field) — machine name of a com_content custom field holding a media path/URL; checked after the article images.
• Emit article:* tags (emit_article_meta) — default yes.
• Emit Twitter Card tags (emit_twitter) — default yes. twitter:card is summary_large_image when the image is ≥ 300 px wide or its size is unknown, else summary.
• twitter:site / twitter:creator — @handle values.
• fb:app_id — emitted on every page when set.
• og:locale (og_locale) — auto derives it from the active language (de-DE → de_DE), or set an explicit value.

Advanced

• When a tag already exists (override_mode) — only-if-missing (default) leaves a pre-existing og:title / og:description / og:image / og:site_name / og:locale untouched (whether another extension set it via the document API or as a raw <meta> tag); always overwrites.
• Last-resort logo image (fallback_to_logo) — off by default; when on, uses the template logo as og:image if a page has no image and no default.
• Strip query parameters (strip_query_params_enable) — on by default; removes the keys in Parameters to strip (strip_query_params) from og:url (tracking params). Order and encoding of the rest are preserved; the path is untouched. Turn the switch off to leave og:url untouched — emptying the list alone falls back to the default.
• Skip certain components (exclude_components_enable) — on by default; on pages of the components in Components to skip (excluded_components, option values) the plugin emits nothing. Turn the switch off to have DinkyTags handle every component.
• Excluded menu items (excluded_menu_items).
• Debug comment (debug) — see below. Off in production.

Debugging

Set Debug comment to Yes. Every frontend HTML response then carries one comment in the head listing the decision trail — skip reason, context, chosen title / description (and its source) / image (and which resolution step produced it), og:url source, and every tag set / kept / skipped:

<!-- DinkyTags debug
context: article
description source: metadesc
image source: article image_fulltext
og:url: reused page canonical
set og:type
set og:title
...
-->

Quick check without the browser:

curl -s https://example.com/some/page | grep -E 'og:|twitter:|article:'

FAQ

A page shows no og:image. By design: the page has no own image and default_image is empty (or fallback_to_logo is off). Set default_image.

og:url comes out as http:// on an HTTPS site behind a proxy. Enable Global Configuration → Server → Behind Load Balancer so Uri honours X-Forwarded-*. A canonical link set by the site is always used verbatim regardless.

An iCagenda / other event page still has its own tags. Correct — com_icagenda is in excluded_components by default, so DinkyTags does not touch it. To override, either remove it from the list and keep the switch on, or turn Skip certain components off entirely. (Emptying the list field on its own does not stick: Joomla restores the default for an empty value, so use the switch.)

Tags appear twice. Another extension (e.g. an older social-meta plugin) is also emitting them. Disable it, or leave override_mode on only-if-missing and DinkyTags will defer to whatever is already set.

Scope

The current release does everything above. Deferred to a later version: on-the-fly image resizing (crop/pad to 1200×630, cached and served as og:image) and per-language default images. Out of scope entirely: JSON-LD (Joomla core covers it), sitemaps, redirects, a per-page meta editor UI.