Web Developer and Joomla! CMS Solutions Specialist

Joomla! News

Joomla! Developer Do you have a Joomla! emergency? Don't know where to turn?

I've used many of the major CMS platforms. Joomla! has become my favorite, because it's all about ease of use, and offers powerful tools for developers. Take a look at a few of my example websites.

Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development

If you want to develop extensions for Joomla!, you'll want to know the framework inside out. This will enable you to take full advantage of the tools available. Many php developers who are new to Joomla! may think they don't need the framework, and can just develop like they do without Joomla!. While it's true, this is possible, the point is that you would be missing out on some powerful tools that Joomla! offers, which can save you a lot of time, and encourage code re-use through design patterns. Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development contains a very thorough explanation of the framework, with many code examples, and a large appendix for reference.

0 Comments

jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide - A comprehensive exploration of the popular JavaScript library

jQuery is a JavaScript library that's powerful and easy to use. It provides a intuitive and terse syntax, that has an emphasis on making DOM scripting as quick and easy as possible. It's become very popular, with a large developer community creating plugins, and providing support. To use jQuery effectively, you will want to know a lot about the methods you have available to use. You will also want to know broadly what types of problems jQuery can solve. jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide from Packt Publishing is a complete guide to all that jQuery has to offer. Here's a sample chapter

0 Comments

SC jQuery - version 1.0.0 released

I'm finally going to call this stable. But please, do let me know if you find bugs! Download it here

0 Comments

New JoeJoomla Extension for Twitter Status Updates in Joomla! 1.5

Check out the new JJ Tweets extension, the newest release from the JoeJoomla team.

0 Comments

Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide by Eric Tiggeler

In the early days of the web, a business would put up a website with a few HTML pages, some contact info, and be done with it. This was fine until their competitors started offering more dynamic content and services on-line. Customers began to have higher expectations for on-line services, and the web has evolved to meet these new realities. It's changes like these that have sparked the 'CMS Revolution', where businesses and individuals are empowered by software tools like Joomla! 1.5. Tools that allow a non technical person to build and maintain a website quickly and easily. Joomla 1.5 Beginner's Guide by Eric Tiggeler is a new book that covers a broad range of topics to get you up and running on your new Joomla! 1.5 based website (sample chapter).

0 Comments

Joomla! 1.5 Multimedia by Allan Walker

One of the strengths of Joomla! is it's ease of use, allowing non technical administrators to publish their content in a user friendly way. However, there is still a learning curve to overcome to really get the most out of Joomla!. In addition, there may be some tasks that administrators have assumed that only a professional web developer can do for them, when perhaps an extension exists to make that task very easy. Joomla! 1.5 Multimedia by Allan Walker is a new book released by Packt Publishing, aimed at Joomla! administrators who want to publish media-rich content. Here's a sample chapter.

0 Comments

Joomla! 1.5 Development Cookbook by James Kennard

If you're a Web Developer interested in developing extensions for Joomla!, there's a great new book by James Kennard called Joomla! 1.5 Development Cookbook. It's published by Packt Publishing, which is an excellent resource for Joomla! books. This book is aimed at experienced PHP developers, who have some knowledge about Joomla!. It doesn't try to explain all about how Joomla! works, it assumes you know that fairly well. What is does is provide many real world, practical solutions that you will be able to use on a regular basis when developing for Joomla!.

0 Comments

Joomla! Environment Variables in CSS and Javascript

Here's something I use in templates so that it's easy to apply special styles or effects to certain pages based on the Joomla! environment variables...

$Itemid = JRequest::getInt( 'Itemid', 0 );
$option = JRequest::getCmd( 'option', 'none' );
$view = JRequest::getCmd( 'view', 'none' );
$id = JRequest::getInt( 'id', 0 );
echo "<body id='Itemid_{$Itemid}' class='option_{$option} view_{$view} id_{$id}'>";

0 Comments

Automatic Image Padding in Joomla!

The wysiwyg editors in Joomla! offer the option to align an image left or right in your article. However, by default these images will not have padding around them, and the may look squished against the text. Here's a solution I use the help deal with this issue...

2 Comments

SC Extgen - Component for Joomla! 1.5

SC Extgen is a development tool to help with some common Joomla! extension development tasks.

If you have questions, please email me at phil@snellcode.com

Demo SC Extgen

Download com_scextgen.zip

0 Comments

SC jQuery - System Plugin for Joomla! 1.5

This plugin is used to load jQuery javascript library, and set "no conflict" mode to allow usage with mootools, and other libraries. No conflict mode removes the "$" operator from jQuery, allowing other libraries to use that operator. To use jQuery code with this plugin, you must wrap your code in a function like this...

jQuery(function($) {
  $('body').css('color','red');
});

You may add as many lines of code as you need, but you must wrap the whole thing in the protected function. This is just one method of using jQuery in no conflict mode, for other methods, see: Using jQuery with Other Libraries

Thank you for trying this plugin, don't forget to 'publish' it. If you have questions, please email me at phil@snellcode.com

Download plg_system_scjquery.zip

3 Comments

SC Minify - System Plugin for Joomla! 1.5

SC Minify is a system plugin that combines and minifies css and javascript, using PHP Minify http://code.google.com/p/minify/

Thank you for trying this plugin, don't forget to 'publish' it. If you have questions, please email me at phil@snellcode.com

Download plg_system_scminify.zip

0 Comments

Joomla! Module Administrator Parameters - Multiple Select Lists

Joomla! provides an easy way to add parameters to modules in the administrator control panel. Each module has its own folder inside the modules/ directory. In this directory, an xml file describes the admin control panel parameter options. The file name is modules/mod_YOURMODULENAME/mod_YOURMODULENAME.xml. It's possible to customize these options, create new options, or even create your own custom module, with its own xml parameter file.

The parameters available to you in modules are the ones found in libraries/joomla/html/parameter/element/. The files in this directory all correspond to parameter types you can use in your module xml file. You can also define your own module parameter types, to give you different html list behaviors, or custom data. I recommend packaging these custom elements with the module in the directory modules/mod_YOURMODULENAME/elements/, but you can put them anywhere you want. Perhaps you will have several modules using these resources, in which case you may want to create a system plugin to include your custom library files. In any case, a example of a file in elements/ would look something like this...

2 Comments

Joomla! Module Chrome

Joomla! 1.5 module chrome offers web designers a flexible way to manipulate the output of modules. The built in chrome functions can be found in templates/system/html/modules.php. These functions can be accessed with the tag in your template. For example, the tag has the style "xhtml", so Joomla! will look for the function modChrome_xhtml(), and use this to generate the output for the module.

You can use these functions as a guide, and make your own chrome. To do this, create a file in your template at templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE_NAME/html/modules.php. Any functions you add to this will be available to use in your template. Just make sure you follow the examples for the naming convention, and to know the variables you have available.

0 Comments

For Joomla! administrators who want to add media-rich elements to their site.

Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development

Build and maintain impressive websites the easy way with Joomla! 1.5

A great resource containing practical solutions for Joomla! developers

A comprehensive exploration of the jQuery JavaScript library

Donations Accepted

If you like the site, please let me know in the form of cold hard cash!