“…a lot of my members asked me if I could show them how to make templates like I did; therefore by popular demand, I’m organizing a live training webinar wherein I will teach you all you need to know in matter of 3 hours instead of the 3 months it would take you should you have decided to go figure it out yourself.”

Content, time and place

This webinar takes place on March 6 and will have a duration of 3 hours. For full content (and it’s a lot!) of the workshop, click here. Bonus: you also get get the developer version of the Biggie Smalls template (value USD 147).

CLICK HERE to register for this event
(Enter discount code JOOMLAJUNKIE for 30% off!

Most likely you hit the memory limit on your server. Memory limits help to keep scripts from running out of control or using up all of your free memory. On the other hand, sometimes you are adding a fancy extension to your site, that simply requires slightly more memory then the default 8mb that Apache gives you. Let’s show you how to fix that.

First, before we get too far, these instructions assume your server is running Apache and you either are on a VPS, or a dedicated server. If you are on a shared host, this might still be possible, but it is dependent upon how your host has your account setup. It may or may not be easy to change. If you are unsure, submit a ticket to your webhost. You are paying for their service, there is nothing wrong with asking them.

Now, let’s get rolling. You will want to be able to see what your memory limit is easily. If you are on Joomla, you can login to the backend and go to:
Help>System Info>Php Information

Search the page for “memory_limit”. You will see something similar to this. (yours will possibly say 8m)

Now that we know what our php memory limit is, let’s get to changing it.

Many guides for changing your memory limit on the internet are written for people with a dedicated server and presume you want your entire server, and all it’s enclosed websites to have a higher memory limit. This is less then ideal, but I will explain who to do it anyhow.

Edit your php.ini file.

Open your php.ini file. YMMV, but it will most likely be located at:
/etc/php.ini
Search for memory_limit and change the value from 8m, to 16mb or 32mb. (don’t go much higher)

Save the file, then restart Apache via ssh using this commend or whatever method you prefer.
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
Check your phpinfo now, and you should be fixed.

Now, if you have more then one website on your server you most likely do not want to raise your memory limit globally. You would want to do it on a per-site basis. To do it this way, you will make a change in your websites public_html directory. This is called a override.

Not all webhosting companies are the same. There are two ways you can do this.

A: .htaccess override.

Open up, (or create) a file in your public_html directory called .htaccess. Inside this file, add the line
php_value memory_limit 16M
Save it, and check your phpinfo again. No restart is required for this.

B: php.ini method

If .htaccess didn’t work, some webhosts will have you put a file called php.ini in your public_html directory instead. Inside that file, insert the line:
memory_limit = 16M
Save it, and check your phpinfo again.

Use one or the other of these methods. Typically one of these methods will make your site 500 error if your webhost does not allow it. Make sure you check your site after every change you make. If your site 500’s, then your host does not permit the method you tried, and revert your changes.

500 error. No bueno!

There. Now you have raised your php memory limit to be able to handle heavier scripts. You can usually get by with 8mb for Joomla, but with new extensions like WordPress4Joomla and JoomlaJunkies Morph, you will most likely need 16mb. the minimum requirement for Drupal is 16mb, with 32mb recommended. Just do not go much over 128mb. Typically 32 will be more then enough.
What do you keep your memory limit at on your site? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Now, a few weeks have passed and for some reason you are hyper paranoid and want to know how to hide it.  My first thought is to tell you that there are far more important things to be worrying about, but to each his own.  *shrugs*

The easiest way is to add this to your Joomla .htaccess file.

##### Start ?tp=1 prevention ######
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} tp=(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]
##### End ?tp=1 prevention ######

You may need to change it from htaccess.txt to .htaccess first.  If your site goes down after changing the file name or has odd behaviors it’s time for you to do some reading on what .htaccess is and how to use it.  This article has a lot of good info on the file and it’s proper usage.

I have heard about the previous method not working well for everybody in all situations.   Maybe you don’t want to use SEO urls.  Maybe you don’t want to read about htaccess and it’s proper usage.  You can always use this plugin on Joomla.org. I have no personal experience with it, but it seems pretty straight forward.

A third alternative is to do a core hack.

Go to /libraries/joomla/application/module/helper.php and look around line 200 for this code.

//dynamically add outline style
if(JRequest::getBool('tp')) {
$attribs['style'] .= ' outline';
}

Comment out the 3rd line out with //

//dynamically add outline style
if(JRequest::getBool('tp')) {
//$attribs['style'] .= ' outline';
}
Keep in mind this is a core hack. If you upgrade or patch your Joomla install, this hack will get deleted.

Finally, if all this code confuses you or is a hassle, you might want to try out Morph from JoomlaJunkie. This feature, as well as hundreds of other tweaks are built right into it.

This tip was inspired by a Tumblr post I read here. It has 2 other ways to disable ?tp=1 if you want other options.

Yes, it is great to be able to write a quick article and click a few buttons in the editor window to align things, but in the long run, you are really just hindering your education. Knowing basic html is going to help you make cleaner, more readable, and more reliable websites. Most articles consist of a lot of:
< p > and < h*> tags.
Why run the risk of using a editor that may insert all sorts of nonsense like using < p >< /p > as spacers? It’s not semantic, it makes no sense, and it’s invariably going to cause you issues over the long haul.

Get a html cheat cheat, keep it nearby, and go unpublish all your WYSIWYG plugins in Joomla. You will be glad you did.

Chances are, this wasn’t too high on your list, and you might overlook it until somebody mentions it to you in May.
There is no reason to have to do this yearly maintenance if you don’t mind doing a little cut and pasting.

First, find where your copyright is inserted. In Joomla, it is generally at the bottom of the templates index.php file. Depending on the template, it may be in a different location. Your mileage may vary.

Now, we will simply change the 2009 date, to this bit of php code:
(Remove the space after the < and before the >)

< ?php echo date('Y');? >

So it looks like this now.

Pretty sweet right?