Blog entries tagged joomla 1.5

Integrating Dreamweaver CS5 and Joomla 1.5 OR Joomla 1.6

Jen Kramer — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:32:42 +0100

Recently, Adobe released Dreamweaver CS5. One of its major new features is the ability to integrate with the CMS of your choice. They seem to push Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress in particular, but in theory, it works with any CMS.

I have been very skeptical of this integration from the beginning, because Joomla manages its files very differently than Drupal or Wordpress.

We all know that God kills a kitten when you edit Joomla’s core code. (Right? Right???) You are suppos...

Happy 5th Birthday, Joomla!

Jen Kramer — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:04:05 +0100

Dear Joomla,

We’re all so proud of you and how far you’ve come these five years. Your 20 parents conceived of you because they wanted to have fun. Ever since, people have come to you looking for a good time, to make friends all over the world, to contribute to the greater good.

In dog years, or technology years, you’re actually 35. This is actually a better age to describe you. You’re old enough to have been around the block, and old enough to know better...

Social Networking at Joomla.org

Jen Kramer — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:49:07 +0100

Last night, the Joomla leadership announced that they were looking for request for comment on a social networking community to reside at Joomla.org.

We know it will either be called social.joomla.org or people.joomla.org. We know that it's been decided that JomSocial will run the community.

We are asked for input about whether this is something we'd use, what we want included, and how we think we'd use it.

Does anyone see a problem with that? We have the URL all pic...

Best Business Decision Made: Attending CMS Expo

Jen Kramer — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:28:36 +0100

I have been designing and developing websites for 10 years now, but my company, 4Web Inc., has only been around for 2 years. (Prior to that, I ran a freelance company, Focused Consulting LLC.)

Back in 4Web's infancy, my colleagues attended the very first CMS Expo in May 2008. (I was at Adobe headquarters for an Adobe User Group Manager summit and could not attend.) Back then it was a Joomla conference mostly. The networking was great, though, and my colleagues got to meet a lot o...

VOXUS's first PR problem for Joomla

Jen Kramer — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:54:37 +0100

I believe that Joomla is the best open source content management system out there today. It's powerful but adaptable. You don't need to know PHP to use it and accomplish amazing things with it. If you do know PHP, you can do just about anything with it. It's been downloaded over 15 million times.

But as Bill Tomczak says, there used to be two TV recording formats: Beta and VHS. Everyone knew Beta was "better". But VHS eventually won the day.

"Holy Wars" have always been with us ...

Alternative Joomla Administrator Templates and Dancing Bears

Jen Kramer — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:17:27 +0100

Dancing Bear Syndrome is a term coined by Jared Spool and Alan Cooper (among others in the usability community). Someone says, "Look! A dancing bear!" And you are amazed! The bear is dancing! How cool is that?

Of course, bears don't dance well. It's just amazing that they dance at all. The novelty of it all is what catches our attention, not the quality of the dancing.

Alternative Joomla administrator templates are dancing bears.

First off, what is a Joomla admin template...

On the importance of excellent web hosting for Joomla

Jen Kramer — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:58:07 +0100

This is a topic covered in my recent book, but the question comes up all the time.

In the early static days of the web, there was really little difference between one host and another. You uploaded a bunch of HTML pages and images (and later a CSS file or two) and the web host just worked. There wasn't a lot of analysis to do for the average small business site. One host was pretty much as good as another.

Now we're working with Joomla. And now, when it comes to hosting, everyth...

Chapter 15: Site Maintenance and Training

Jen Kramer — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:52:25 +0100

Chapter 15 of my new book is available for you to explore! It covers all of the usual post-launch issues, including ongoing site maintenance, upgrades, backups, and training your client how to use Joomla.

Download Chapter 15 here (PDF)

Using the menu alias function in Joomla

Jen Kramer — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:04:55 +0100

Sometimes you want to create more than one link to a given item in your Joomla site. Let's say you have an article that you want to show up as subnavigation under Item A and Item B on your menu.

You could create two identical articles, linking one to Item A and the other to Item B. We used to do that in the static HTML days. Unfortunately, that generally meant that you had a maintenance nightmare, since when the page's content changed, you had to change it in two places.

With Jo...

Finding the top menu

Bill Tomczak — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:07:42 +0100

I was recently asked if there was a way to get the topmost menu item in which a page sits. Let's say you have a menu like this:

Item 1
--Item 1.1
--Item 1.2
----Item 1.2.1
Item 2
--Item 2.1
--Item 2.2

Let's say you wanted to do something special with all the menus in the 'Item 1' tree and something slightly different for all the items in the 'Item 2' tree. You'd want to know which tree you were on. Here is a bit of simple php code you can use ...

Cool Joomla Tip of the Day: Back-end Welcome Screen

Jen Kramer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:26:10 +0100

If you ever installed the sample data in Joomla, you've seen that little "welcome" message over on the right side of the screen, right in the control panel.

Ever wondered how to get rid of it? Ever wondered if you could make your own, so that it was actually useful to your client and not just you?

It's easy to do!

1. Log into the back end of Joomla and go to Extensions - Module Manager.

2. Switch over to the Administrator modules. By default, you're looking at the ...

Working on a book!

Jen Kramer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:02:55 +0100

It's been way too long since I've posted, but that's because I'm spending many hours each day writing a book. Joomla! Start to Finish: How to Plan, Execute, and Maintain Your Web Site is due to be published in January next year by Wrox Press.

Writing a book has definitely been the most challengi...

Joomla makes the top 10 hottest freelance skills

Jen Kramer — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:04:51 +0100

Great news for Joomla developers! Elance, a site putting clients in touch with freelancers, says that the 8th most popular freelance skill out there is Joomla. PHP came in at #1, MySQL at #4, and WordPress and #10.

I can certainly confirm this based on how many calls for help we've gotten lately here at 4Web. We're taking projects with a September start right now -- in this economy!

Certificate in Open Source Web Development, featuring Joomla

Jen Kramer — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:00:00 +0100

The Marlboro College Graduate Center in Brattleboro, Vermont, just released its Open Source Web Development certificate in a wholly online format.

If you've been working with Joomla, but you want to know a lot more about it, this is the certificate program for you. The certificate introduces students to Joomla, as well as planning a website, understanding the code that runs it, and developing and executing an online marketing plan.

The certificate consists of 12 credits:

...

Five Fashion NOs for Joomla 1.5

Jen Kramer — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:00:00 +0100

You've got your first Joomla site running! It's fabulous! It's amazing! And now how do we start taking it to the next level?

Just like you should never wear white shoes after Labor Day, and visible panty lines are never cool, there are a few fashion NOs that you should stay away from doing on your Joomla site.

1. Why does it need to say "Main Menu"?

I am a big usability buff. But if you have surfed the web for more than 5 minutes, you can generally recognize a navi...

Thinking about "Intermediate Joomla"

Jen Kramer — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:00:00 +0100

So you've built a site or two or five in Joomla 1.5.

Maybe you have a background in HTML/CSS, or maybe you've been learning it, but you don't necessarily have a background in PHP/MySQL.

You're interested in taking your Joomla site to the next level. You think you could be doing more with your Joomla sites than you are already.

Most Joomla beginner books and videos cover the 20% of Joomla you use 80% of the time. You can't build a Joomla site without knowing about sections, c...

OK, it's a vanity post...

Jen Kramer — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:00:00 +0100

... but I am all excited about this past week on Joomla.org.

First, Amy Stephen wrote a very nice article about me, in response to my post about those who can't do, teach. I was really surprised but am really grateful to Amy for the nice article.

Then, Neri Valentin-Macias wrote a terrific article about the Lynda.com movies that Joe LeBlanc and I create...

Those who can't do, teach. (Really???)

Jen Kramer — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Recently, a student of mine showed me a Twitter exchange between two prominent Joomla developers about this very phrase. The argument made was if you're good enough to actually do, you wouldn't have time to be teaching. The implied conclusion to that is if you're teaching, you clearly aren't a first rate designer/developer, and you have to teach to pay the bills.

We could carry this argument to this: if you are a first-rate designer/developer, you wouldn't have time to volunteer your s...

Lynda.com Joomla basics videos in planning!

Jen Kramer — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Lynda Weinman and I are scheduled to chat next week about some new movies for Lynda.com. She has a great description on her new blog of what we're discussing. It's the same thing I've been discussing with many of you. When I created the Joomla templates movies, my assumption was that people knew how to make a static HTML web page with an external stylesheet. Since then, I've heard from some of you at the user groups, and others at conferences and online, that this wasn...

CMS Expo Time Again!

Jen Kramer — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Heidi and I are here in Evanston, IL, at the Hotel Orrington for CMS Expo, now through May 1. It's a very cute town, with lots of stuff within walking distance.

If you're here for Expo, be sure to drop by our booth for Joomla template cheat sheet cards and a brochure describing Marlboro College Grad School's new Certificate in Open Source Web Development.

We've also got a sale on Lynda.com DVD training! You can buy Jen's "Joomla! Creating and Editing Custom Templates" o...