Upgrade Your Joomla Site with jAutoUpdate

Siteground, the provider on which this site is hosted, has released the useful jAutoUpdate component to upgrade your Joomal 1.5 version to the latest version directly from the Joomla admin panel.

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Joomla Vulnerability List

As with many other open source development projects that rely heavily on the community for extended functionality, Joomla may be vulnerable to exploits when extensions are not well designed. The Joomla community does take security extremely seriously and maintains a master list of third party extensions that may be subject to security vulnerabilities.

We do visit the list once a month to see if any of the extensions we use are on the list. So far, we never had a problem with any extension, but it never hurts to double check.

The vulnerability list is a bit hidden in the Joomla documentation wiki. If you click here, you will be redirected to the list.

 

Fatal Error: What Has Happened to my Editor in Joomla?

Today, we decided to clean up our system and delete plug-ins and components we no longer use. After deleting one plug-in that enhances the functionality of the editor, we received the message that the component uninstall went wrong: SQL error or missing or unreadable SQL file. DB function reports no error. Uninstall Component Error (see below)

We just ignored that and went on deleting other old plug-ins. Once we were done cleaning up the system, we wanted to write a new article and suddenly we got a very strange error. We saw some of the editor and underneath the following error: Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::onDisplay() in .../public_html/libraries/joomla/html/editor.php on line 261.

Apparently, the component that was not fully removed caused a problem - the message referred to editor.php on line 261 so we knew it was related to the editor.

Checking out the forums did not really give us a clear answer. Some suggested to completely reinstall Joomla, others suggested that we needed to hack the code - things we did not want to do. Fortunately we knew which component was not fully removed from the system.

Our fix to the problem is perhaps as simple as what caused the problem: Just reinstall the component and your editor should work again. We  could replicate the fix on the production site and our backup that runs on WAMP on our home computer and it works. Please leave a note in the comment system if it also works for you.

 

Developing Multilingual Joomla Sites with Joomfish

There are many automated translation tools available for Joomla and other web applications. They sound too good to be true and they are. You still need human beings to translate and manage the text and the excellent JoomFish component for Joomla can help you.

Automated translation engines are just not good enough. They are great to get an idea about an article, but certainly will cost you money if you try to impress customers with weird automated translations.

We have developed a few multilingual websites and the free Joomfish component is the leading translation management system to use. The system is capable of managing an unlimited number of translations, alphabets and languages.The system manages translations, it does not translate the text!

Below are two screen shots of a multilingual website we developed for an NGO in Afghanistan with JoomFish. The first screen shot is from the English version of the site.

The screen shot below is from the Dari version of the site. Please note that not only the text, but also all the menus and even the polling module are translated into Dari. The alignment of the text is to the right, since Dari is read from the right to the left (this is done automatically by the system).

Installing a multilingual site is not difficult:

Step 1: Install the languages you need for your site. Please visit the Joomla language pack repository. You normally would only need a language pack, not the full translation of Joomla. Full translations are available in the JED.

Step 2: Install the language like you would install a component, plugin or module.

Step 3: Download and install the JoomFish component.

Step 4: Activate the language pack and you can start with the translation of your site.

You can find the JoomFish component in the JED. The JoomFish website has great tutorials on how to use the system.

Step 1: First you need to install the xml files for the Docman Component. You can download the docman.zip file from here: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomfish/frs/

Step 2: Unzip it to your local machine > you will have next xml-files. Then:

Step 3: Rename the xml-files:

docman.docman.xml > rename to docman.xml
docman.groups.xml > rename to docman_groups.xml
docman.licenses.xml > rename to docman_licenses.xml

Step 4: Install each file one by one using the J!F Content element installer (J!F Content element > Install). Please do not use the normal Joomla installer.

Source: Tassu

To be able to translate the Docman categories you need to:

Step 1: Go to the following file on the server: administrator>components>com_joomfish>contentelements>categories.xml

Step 2: Change in the categories.xml: <field type="text" name="name" translate="0">Name</field>

Into:

<field type="text" name="name" translate="1">Name</field>

Source:  GranAntonio

 

Getting XMap and SextionEX to Work Together

We really like the SectionEx and XMap components for our Joomla websites. But there is a problem!

Although we have a plugin for Xmap that handles SectionEx, it shows in certain instances dead links  (404 and 500 errors) when you click on a link in the sitemap. This has to do with the combination of the SectionEx and XMap components. If you come across this issue, the following steps will help you solve this issue:

Step 1: Link SectionEx to a menu item.

Step 2: Refresh the site map and click on the link - you will get an error message.

Step 3: Go back to the menu and add an article category blog layout item to the SectionEx menu Item.

Step 4: Refresh the site map and click on the link - Voila! It works!

Don't ask us why, but it does.

Below you see a picture of three menu items. The main menu is linked to SectionEx. Under the this menu, we have two submenus, both linked to an Article Category Blog. With this combination, all links will work in your sitemap.

 

Important Joomla Extensions for Your Site

One of the great aspects of Joomla is the availability of many excellent components, modules and plug-ins. The challenge in many ways, however, is to find extensions you like and need. We have outlined below the free extensions used for the site.

Make sure you always go through the JED (the Joomla Extension Depository) when you look for extensions!

Although we have tried to minimize the number of extensions, the following have been installed to provide additional functionality to the site:

IE8/IE7 Compatibility: Today (July 14, 2009), we were given IE8 as part of our automatic Windows update and of course we directly noticed issues with our site. Suddenly, the SectionEx component did not work correctly - So, we have installed this plugin to automatically activate Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View. Visitors who use IE8 browser will now see our web site without display problems although it isn't optimized for Internet Explorer 8.

File Management: We have used Docman as the document repository. It is a user friendly component with many interesting plug-ins, components and excellent support forums. We have used the following docman plug-ins, components and modules:

The Doclink Plug-in: When you write an article, you may want to include a direct link to a document that is in the docman repository. With this plugin, you can create links to documents that are in the docman system. The plugin adds an additional button under the editor (like you have a button for the read more function).

The Docman Catdown Module: This module shows you all files from a category in the article. Modules can be given a position in Joomla. Often, people use the position left to show a module on their websites. You can also include modules in your articles. For this, we use the “loadposition” tag to show the list of documents in an article.

The Mjaztools Autopopulate Component: To upload many documents at once, you really should use this component. This was especially useful when we populated the website. You can define access levels and categories for multiple documents at once - a real time saver for those who use Joomla as a repository like we do on www.developmentwork.net.

The Latest Downloaded and Most Downloaded Modules: The modules show the latest and most frequently downloaded documents that are in the Docman repository.

Docman jDMTree 1.5: This module shows a list of defined Categories, Sub Categories and Documents in a tree for Joomla 1.5. It is only used on the download page of the website.

{xtypo_info}JCE Editor - An advanced, configurable WYSIWYG editor for Joomla! based on Moxiecode's TinyMCE. Includes advanced Image/Media, File and Link handling, plugin support, and an Administration interface for editor configuration. I use it for example to link urls to images in articles. I tried the readmoreext1.5 plugin that does this automatically, but it appears not to work for articles listed when you use Section-Ex as we do for this site. 

Make sure that you enable the editor in the "Global Configuration" and in the "user manager" for each user that wants this editor for your site.

BIGSHOT Google Analytics - This component allows us to follow traffic to the site. It is amazing how much information is available once you use Analytics. This plug-in is very useful and as with all other extension on www.developmentwork.net, it is for free. Just make sure you sign up with Google for a web-ID (also for free and really easy to do), enter the web ID in the plug-in and activate the plug-in.

Photo Galleries: We were particularly interested in a gallery that generates thumbnails automatically with a nice shadow and border. We finally ended up with the free version of Simple Image Gallery because of the quality of thumbnails and the limited number of pictures we wanted to show on the site. We would have used phocagallery for larger photo repositories.

Featured Tutorials: To showcase featured tutorials on the frontpage, we use the Display News Module. In each tab, we have placed a copy of the module using a unique model position. Each model shows randomly article from a certain category and section each time the page is reloaded.

Linking Urls: When we started with Joomla, we could not believe that you cannot link to other articles in articles. The “Linkr” component and button plugin are installed for the website to make it possible. We have used the component for the article on project management tools together with Xtypo to mimic an image menu.

Xtypo: This is used to style some articles with CSS without the need to understand CSS. This article, for example, is using the Xtypo plug in.

Display All Tutorials: Phoca documentation is used for the site to display all tutorials. The component automatically generates the map - all you need to do is to link it to a menu.

SiteMap: Xmap is used as our sitemap. Sitemaps generally are important for search engine optimization and provides your visitors easy access to your site. The component automatically generates the map - all you need to do is to link it to a menu.

Section-Ex: This component is also used to provide visitors an overview of content. It is an extremely powerful component and should be part of the Joomla core.

Feedback: The joomlacomment component is used to give visitors the opportunity to leave comments on the site.

Tabs and slides: For a few larger articles in the section on projects, we used a simple but very easy to use plugin by joomlaworks.

Template: The professional version of JSN Epic 3.0 by Joomlashine is used although the free version would do just fine. The free template gives a lot of flexibility to adjust the layout of your site. In our opinion, this is the best free template available for Joomla. The template has many module positions and gives your site a professional look. We have been searching the web for similar templates, but have not found one yet that is for free. So, if you found one, please let us know.

Backups: We recommend that you do not solely rely on the backups of your host. We have installed LazyDbBackup so we get weekly updates from the system by email with a copy of the database. Joomlapack has been installed because it creates a nice zip file of all docs and directories.

References to Other Articles: For this, we use RandomContent - a plug-in to show related articles below the page the following text: “You may also be interested in these articles:” You can also use modules available in the JED for this purpose and place them in template positions.

SEO: For search engine optimization, we looked for something that would automatically enter keywords and text in the metadata files. For metadata the “SEO Simple – metadata” extension is used. We also have activated the SEF function in Joomla (in global configuration), so Google indexes our site even better. Please make sure that you follow the instructions from your host - for our site, we had to rename the htaccess file for example.

Mass Content: An important component when you develop a new website. With the component, you can easily write multiple articles in the back end saving you hours of extra work.