Joomla How To
How do I make Screencasts?
I've received a few inquiries lately on how I make our screencasts and video tutorials so I've compiled a review if want to make some for your own clients. Last year I switched my systems over to Mac but when I was using Windows the two best applicaions were Camtasia, Captivate and Wink.
Joomla Errors and the www. Domain Mismatch
Many Joomla users, particularly newbies (newcomers or beginners), fall victim to a variety of issues which have the same root cause. The so called www domain mismatch causes a wide variety of issues such as login failures (both core and Community Builder logins, and administrator logins), WYSIWYG editors failing to load or failing to save content, javascript execution halted with error messages. At JoomlaShack our own Flash based JPG Rotator is triggered by javascript and this module is amongst those affected.
Why You Need to Use Email Marketing
What exactly is email marketing?
It can be any number of things, at its most basic it is using email to communicate with your users, customers or stakeholders. Don't get confused by the word "marketing" here, I am using it in a very global sense:
- A information site might send out news about new content that has been added
- A non-profit organization might send news about its projects
- A subscription site might use a series of autoresponders to create e-courses
- A resteraunt site might send out coupons on a hot day for summer food specials
- A ecommerce site might use it to send follow up emails to customers, or emails to people that abandoned your cart
- A political campaign might send out emails to initiate donation drives
I've just installed IE7 but need a standalone version of IE6 for testing Joomla templates
Since the launch of Internet Explorer 7 I struggled with ways to test sites on IE6 & IE7.
One solution which was suggested to me by Dean is to have multiple OS's installed on emulation software such as VMWare.
I installed VMWare as I'm sure it'll come in handy but the 4GB of space it requires to install a second version of Windows XP seemed a bit like over kill for my liking so I searched for another solution.
Here's that solution: http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone - I now have a standalone version of IE6 alongside my updated IE7
Menus and Submenus in Joomla 1.5
There are a number of great improvements to menus in Joomla 1.5. These are focussed on providing more flexibility to template designers and making Joomla sites more accessible and W3C valid. Specifically, significant improvments have been made to bulleted lists to now allow better submenus (for things like dropdown menus) and image replacement.
New Shack Blogs
You may have noticed some new features here at the shack. We have gone bloggy!
As well as working on some information all about the Shack Team, each of us, Barrie, Casey, Waseem, Dean, Cory and TJ will be blogging about different things that interest them in the world wide Joomla web. We have added easy links to each blog in a menu on the left, along with the most recent blog posts.
We look forward to seeing you exploring the new blogs, as ever, our goal is to provide quality Joomla inofrmation and Services.
The Joomlashack Team
How to lose the splash page
Splash pages (those annoying pages with some sort of fancy graphic or flash intro that say "Click to Enter" or "Skip Intro") are bad. I could spend a whole article trying to convince you of this fact, but I think this article does a better job of it than I could ever do.
One of the most common mistakes made by Joomla! designers is to assume that just because you loaded Joomla! in a directory called "http://www.yourdomain.com/joomla" or "http://www.yourdomain.com/cms" or "http://www.yourdomain.com/home" rather than your root web directory, you are stuck needing to create a splash or intro page in your root directory to point your users to the real site. Nothing could be futher from the truth. As a webmaster, you have a couple of options for pointing users to your content without the need for a splash page. I will try to cover those options in this tutorial.
Why I am excited about Joomla! 1.5
If you follow Joomla! news, you no doubt heard that Joomla! 1.5 beta was released on October 12 (or October 13, depending on what time zone you live in). This is great news for anyone using Joomla!, because it means that we are close to the stable release of version 1.5. I am extremely excited about this new version for several reasons, but as a designer, there is one main reason for my excitement.
That reason can be summed up in three words: no more tables! The new templating system for J!1.5 enables designers to override the default html output of the core Joomla! components and modules. This means that those pesky tables included in the default output can be a thing of the past, which means improved accessibility, more standards-compliant websites, and better SEO.
This new templating system, greater ease of extensibility (3rd party developers will have an improved framework for building components, modules, and plugins), and a growing, dynamic community make Joomla! the best CMS on the market. The possibilities of what can be done with Joomla! are limitless!
Site Updates
Important Announcement Below:
All new and returning users please read. Thank you.
Welcome back to Joomlashack!
If you're a returning user, you'll notice things look a bit different. This is just part of our latest relaunch which includes some added FAQ's, a knowledgebase, screencasts and a few more tutorials (all of which we're going to be updating over the next few days). Aside from that, we have some more structural changes designed to make your visit more functional in terms of support and purchasing.
Please read more to familiarize yourself with these changes.
Joomlashack featured on Joomla Design Site
Joomlashack has been featured on the Joomla design showcase site joomlaform.com. Corey Webb searches out Joomla sites that show good form and showcases them as inspiration of what can be done with CSS design and Joomla. "The reason that I chose to feature this site is because it clearly exhibited good form" says Corey. Check out the review at joomlaform.com.
Thanks Corey! We appreciate the praise, your project hopefully will push Joomla designers to work harder with CSS and valid XHTML design.
