Joomlashack Blog and Updates

Beginner Joomla Training June 11th 2009

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 08 June 2009 08 June 2009

Need to learn Joomla in the New England Area? Our upcoming Beginner Joomla training on June 11th in Burlington, Vermont, still has a few spots available!

You can find out more about the class at Beginner Joomla Training June 11th Burlington, VT

How to Apply a Module Class Suffix in Joomla! 1.5

: Written by Barrie North Barrie North; Published: 05 June 2009 05 June 2009

This tutorial will explain how to apply a module class suffix in Joomla!. This tutorial depends on the available styles for individual templates. Some settings may be different. See the templates corresponding docmentation for more information.

Go to your Joomla! administration console

Go the administration of your website at ww.yourjoomlasite.com/administrator/

Login to your Joomla! administration

How to Apply a Module Class Suffix in Joomla! 1.5

Enter the username and password you created when installing Joomla!

Go to the Module Manager

Navigate to Extensions > Module Manager

Go to the module you want to edit

Select the module you want to apply the Module style..

Apply the Module Class Suffix into the parameters to the right

Apply the Module Class Suffix. (S1 example shown)

Save the Module Setting

Click Save

Understanding the Module Manager

: Written by Amanda Tabush Amanda Tabush; Published: 05 June 2009 05 June 2009

Modules are the blocks of content in your site and are distinctively separate from your main content area. For example, a module may appear to the left,right,above, or below your main article content. The Module Manager allows you to customize each module to your preference.

To access the Module Manager in Joomla! 1.0: Navigate to Modules - > Site Modules
To access the Module Manager in Joomla! 1.5: Navigate to Extensions - > Module Manager

Each module in Joomla! has some persistent features. Below are the fields you will see in every module. Modules have more individual parameters but these are the most important ones to understand first.

Note: Some of the terminology is different across Joomla! 1.0 & Joomla! 1.5 but they both have the same functionality.

Title
Show Title
Enabled (1.5) / Published (1.0)
Position
Module Class Suffix
Pages/Items (1.0) / Menu Assignment (1.5)
Ordering

Title:

The title of the module is displayed above the module on the frontend. It is also called a "Module Heading". After a module is saved, the module's title is also shown in the Joomla! backend administration.

Show Title:

This setting allows you to specify whether or not the module's title should be visible on the frontend.

Enabled (1.5) / Published (1.0):

Allows you to enable (or publish) the select module. To enable a module only on specific pages see below *Pages/Items (1.0) / Menu Assignment (1.5)

Position:

A module position may be labeled as left, right, bottom, top, etc.
Module positions are defined by the template. If a module is published in a position that is not supported by the template, it will not show up. It is important to be aware of your template's supported module positions. In Joomla! 1.5, only the module positions of the default template are available in the module manager.

Module Class Suffix:

A module class suffix allows you to specify a preset style which is defined by the template. You'll need to consult your individual template documentation to see what module styles/suffixes are available.
(See also: How to apply a Module Class Suffix)

Pages/Items (1.0) / Menu Assignment (1.5):

When a module is enabled/published it can be assigned to all pages or pages specified in the Pages/Items (1.0) / Menu Assignment (1.5) dialog. Modules can only assigned to pages that have menu items.

Ordering:

You can set the order of a module to appear in the ordering dialog as well as the module manager main page by clicking the up/down arrows.

Joomla template CSS and images only displayed on home page

: Written by Amanda Tabush Amanda Tabush; Published: 05 June 2009 05 June 2009

Sometimes your template will lose all its styles and images when navigating away from the Frontpage.
This is caused by an incorrect path to the stylesheet due to SEF errors. If you've enabled SEF, make sure your htaccess.txt file is renamed to .htaccess. You may need to temporarily disable SEF. For more information on the correct way to set up SEF in Joomla! 1.5, see the official doc item at joomla.org: SEF URLs in Joomla! 1.5

SEF quick checklist:

Make sure htaccess.txt is renamed to .htaccess if SEF is enabled
Make sure your server/host supports all requirements

Creating sublevel menu items

: Written by Amanda Tabush Amanda Tabush; Published: 05 June 2009 05 June 2009

Creating sublevel menu items in both Joomla! 1.0 and Joomla! 1.5 is achieved by same general process. Think of Joomla's menu items as "parents" and "children". In order to create a sublevel item, you will need to assign a "parent" to that item. This is done inside the Menu Manager. Navigate to the menu manager and select the menu to be modified.

Example:

Joomla! 1.0: Menu > mainmenu
Joomla! 1.5: Menus > Main Menu

Select the menu item you would like to assign as a sublevel (or child) item.
You will see a dialog below titled "Parent Item"
Choose the item to assign as the parent and save.

Joomla 1.5 goes to 11: Security upgrade 1.5.11 available now

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 04 June 2009 04 June 2009

The Joomla Project announced this week the release of Joomla 1.5.11, the latest version of our favorite CMS.

Listen to the project leaders when they say: "This is a security release and users are strongly encouraged to upgrade immediately."

Now, we here at Joomlashack always listen when the project tells us to upgrade for security. However, we also recognize that upgrading Joomla can be tricky.

Lucky for you, we have a detailed tutorial that explains How to Update your version of Joomla 1.5.

How to Update Joomla 1.5 Versions

: Written by Amanda Tabush Amanda Tabush; Published: 04 June 2009 04 June 2009

As an open source project, Joomla frequently updates its code with new releases. Often these have important security patches in then, so its really important to keep up to date.

If you consider yourself a skilled Joomla! user and have a little confidence in your technical skills then you may be able to save yourself some time if you're updating your Joomla! installations by FTP. This article will help you greatly speed up the process.

The first thing you'll need to do is send your web host support agent a request to enable SSH access (if available). Some web hosts require you to give an explanations as to why you would want to enable SSH, because it is a command line based way of managing your server and can really screw things up if you enter a command not knowing exactly what it does.

Here is a simple email you can use as a template to request SSH access for your server:

Hi, I would like to request SSH access be enabled for my user account on (yourdomain.com).
I need this in order to perform various security updates and upgrades to the Joomla! CMS on my server.

Thanks,
(your name)

Once SSH is enabled, you can login to your server using a client such as PuTTY (PC). If you're a Mac user you can simply use OSX's native Terminal utility (located under /Applications/Utilities).

After launching PuTTy/Terminal, the first thing you want to type is:

ssh This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(Hit enter to submit each command)

You should be asked for your password. For security reasons, you may not see it appear on the screen as you type it.

If all goes well, you should be logged in now. Servers are set up differently depending on your hosting environment, so once logged in you'll need to find your location.

Type ls to show your current location. In most cases you'll need to type cd ../ to get to the main directory listing. (the cd command means "Change Directory").

To find out exactly where your Joomla! installation is located, you can login to your Joomla! administration, navigate to Help > System Info (J!1.5). Look under "Open basedir" and note its location (excluding :/tmp)

Let's say your Joomla! installation is located in /home/username/public_html/. Type cd ../home/username/public_html/ to go inside the public_html directory.

IMPORTANT:
It is highly recommended that you back up your installation before moving forward. To do this, just type:
tar -cvf site_backup.tar public_html/*
This will create a file named site_backup.tar of your entire public_html directory and its contents.

Now, let's say you're running Joomla! 1.5.3 and you want to update to Joomla! 1.5.7

You can access the Joomla! update listing at https://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/. Copy the link location to Joomla_1.5.3_to_1.5.7-Stable-Patch_Package.tar.gz and type:
wget https://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/8375/31007/Joomla_1.5.3_to_1.5.7-Stable-Patch_Package.tar.gz

wget is a command to download a package file from another server to your server.

Now type:
gzip -d Joomla_1.5.3_to_1.5.7-Stable-Patch_Package.tar.gz
The tar.gz file now has a .tar extension so type:
tar -xvf Joomla_1.5.3_to_1.5.7-Stable-Patch_Package.tar

The package is extracted and Joomla! is updated. If all goes well and Joomla! appears to be stable, you can delete the site_backup.tar file form your server.

An Exceptional Developer Club: Member Spotlight and more

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 22 May 2009 22 May 2009

Announcing Developer Club Member Spotlight- an exclusive page for our Developer Club members to showcase their best work

Joomla web developers and designers: what do you need from us to be successful in 2009?

When we launched the Joomlashack Developers Club in late 2007, we thought coupling unlimited use of all our templates with special recognition in our forum would offer you good value at $499.

After listening to you, we dropped the price even lower, to $399. We thought that was great value.

But 2009 is not 2008, or 2007. To help you be competive in a terrible economy, you need more from us.

Our Developer Club has to be better than good, and better than great.

Joomlashack Template Showcase- let your best sites shine

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 21 May 2009 21 May 2009

Does your Joomla site look gorgeous? Is it sporting one of our many commercial or free templates? Want to show it off?

Announcing the new Joomlashack Showcase, where our customers and our templates shine! We want to show the world how great (and unique!) our templates can look in the hands of our best customers.

Think you have a site that deserves to be showcased? Submit your site today!

AND don't forget to also submit your best sites to the Joomla.org Community Showcase as well.

Come on in and show off a little!

Joomlashack forum turns three- Celebrate with rewards

: Written by Tom Elliott Tom Elliott; Published: 21 May 2009 21 May 2009

Announcing our new Community Forum Rewards Program, where our top forum participants are rewarded for their engagement!

Forum Rewards Happy Birthday, Joomlashack Forum!

In the busy winter we forgot to mark a milestone for Joomlashack, the three year anniversary of our massive community forum.

It's become a top destination on the web for getting help with Joomla, discussing tips and tricks, finding helpful free components and resources, and getting customization support for all Joomlashack's commercial and free templates.

Membership is totally free and open to all, and our team of staff and volunteers try to answer every question about Joomla, templates, SEO, and anything else you need to know to run a successful Joomla-powered website. It's one of the ways we try to give back to the Joomlaverse, and encourage the open source spirit that makes Joomla possible.