Category and section blog layouts are essentially the same thing. For a given section, or for a given section/category, all content items will show up on the page in "blog" format.

Obviously, the blog format can be used for... well, blogging. But think bigger than that when applying this to your website. Blog, in this case, is a functionality, not a technology. We routinely use the blog format for press releases, for example. The format works for anything where a client needs to post items regularly, in some pre-defined order. It's also handy if the client is making new pages, because the client doesn't need to make a menu link to the item. It will simply publish on the page.

To make category/section blog layouts, go to the Menu manger and find the menu on which you want this link to live. Click New, then Articles, then select either section or category blog layout.

Today we launched the New England Vegetable Management Guide website.

This site was a challenge because we were tasked with putting a whole book on the web.

The Vegetable Guide is published bi-annually. It is composed by some of the most respected experts from all over New England. 

Sections, categories, articles, menu items. See how it's a SCAM? Remember you do need to create them in this order, as menu items for articles can't exist without the article, the article can't exist without section/category, the category can't exist without section.

Then there's this thing called "uncategorized" associated with an article. So you CAN have an article that exists without section and category! Well, sort of. Think of "uncategorized" as the default section and "uncategorized" as the default category.

So, Frequently Asked Questions about the SCAM:

1. Can an article be assigned more than one section/category?
Nope. One section/category per article.

Webology e-Business Solutions is doing a survey on the positives and negatives of Joomla and Drupal.

Read about the survey.

Take the survey.

I am not a graphic designer. I can't draw stick figures well, and I always wear jeans, khakis, or black pants because I've been told they match everything.

But I've worked with enough graphic designers through the years to know that there are rules to working in a given medium, and there are limitations to that medium as well. For example, if you're making a rack card, those are a certain fixed dimension. You may want to make a bigger design, but you have to work within the limitations of the medium - in this case, the paper, which must fit in the spot on a rack. Perhaps your client only has enough money to afford 2 colors, or 4 colors on one side and black and white on the other. Again, a medium limitation. Yet you never hear print designers complaining about these limitations. They're part of the job; they go with the territory.

I also assume, as a code geek, that I don't know a darn thing about working in print. I hear terms like "4 color" or "bleed" tossed around, and I eventually figure out what they mean. I own a copy of InDesign, and I know where the text tool is. These things absolutely do not make me a print design expert. If I need something printed, I always hire someone who knows what they're doing, like Meg McCarthy.

I received this as an email years ago and sent it to everyone I knew. It still holds true in 2009.

 

Dear Mr. Architect:

Congrats to Kathy and Pam, who have been organizing New Hampshire's first Joomla user group. This will be based in the seacoast area of NH, covering Portsmouth, Durham, Exeter, and other towns in the vicinity.  The first meeting will be held on Feb 11, 2009, from 5-7 PM at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.  More information is on their (temporary) site, http://joomlanh.ning.com.

Jealous? Wish you had a Joomla user group in your town? Why not get one started yourself?  Don't wait for someone else to do it!

Brian Teeman, one of the Joomla founders, wrote an interesting post on the three types of extensions for a website. He's set aside the technical differences between modules, plugins, and components, and instead focused on how they add functionality to your website.

He defines these as eye candy (banners, blinking spinning stuff), additional functionality (forms, galleries,  calendars), and applications (event registration, shopping carts, etc).

You can take these same divisions and also think about how to apply them effectively to your website to support business goals.

We are very pleased to announce the re-launch of Malcolm Pirnie's website. They are an environmental consulting firm based in White Plains, NY.

We originally built Pirnie's site back in 2006 in Joomla 1.0.  At that point in time, we made heavy use of exmenu -- an extension that allowed menus to be broken into a main top nav and a left side nav.  I think I had about 8 templates on the site as well, including one for the home page, one blank page, and about 6 variations on the inside page.

After Bill ported the site to Joomla 1.5, we slimmed this to three templates -- one for home, one for inside, and a blank page. We used a lot of interesting templating tricks to get this done.  We also added FrontPage Slideshow and Wysiwyg Pro for the editor -- making for easier pasting from Word, easier creation of internal links, and easy maintenance.

Read part 1 here.

Group Website

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