Changing Content"types" & template"layouts"of"items" in bulk

I have created hundreds of items - with the layout - default & type - flexi article(custom).
Later i required to display those articles in different style i.e. in another category where a few fields are hidden.
I have decided to accomplish this as follows
Copy all the articles and move them to a new category,
Create a new "type" which has the fields hidden and then assign all the copied items in bulk to the new type.

I also thought of another way of doing this.
Create a new category, use the category layout and assign all the items in bulk to new category and previous categories as well. i.e. assign items to multiple categories in bulk.

I do not know how to achieve these in Flexi Content!
1.How do i change the type of items in bulk?
2.How do i change the categories of items in bulk?
3.How do i change the template layouts of items in bulk?

Item Types have field assignments,

Thus changing the type of an item can result in some of your field values not being used so make sure you have the desirable field assignment before doing it.

Despite this not being difficult to implement, it was not added because it is uncommon and a bit dangerous for the above reason.

Do you want to change all items of Type1 to be Type2 or only a subset of them, what is the criteria for the subset?

I don't want to change all of them. I want to keep them intact , take a copy of them and then change the "type" of the copy. So that i can display them in another style i.e. show fields selectively.
I would like to change the type of selected items and does it make a difference if i am changing all of them or a subset???

Changing item types could be dangerous i agree but changing the template layouts pertaining to a certain type would not be dangerous because you are not changing the fields but only the way they are displayed.

One more doubt.How do i update flexi content to the latest version. Should i just upload and install the latest files. Because flexi does not pop up in updates in the extension manager.

Moderator note: Please do not post support questions in the Documentation forum.
Moved topic to General Support forum.

boniaditya wrote: ...
One more doubt.
How do i update flexi content to the latest version.
Should i just upload and install the latest files.
Because flexi does not pop up in updates in the extension manager.

To update FLEXIcontent just install the new version.
Do not un-install the existing version or you will lose data.

FLEXIcontent updates do not appear in the Joomla 2.5 updates area because FLEXIcontent currently does not use the Joomla 2.5 update system.

About updating see Kenmcd answer above

boniaditya wrote: I don't want to change all of them. I want to keep them intact , take a copy of them and then change the "type" of the copy. So that i can display them in another style i.e. show fields selectively.
I would like to change the type of selected items and does it make a difference if i am changing all of them or a subset???

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-- Please note that -now- massive changing of Content Type via the interface is not supported (despite being easy to add)
-- It could be done by phpmyadmin via a targeted SQL query that changes the typeid column of table flexicontent_items_ext

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So your are duplicating content ?

So the field values will remain unchanged after duplication? (you want to have 2 items with same content? )

Maybe it would be better to do it via template

e.g. to use different category Template layout you assign your item to 2 categories :
category1 will use template1 to display some fields
category2 will use template2 to display some fields


the category list of of category1 will also append a variable to the item URLs:
&ilayout=template1


the category list of of category1 will also append a variable to the item URLs:
&ilayout=template2

thus the items clicked will also use different item Template layout

Yes i tried to do that using various template layouts for various categories and then placing the copies in a separate category but the problem is that the template applies only to the category view. Once i navigate to the individual article/item the item template(default) of the article is used and all the fields appear again. If i apply a specific template to a category the template works only in category view, i don't think i can assign multiple item templates to a single article.

I have to navigate to every single item that is copied and then change the Item Layout - provided at the bottom
or the document type at the top;