Joomla Queen

Migrating or Upgrading Joomla templates to 1.7

2011-10-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

Just when you finally figured out how to take your photoshop file and turn it into a fantabulous template in Joomla 1.5, next hing you know Joomla 1.7 is out and throwing all kinds of changes at us.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Just the basics - http://docs.joomla.org/Upgrading_a_template_from_1.5_to_1.6

AcyMail + Community Builder + Frontend-User-Access

2011-04-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Beautiful combination for easily creating free VIP member zones on your site - I have a simple Community Builder registration form that adds the member to a group they select (giving them access to their category of information via Frontend-User-Access) and adding them to an autoresponder lesson series a-la AcyMail.
All I need now is to figure out how to preselect the choice based on URL variables.

I love you Media 65! - Made a custom Joomla template in 45 minutes!

2011-04-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe the brilliance of the Joomla Dreamweaver Extension available from Media 65. Easily write all the code you need to transform your Dreamweaver template into a Joomla template - no matter how intimidated you were to start with.

http://dumbitdown.com/?q=node/1
This is NOT an affiliate link.

I switched the site at http://www.eaglepainting.ca in about 45 minutes - and kept the look the same. Granted it is a VERY simple layout but the concepts apply across the board.

What a feeling of freedom. This is exactly the tool I needed to truly customize my client Joomla sites. I had been playing with customizing rockettheme templates for some time but they are a bit of over killl on a simple site like Eagle Painting.
And this extension is available for Joomla 1.5 and 1.6.

Order of Contact Form

2010-09-08T07:50:00.001-07:00

Finally found how to re-order the contact form layout.

It is in com_contact/views/contact/tmpl/default_address.php

Make sure you grab the surrounding if statement.

NOw I can put the information box above the address and phone at last.

Mentoring a new web designer

2010-01-18T04:17:00.000-08:00

for Christmas I got a phone call from a friend of a friend who wants to start a web design business.... using Joomla!

This ties in perfectly with a new suite of products I am creating to teach people how to start a web design business... using Joomla.

So he gets a mentor and I get a guinea pig. :)

WAMP server and Skype don't share nice

2010-01-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

Having trouble using WAMP for local Joomla development? I discover that Skype was hogging port 80 - same port as WAMP uses. There are geeky work arounds - I just close Skype when I am using WAMPserver.

Can we create this with Joomla?

2009-12-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Absolutely

Automation Creation.com

2009-12-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

I am setting up a Joomla site to teach about setting up Joomla sites at http://www.automationcreation.com I will be video taping the entire process with advice and checklists on how to duplicate the website. While I will be offering some e-books and membership levels for sale, most basic content is completely free.

ijoobi applications

2009-10-16T06:35:00.001-07:00

I have started using a lot of ijoobi applications other than acajoom. If you can get the jsetup to install, you are well on your way. I actually had to set up a new hosting server to run this correctly.

There are a lot of bugs in the software but the tech support is great.

my life mission

2009-08-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a new-to-me book by Jack Canfield "The Success Principles".
In the first chapter he has an exercise through which you write your life mission. I have tried this kind of exercise time and again in the past to the point where I started to believe I didn't have a purpose. But I gamely tackled it because it seemed wrong to skip Exercise 1!

What a great exercise. Simple. Logical.

Step One
List two of your unique personal qualities.
I chose: listening and creativity

Step Two
List one or two ways you enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others.
I wrote: to engage in the dreams of others during strategy sessions to inspire them, excite them and create tools, connections and strategies to help them launch their biggest dreams into reality.
(Entrepreneurs sit so alone in their businesses losing the excitement and freshness. When we work together in this deep brain-storming, strategy developing session they are surprised to discover some of their "sillier" dreams are truly doable. I also help them by giving an outside perspective on what is unique about them.)

Step Three
Assume the world is perfect right now. Describe it.
My perfect world (in part) is a place where entrepreneurs are not competition to each other - they complement each other. Each an important part of the picture. Each has a unique niche they develop with confidence, focus and fun.

My purpose is to use my listening skills and creativity to engage in others' dreams in order to help them create the tools, connections and strategies needed to bring them to reality.

Just another reason I love Joomla - a great tool to communicate your dreams.

New Joomla Course - hands-on learning

2009-06-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

I finally launched my new course - 6 Weeks to a Self-Managed Website.
During the course participants create and optimize a Joomla! website - with my help.

The course is offered over 6 2-hour sessions with the first week one-on-one and the following 5 weeks group coaching in a computer learning lab.

We had our first session last Wednesday during which we had an overview of Joomla, started our site maps and set up content and navigation.

Week four we diverge a bit from Joomla to show how to use Google tools in conjuction with Joomla for google analytics, website optimizer and google ads.

Simple photographer site

2009-05-03T14:19:00.001-07:00

I needed a simple way to create user specific photo galleries in a joomla 1.x site.

I came across Simple Image Gallery http://www.joomlaworks.gr/content/view/17/42/ - this allows my completely web newbie photographer to upload all user images to a folder assigned to them, then create an article that creates a page of thumbnails from that folder as well as creating a lightbox slideshow.

Then I completed this hack:

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=178&t=124296

Once she is done all of the previous, she logs into her Joomla backend and enters the Joomla User Manager and specifies that after login, the user will arrive at their personal photo gallery to preview their shots.

AEC SOBI2 workflow

2009-04-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

I have been working with paid membership sites using Joomla, SOBI2 and AEC Automatic Expiry Component.

After chasing my tail for a couple of weeks, by George I think I get it... mostly.

SOBI2 controls all of the directory listings but just the directory listings. Everything must be set to free.

AEC control all of the payments AND the membership levels. (Your do not want to have to manually set to Author or Publisher - sobi2 does this for you!)

I only have this running with three membership levels right now because I do not have ioncube on my host to allow advanced usergroups. Free Basic at $150/year or $15/month Pro at $247/year or $24/month

Some customizing of the Entry form, Vcard and Details templates must be done in SOBI2 - but it cannot be done without a query to AEC to determine the subscription the owner has.

The AEC - SOBI2 - AEC workflow looks something like this:

(click the image to view full image)

Butterfly Marketing without the Software

2009-04-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

You know me.

You know I love Joomla!

You know I am going to find a way to apply Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Marketing with Joomla.

What are the keys?

A Community site

That is free

With paid upgrades

Quality downloads

Discussion board

An in-built affiliate program

Automated affiliate email series

But what about having staged content reveals... after sign-up you immediately get product one.
After 3 days you get product two and video one.
After 7 more day you get automated email two, product three and video two....
and what about having a coaching discussion board where paid members can ask for coaching?
And premium audio content for paid members?
And real world mailings to platinum members?

Get the idea?

So far that looks like a Joomla site, with Acajoom, timed content release based on date of sign-up, several levels of discussion board and, of course, the AEC component for paid members.

Most Important Element of a Website

2009-04-03T09:31:00.001-07:00

As a designer/developer/marketer, I work with a lot of small businesses. They always ask me "What is the timeline for development?"

My real answer would be: "It depends on how much planning you have already put into it."

Planning.

Why do you want a website?
Why will people want to go to your website?
What incentive can you provide to get them to join your community or mailing list?
How will you regularly communicate with list members? customers? affiliates?
have you written the emails that you will send them?

If you plan on having a newsletter - have you planned it? Frequency, Content, Uniqueness?

Plan

What action do you want someone to take from your homepage?

What action do you want them to take from your email? from your newsletter?

What is your personality? What is your persona? How will you bring that to life on your website?

How often will you update your website? your blog?

Whether you are using wordpress, Drupal or Joomla! the planning is the most crucial element. Without Focus and Purpose you are just wasting time....
Need a plan? Download my "Creating a Website for an Expert" at http://www.clicktostart.com/expert

SOBI2 Customization

2009-03-22T05:43:00.001-07:00

I have been working on 3 Joomla sites that have a SOBI2 business directory at the core. All of them needed customization

The BIA site needed only a custom look and images.

The Dental site need custom display to prevent viewing of contact information and details unless logged in.

The Mr. Bob site required 3 levels of membership: Free, Basic and Pro with Paypal subscription payments, many custom fields, and automatic expiry using the AEC - Automatic Expiry Component.

What a learning curve. All 3 sites will be launching this week - I still need to create the images for the BIA site, the dental site needs minor cosmetic tweaking and menu edits.

The Mr.Bob site was the biggest challenge. I found I could not have SEO turned on with the AEC plugin or all payment plans were disabled. Not so good - a paid community site nobody could subscribe to.
The next challenge was just offline planning - with all of the extra components and the three access levels.
All paid members can post ads, only pro members can post events and content. Free members can add simplified listings to the SOBI2 directory. All paid members get advanced listings but Pro members also get an image gallery and extra fields.

I eliminated all paid fields in SOBI2 because their a-la-carte style is kind of irritating.
All paid items are packaged in AEC. Then when editing their entry in SOBI2 the entry form does a database call to AEC to determine their plan id # and shows or hides fields for editing and submitting based on their plan level.
AEC also sets as Registered, Author or Publisher - other components are controlled by those levels.

Thanks to SOBI2 forum member k2xl for inspiring this solution through his Author name solution.
This is a huge amount of work and customization. Contact me if you want this for your site.

Hiding site title on home page of Joomla!

2009-02-18T13:42:00.000-08:00

This comes up over and over again and I always forget where to do the edit.

By Default, Joomla shows the Site Name on the Home Page. If you set this to something long and detailed for SEO use or you have an interest in attractive design, or are a bit of a control freak like me, it is important to know how to hide the site title.

In your Joomla Control Panel, Click on "Menus" - then "Main Menu" - "Home"
On the right side of the detail page that loads, click "System Parameters"And check the 'No' radio button next to *Page Title*And Page title will be hidden from the front-end Home Page. Whew.

Joomla Install with SSH

2009-02-11T06:05:00.000-08:00

What a huge improvement!

I always lost files when I uploaded Joomla! via ftp then had to painstakingly determine which files were lost.
Never again.

Now I ftp the (much smaller) zip file of the full Joomla package to my main public directory.
Enable SSH through my Host control panel - a simple one click in my Security section and choose a password.

Launch Putty - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

Login to the host with the SSH username and the password you set.

type the command cd public
type the command unzip Joomla_1.5.9-Stable-Full_Package.zip (in this case)
Voila - magic - no files lost - 2 minutes from start to finish.

Go through the online install and it all worked.

Okay then I tried to delete the installation folder with ftp and realized it wasn't empty
Back to SSH
rm -Rf installation/
Beautiful.

Who else has a time saving idea?

JoomlaPack Backup and Restore

2009-02-09T13:15:00.000-08:00

If it sounds too good to be true....
Well not really.

Joomlapack is a great extension. But as with any install of Joomla, make sure your ftp program uploads the whole thing! and in ascii where needed.

If you can unzip right on the server, my goodness what a miraculous extension joomlapack is.
I designed sites on my local server and test them thoroughly adding all content there as well as by connecting to my local database directly to cut and paste much more rapidly.

To be able to backup and then upload to an empty host and automagically install and restore the exact site in minutes is incredible: content, newsletters, forum entries - everything ported over well.... now if only my ftp program would stop losing folders during upload.

have a look at http://ideinrise.com.previewmysite.com
- a development server online - once I switch the DNS it will not need the previewmysite.com portion.

Building Online Communities With Joomla

2009-01-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

Barrie North from Compass Designs provides a detailed overview of online communities here: http://www.compassdesigns.net/tutorials/289-building-online-communities-with-joomla.html

- he touches briefly on what it is that makes a community a popular place to return to: ie giving registered users indide tools to call their own and facilitating discussion on articles, blogs, as well as discussion forums.
Some of the comments were very insightful:

keep it simple
think of it as a community
listen to the community needs

Get even more details in his online tutorial http://www.simplweb.com/413-7.html

Butterfly Marketing Review

2009-01-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

Just read a great review of Butterfly Marketing at http://www.seocracked.com/product-reviews/butterfly-marketing-reviewed.html
I think we can all agree that the content is brilliant and the strategies sleek but as Joshua correctly points out - implementation for the newbie would be tough.
I feel pretty confident as I have been a web designer and technology marketer for 12 years now. If you need help implementing, contact me or comment below.
I will be using Joomla as my platform to integrate Butterfly marketing strategies.

What makes a Community Online?

2009-01-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

As I build with Joomla, I recognize that it can be difficult to get community members to participate.
I like the idea of the Karma plugin so that visitors build rank by editing their profile and posting to the forum. I wonder if there is a way to modify Mamblog extension to credit Karma points?!

I am giving a speech tonight about creating and participating in conversation online. If you are at that event (or just want to join the fun) post your blog address and twitter page in the comments... I will comment on your blog and follow it and follow you on Twitter.

I want to start having some fun with Web 2.0 this year!
I am following my Internet Marketing hero on twitter - Mike Filsaime. He is following me back - very cool.

Share some ideas on how you are joining in to the online conversation that is WEb 2.0
Do you blog? comment on blogs? Give Yahoo Answers? Visit discusion boards? Put content on Youtube or upload podcasts? Digg it? Create reviews at amazon.com.............

SOBI 2 Online Directory for Joomla

2009-01-13T15:53:00.001-08:00

I am working on a website for our downtown merchants. They need an online directory of members so I chose SOBI 2 - it installed so easily and allows quick addition of categories....BUT when I got to the addition of members, the process is painfully slow.
I hate charging for data entry so I thought, right a quick little query to append members in the member database row by row. I use MySql Front so that should be easy right? Wrong.

Users are not represented as individual rows. Each piece of information is represented in its own row. So some users have 6 rows, some 12 rows and so on - depending on how much information you have on each.

Well I figure - someone else has come across this! So off I go to search Google Groups and Voila... an plugin - pretty cheap considering the hours it will save me on this project alone. (Under $100 CAD)
Took me about 30 seconds to buy, download and install and another 5 minutes to learn the software and upload the members.
I love it when an extension can be extended!

SOBI 2 http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/1113/details
Import Export Plugin: http://www.sigsiu.net/download/plugins/import_and_backup.html

Content Management

2009-01-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

I love starting new projects, listening to client worries, ideas and dreams, researching options, proposing solutions and devoloping websites that mesh with their needs. I am not so keen on website maintenance.

I have been a web designer for 10 years.
In year 1 -3 I updated client websites for them. Always.
In year 4 - 6 I would install a cgi script to allow them to go in and edit text on any of their webpages.
In year 7 I discovered Macromedia (now Adobe) Contribute. I would design sites in Dreamweaver so that all aspects except the main look and navigation could be edited by the client - yay this was a big step.
In year 8 I discovered WebAssist.com and started creating database driven websites with online control panels whereby clients could login and add pages, products, images and more using the programming language asp and an online database.... but... Access databases break so I switched to MySql and went through a new learning curve... and.... asp stopped being popular so I switched to PHP.... and if a new feature needed to be added, I often had to get into custom programming from scratch.

Last year I started using Joomla! http://www.joomla.org/
I am in love.

I took over an existing website for a new client. Instead of having to dive into code and figure out what the original designer had been thinking, this site was created using Joomla!
I was able to login, make their edits and have their site current in under an hour - this after they had been neglecting it for almost a year.
Later I was able to add a Blog and Event registration in just a couple of hours.
http://www.cnhr.ca/

Did I mention Joomla is free?

Did I mention that any time you want to add a new feature you can browse through over 4000 "extensions" to find that add-on feature? http://extensions.joomla.org/ Many of these extensions are free as well.

Why else do I love Joomla?

I can create my own graphic design and use it for the site.
Site managers can add new navigation items - not just edit existing pages
It can be used to create an online community, social networking, e-commerce, calendar, newsletter, magazine, polls and surveys, blog, discussion board, document repository, education.....
I can develop my own extensions that work with the existing structure.

So in this blog, I want to turn others into Joomla fans by sharing my discoveries, ideas and sites.

Visit my very first full Joomla site http://penetanguishenecurlingclub.com/