How to Setup Tags Page and Results Pages

Hello,

We have been unable to determine how to configure Custom Properties to do what we need. It is quite simple:

We need:

1. A page displays a list of all the tags. Ideally, it would have an thumbnail for each tag. URL: /topics.html, not component/customproperties/ etc. We will convert that list into a mosaic of linked thumbnails.

2. The page for each tag to have an description and image at the top. The url should flow under the topics.html page. I.e.: topics/tagname.html

2a. The page that lists tagged articles should display only an excerpt of each article (and a thumbnail would be nice). Currently, when we click a tag, the resulting page displays the entirety of all tagged articles. Also, the url is /component/customproperties/tag/1.html, which is not acceptable.

We attempted to solve this by making a menu item (single article) /topics.html, then adding each individual keyword as a child item. However, the urls have not changed. They still render as /component/customproperties/tag/1.html etc.

Sample tagged article: gnosticteachings.org/component/customproperties/tag/4.html

Please advise.

Site: gnosticteachings.org
Joomla 2.5.8
dedicated server at Rochen

1) requires a customized version of mod CP Cloud, arguably to be loaded with {loadposition}. Customization is required so that each tag is given his own CSS class, that in turn can be used to display the thumbnail.
1.a) nice urls: Joomla build nice urls only for contents with a menu item associated to them. You need to create a menu item for each and every Cp Tag or use some third party SEF extension.

2) you can associate a Joomla article to each tag (we call it "tag article"). The article is printed above the results. In your case you'll want to make tag articles consisting only of 1 image each.




2.a) choose "Title + Image + Plain text" in "View" param, of Cp config. Then set "Text length" param to the desired excerpt length.
About nice urls, see above for the solution, as they are out of Custom Properties control.

Better looking urls:
I infer from the links to your site that you chose 'Tag ID' as Url format in CP Config. That ensures maximum compatibility but prints the worst looking urls.
You should try 'Tag name' or 'Tag Label,' that returns much nicer urls.