[4.1] Module "Articles - Categories" - Make the category selection optional

[Bakual]

The module "Articles - Categories" requires to select a parent category. But that means you can't have the module show all categories, you can only show a subset.

I think this is a requirement which is not needed. The code itself already falls back to "root" if no category is selected.

Summary of Changes

Removing the "required" flag from the parent category field.

Testing Instructions

Test the module "Articles - Categories" and make especially sure nothing breaks when no category is selected.

Actual result BEFORE applying this Pull Request

You always need to select a category and the module shows only subset of the article categories.

Expected result AFTER applying this Pull Request

You don't need to select a category and the module can show all categories.

Documentation Changes Required

None

[chmst]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on b8c2a08

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[brianteeman]

I think the history on this code needs to be checked carefully. I'm sure there must be a reason. It is possibly related to multilingual

[Bakual]

Good point. It looks like it got added just to use the modal_category formfield for J3.7. Before that, the field was not required.
See 45e14dd

[toivo]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on b8c2a08

Tested successfully in Joomla 4.1.1-dev of 23 February in Wampserver 3.2.7 using PHP 8.0.15

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[Quy]

RTC

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_{This comment was created with the J!Tracker Application at issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/37116.}

[laoneo]

Good point. It looks like it got added just to use the modal_category formfield for J3.7. Before that, the field was not required. See 45e14dd

Does the category form field still work as expected?

[Bakual]

Why should it not work? I didn't change anything in the formfield.

[laoneo]

But you are changing back something which was introduced on purpose. If that still works, then all is fine. Just wanted to double check before merging.

[brianteeman]

But you are changing back something which was introduced on purpose.

which is a big red warning flag to me

[Bakual]

I honestly doubt that it indeed was changed on purpose.
To me it looks more like copy-paste, because in other places it indeed has to be (and was before) required.
But here I couldn't find any issues with it being optional. And yep, of course the formfield can handle empty values.

Also, as I already wrote in the PR description, the code of the module already handles the case when no category is selected. I didn't had to change anything there.

[bembelimen]

Thx