How to Create Custom Layouts in Joomla 3

How to Create Custom Layouts in Joomla 3

Layouts are a feature in Joomla 3 that makes possible to re-use small portions of your design, using template overrides.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create really flexible and re-usable custom layouts.

Follow these 5 steps to become a master of custom layouts.

For the examples in this tutorial we're going to use Breeze, a free template you can download here.

Read more: How to Create Custom Layouts in Joomla 3

How to Find the Location of Your Joomla php.ini File

How to Find the Location of Your php.ini File

The php.ini file is a critical file you often need to manage to optimize your Joomla site. It controls many important aspects of what you can and can not do with your site.

For example, it controls the size of the files your server allows your Joomla to upload.

Different hosts use different schemes for storing and accessing critical system files like php.ini. You'll need to research where to find them.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to find the location of the php.ini file on any server.

Read more: How to Find the Location of Your Joomla php.ini File

Create a Joomla Sitemap for Google, Bing, Yahoo

Create a Joomla Sitemap for Google, Bing, Yahoo

Why should you add a sitemap to your Joomla site?

I'll be honest and say that I don't believe sitemaps improve your ranking in search engines. However, they do make sure more pages get indexed and that they get indexed more quickly.

Read more: Create a Joomla Sitemap for Google, Bing, Yahoo

How to Add Joomla Microdata to Articles and Templates

Add Microdata to Articles in Joomla 3

Microdata makes it possible to search engines to understand important details about your site's content. 

Microdata provides Google and Bing with extra information about your content such as names, descriptions, dates and ratings. And, because search engines can understand your data more clearly, they often reward you with a higher ranking.

In Joomla, some microdata support was quietly added in Joomla 3.3, which was released in 2014. The best to way to provide microdata is by using your template.

Some templates provide microdata support, including all Joomlashack templates.

However, if your template doesn't support microdata, I'm going to show you how to test your template and then add microdata support.

Read more: How to Add Joomla Microdata to Articles and Templates

How to Fix a 500 Internal Server Error in Joomla

How to Fix a 500 Internal Server Error

At Joomlashack, several customers have asked us about "Internal Server Errors" on their Joomla site.

In this blog post, I will cover what an internal server error is in Joomla and how to fix it.

Read more: How to Fix a 500 Internal Server Error in Joomla

How to Add Video or Audio to a Joomla Article

Add Video or Audio to Joomla

In this Joomla media tutorial, we'll show you how to embed video and audio into a Joomla article.

By default, Joomla doesn't have much support for multimedia. You can add images, but it's not possible to embed YouTube videos, Soundcloud audio, X / Twitter posts, Instagram photos and other multimedia content.

If you do want to add video or audio to Joomla article, you will need an extension.

Read more: How to Add Video or Audio to a Joomla Article

How to Link to PDFs and Other Files in Joomla

One of the things that many people use their websites for is sharing documents. Many organizations produce a large number of documents and need to make them available on their site.

In this tutorial, we'll show you two ways to share PDF documents in Joomla.

Read more: How to Link to PDFs and Other Files in Joomla

Fixing the Joomla White Screen of Death

Joomla White Screen of Death

Sometimes you may change some code on your site or even install an extension, and then you refresh your website and all you see is a blank white screen.

In this tutorial, we're going to show you how to recover from the White Screen of Death (WSOD).

We'll show you how to find the error that's causing your WSOD, and we'll show you how to fix it.

Read more: Fixing the Joomla White Screen of Death

Videos to Get You Started With Joomla Development

Videos to Get You Started With Joomla Development
How do I get started with building Joomla extensions?

That's a common question we get from people who join OSTraining for the first time. They want to know about the skills they will need, and what kind of classes they should take.

Here's an overview of everything you need to get started with Joomla development.

Read more: Videos to Get You Started With Joomla Development

10 Ways to Improve Your Joomla Contact Form

How to Create a Joomla Contact Form Module

One question we frequently get is about the Joomla contact form. Some people think its too plain and want to redesign it or add features. Some people get too much spam.

This week we'll walk you through how to improve your Joomla contact form.

If you want to use the Joomla core, check out this guide: how to create Joomla contact forms.

But there are some serious limitations to the Joomla core. For example, you can't even store messages that are sent to you. So we highly recommend the Shack Forms extension for better Joomal contact forms.

Read more: 10 Ways to Improve Your Joomla Contact Form