Humm, yea, indeed, may be confusing. So, let's take a closer look to each of them:

The so called Static Content items in Joomla terminology are the content items which are closest to classic HTML content items. These are uncategorized content items, composed from a single text area, missing most of the power of Joomla, for example these can't be shown in the special view modes, as blogview or tableview. But are perfect for certain tasks, for the essentially static, not too often changing parts of the site, as Terms of Service, Privacy, etc, or, as you often see, the Joomla Licence Guidelines. Generally these content items are linked in to special menu items and are displayed as they are.

The regular Joomla content items are trickier. First of all these are organised on two levels, Sections and Categories, wich are providing a way to cleverly organise and display your content. And they know another - unfortunatly not too often used/known trick, they are divided in two areas, the so called Intro Text, wich is the required part of a Joomla content item, and the often unused Main Text.

And, of course there are a lot of possibilities/tricks related with these two  extra attributes/properties, mainly hidden in the editing interface or/and in the link/menu building engine of Joomla.

The basic tricks here are:

1. You can create special menu items for display your content from a given Section/Category in special ways, as the Blogview and Tableview to name only two.
2. You can display your content in this special views in new, innovative ways. Just one example - search for more tips in the site - you can use the Intro Text/Main Text division of the content items to archieve some tricky effects.

In Blogview for example (but not only there) you can display your content showing only the Intro Text part with a Read More... link if something is in the Main Content area. By default clicking on this will show you the entire content item, withouth any division between the two areas. But, if you want,you can check the Hide Intro checkbox in the parameters tab, wich will have as side effect to show only the Main Text after clicking on the Read More... link. So, for example you can place in the Intro text the most intriguing, compelling part of the content item, or an excerpt of it, wich is viewable only in Blogview.

And the possibilities are near endless. Happy exploring! 

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