Woof and Warp Joomla!

A little editor extended plugin tip

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:50:41 +0000

I've seen a couple of editor extended plugin buttons where the right side of the button wasn't handled correctly by the Joomla! admin css and ran into it myself today.

Looking at the css I noticed a class called "blank" for the buttons so I tested and got it to work with this:

Change:


$button->set('name', 'buttonname');

To:


$button->set('name', 'buttonname blank');

The extra "blank" after the space will give your button a nicely rounded right side.

Joomla! and duplicate content, what does Google think?

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:07:18 +0000

There is a lot of talk going on about duplicate content in Joomla! installations. Here's a good read from the Google Webmaster Central Blog about how they see and handle so called duplicate content.

Let's put this to bed once and for all, folks: There's no such thing as a "duplicate content penalty." At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that.

The tools I use for Joomla! development

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 06:46:10 +0000

I'm designing and programming mainly for Joomla! for many years now, being one of the founders of the project helps a lot with counting years of course :-) and in case you are interested in the tools I use and why I use them I'll list them in this post.

My specialty and passion is creating custom designs/templates for Joomla!, WordPress, Drupal or just plain html sites. For Joomla! I also write components, modules and plugins but because I'm not a guru php programmer I can do that up to a certain level of complexity.

I love creating modules and plugins that give me a special feature and what I like most about writing them myself is the fact that I'm in full control over the markup the module or plugin renders at the front-end of a site.

Joomla! 1.5.7 Security Release Now Available

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:58:26 +0000

The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.5.7 [Wovusani]. This is a security release and contains a number of bug fixes, improvements as well as security fixes. It is strongly recommended that users immediately upgrade. It has been nearly four weeks since Joomla 1.5.6 was released on August 12, 2008. The Development Working Group's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community.

Head over to the instructions page at joomla.org for more information.

Burning your Joomla! feeds with FeedBurner and .htaccess

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:59:59 +0000

I've got my feeds running trough FeedBurner now and maybe you like to know how we (Robin and me) did it.

The first step you need to take is creating a FeedBurner account and add your Joomla! feed url's to the FeedBurner system. Once that's done it's time to start up your text-editor and open the .htaccess file which you can find in your Joomla! root directory.

Note to myself: turn Joomla! pagetitles off query

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:40:01 +0000

In Joomla! there are article titles, component titles and also page titles. I hardly ever use the page titles but they are set to show by default.

You can find the page title on/off setting in the parameter sliders when you create a menu item and here is a smart query you can run with phpMyAdmin to turn them off in one go.


UPDATE jos_menu SET params = REPLACE(params, 'show_page_title=1', 'show_page_title=0');

Remember to change the "jos_" prefix if that is not what you are using on your database.

Joomla! Community Magazine Issue 3 September 2008

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:04:33 +0000

Today the new issue of the Joomla! Community Magazine has been published thanks to the hard work of many and especially Amy Stephen who has been working day and night the past week to get everything in shape.

I've written an article about how to use Joomla! 1.5 for creating a site that needed to be on air in just a few days with a custom design to promote a Million Dollar Wedding.

Having fun with Joomla! module Chrome and suffix

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:46:07 +0000

When you are building a custom template you want all the power you can get to be able to do all the trickery you want or need.

In Joomla! 1.5+ there are a couple of new features to help you with that and I'll try to explain how to use the "Module Chrome" with the "Module suffix" in a couple of posts and this is part #1.

At the end you will have an example to work with for creating modules with crazy headers in different colors or with background images based on the module suffix.

Joomla! Bug Squad Hero's

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:45:45 +0000

I've been a member of the Joomla! Bug Squad for some time now and although I wish I had more time I try to contribute where I can.

What is the Joomla! Bug Squad?

The Joomla! Bug Squad is the second team within the Development Working Group. Their main responsibilities are:

Scan the forum area for reported issues and help community members with solving these issues.
Maintain the Tracker.
Perform testing of offered patches and of reported issues.

Joomla! nominated for Packt awards

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:57:06 +0000

Joomla! is nominated again for some Packt Publishing awards. You can vote for "Best Overall Open Source CMS" and "Best PHP Open Source CMS".

The Joomla! announcement can be found here

Joomla! has been nominated and has won many awards since the project started 3 years ago. I remember being in London at the first Joomla! Core Team Summit when we won the Best Linux/Open Source award and boy where we proud about that.