Joomla Feed by Hummerbie.com

JCE Editor for Joomla

Sun, 27 May 2007 10:13:44 +0000

This is the Editor that gets the Editors Pick at Joomla.org

Last time I installed this Editor was version 1.0.3 now we are at version 1.1.0
So lets see how this performs.
Installation is more work then the JoomlFCK and involves a component, a mambot en depending on what you want to do several plugins.

Standard screen to edit is pretty good, overval impressions is also nice.

Inserting images?

In the previous version you needed to install a plugin to manage your images, this is now build into the editor itself.

There is even an option to upload an image and you can write the "Alt"and "Title" for the image.

So next test, code insertion:
Always a good test to see if the editor keeps its hands of the coding that is typed manually.

As you can see, the Adsense code, wich is JavaScript, is left alone. Nice work.

Then why am I back at JoomlaFCK, well because the Source Code from FCK is cleaner than the one JCE produces.
And for Search Engine Optimized sites you always look at those Tiny little things that gives you the edge over you competition....

Joomla Core stable 1.0.12

Mon, 28 May 2007 13:42:14 +0000

if you want to setup a Joomla based website your best choice is always the latest stable version.

At this moment that would be version 1.0.12.

Why a Stable version?

You want your website to be visites by people who can find your website and can access it without any problems.

This is the mean reason to use the stable version, if you want to use the 1.5 beta, please use it on your own PC for testing.

Where to get it and what does it cost?

You can download the latest version form the Joomla website.

And the costs... its Free Open Source Software which means is does cost anything accept for Download time, installation and configuration hours...
But that is priceless sinc you will learn how to build you own great website.

But which version to choise?

I now, the download link brings you to a long list of version:

But its not that hard to find the right one:
For new installation you have to download Joomla_1.0.12-Stable_Full_Package.zip or the files with the tar.gz or tar.bz2 extensions.

For windows users I suggest you use the .zip file.

If you allready have a Joomla website, but a previous version, you are better off upgrading your website.
There are a lot of security bugs solved in version 1.0.12.

First look at your current version and then select you upgrade version.
Lets say you have version 1.0.9 then you would need the upgrade package:
Joomla_1.0.9_to_1.0.12-Stable-Patch_Package.zip.
See how simple you can find your own upgrade pakage?

So download the files and get working...

Understanding the Joomla Content Structure

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:22:27 +0000

Some people have a hard time understanding the Structure that is used in Joomla to organize the Content.

But it is not that hard to understand if you look at it from a different angle.

Joomla is a Content Management System that in the core can be compared with a Study book.


	Joomla Sections The section part of Joomla can be look at as the main parts of a Book. Like for example an Atlas, the Section are the Continents.

Joomla Categories

The categories in Joomla can be classified as the Chapters of a Book

In the Atlas example, these are the country's in each of the continents.

Joomla Content Item

The Joomla Content items are the pages in a book, each containing information to make a Chapter.

In the Atlas example, these could be pages that describe the Geological ans Social economics of a Country.

Putting it all in Perspective

If you look at the structure of this site, you will see how its build...
First there are sections about Joomla, WordPress and Drupal.

The Joomla Section is split up into categories as:

Joomla General
Joomla Modules
Joomla Themes
Joomla Components
Mambots and Plugins
Joomla Search Engine Optimization

One example of a content Item is this page, which is in the category "Joomla General"

Keep this structure in mind if you are going to build your website in Joomla.
Make Sure you have drawn the structure on paper before building it in Joomla, it will save you a lot of headache afterwards...

Joomla RSS Feed with DS Syndication

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:54:09 +0000

If you are Looking for a better way to give your Readers a Great Feed from your Joomla based website, here is how to do it!

But first, let me shortly explain what is wrong with the standard Joomla Syndication component.. yes, the syndication because that is what composes the feed.
Many people mistakenly believe it is the Feed component, but that brings in Feeds from other websites or Blogs.

The basic Syndication of Joomla strips all HTML coding and just delivers plain text.. so your carefully crafted page with nice images and Bold Text paragraphs gets strip off all what made to page so nice to read and look at ...

Besides that, you just get a feed from your Frontpage only :-(

So you just make a short intro for the page and that gets in your Feed, but you want full articles for your readers! Don't You?
Your RSS Readers will love you for it!

So what is the Solution?

Use the Joomla DS Syndication RSS Feed component

The DS Syndication component can is Created by Martin Diphoorn from www.joomlafun.com and can be downloaded from http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/dssyndicate/

The DS Syndication component lets you create a Feed from any categorie you want, even if you need to combine several categories into one Feed !
And you can choose if you want Images in the feed or not... you should put the images in there, in my opinion...

There is a Component Download and a Module to show the feeds you created
Download both, although I don't use the module, but I will explain that later on.

Installing the Component

Installation works like any other Joomla component:

Go into the administrator panel
Choose installation of a component
Browse to the downloaded component file and get is installed!
So far its like a normal Component, but now you need to take a Next step!
Go to the component menu en choose the component install option!

If you run a previous version of the component, you need to run a separate SQL statement in you MySQL environment..

I found it easier to remove the component with the de-installation option and then do the Install like a new setup.

It is important that you take the Installation step to create the MySQL tables needed for the RSS Feeds to work!

Creating the RSS Feed from Joomla

Go to the Feeds option of the component menu and choose New

Now give your Feed a name: Like WordPress Information by Hummerbie

Next you can describe the Feed in the field below the name

Now after this, it is up to your how to configure the Options... I will show you my choices and tell you why you might use the same ones.

Choose RSS 2.0 because that is the standard for RSS Readers now, like the Google reader.
Number of items in the feed.. it depends on how large your articles in the feed are going to be, if you just Blog and do short items you could take this up to 12.
If you always do very long articles, you might consider 5
Most of the Options after these you can leave as they are, or select the item you want to strip from the feed (be sure to have a valid point to do this...)
In the field categories, you can put in the names of the categories you want to put into the Feed.
Copy these names from your categorie fields, Please be aware, this it the Name field, not the Title!
Separate the name by a , so you get something like "WordPress SEO, WordPress Manual,WordPress Plugins" and so on.
If you just want the Frontpage, leave this Blanc.
Include Categories into the Title, please set this to No, otherwise you get weird long feed titles, as the categorie names are attached to the Title..
If you want to you can specify separate images to show on each feed.

Creating the Feed images and how to use the ping function, is written in (to come)

Once you save the Feed, you can check if everything functions as expected by clicking the URL in the feed-manager (I prefer to Richt Click and the Option 'show in a different window')

You can always create a lot of new feeds with different categories if you want, just got through the process the same way as before.

If the Feed show up right for you, its time to take the next step..Running your Feed through Feedburner

How to Find your Joomla Module Positions

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 08:57:04 +0000

Joomla works great with templates, but sometimes you install a new template and you have to check were the new modules positions are.

Update: The options shown below are mostly specific to Joomla 1.0.x,, to find you template positions in a Joomla 1.5 installation you can use www.example.com/?tp=2

There are two way to see were each position is:

One is using the code index.php?tp=1 right after your domain URL
For example http://www.hummerbie.com/index.php?tp=1

The second one is the way I always check the postions , which is by using the function of Joomla in your administor panel that says:

Site -> Preview -> Inline with Positions

You then get a screen with all the Module positions layed out as a screen overlay with the Module numbers and names.

Once you have the positons figured out, you can start placing the modules on the positions you want them to be, moving them around until they fit your needs...

Where to find Free Joomla templates

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 19:54:15 +0000

A Joomla websites appearance is build form templates, which can be easily changed.

But building your own Joomla template is not that easy, especially if you want a Table-less design with CSS as the way to position your content.

If you are looking for free Joomla Templates, then these links below are some of the best places to start your search:

http://www.joomlashack.com

http://www.joomlaos.de (German)

http://www.joomla24.com (English language site of Joomlaos.de)

I will be writing more on templates in the next weeks.

New to Joomla SEO?

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:06:47 +0000

if you are new to Joomla and Search Engine Optimization, you might want to check out my other site on Joomla Search Engine Optimization Tips and trics you can also find the Free! Little Joomla SEO Book to get you started.

Before that, you will find some articles on Joomla SEO on this site for versions 1.0.x and for Search Engine Optimization for Joomla 1.5.x

Get your metatag descriptions done right

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:37:45 +0000

One of the biggest problems with Joomla and Search Engine optimization (next to the URL issues af course) is the fact that the metatag description and keywords are always set for each content item.

This means that you get the Global settings first, and then the descriptions of the content items ar added to those globals.

So if you look at your source code you will always see the Global settings first... and so does any search engine robot...

It there a solution for this problem? yes, first clean out the Global settings!

If you want to take it to the next level?...read on