Translating and Modifying Joomla's Language files using Language Overrides

This tutorial will show how to modify and/or translate Joomla's language strings.

One of our students was wondering how to make the Terms of Service text into an active link when people registered on his site. So we created this tutorial for him and will use this Terms of Service example to show you how language overrides work in Joomla 1.7.

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Joomla ACL Tutorial for Allowing One Person to Modify Only One Category

We recently published a detailed round-up of the best, general Joomla ACL tutorials.

Here's a specific ACL tutorial requested by one of our students. She wanted to know how to allow a single individual to be able to create and modify articles in only single category, so we created this tutorial for her.

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How To Package Joomla Libraries

You’ve seen it before: the monster Joomla installation package. It’s a giant component, several side modules, and at least one plugin. Once you dig through the code, you notice the plugin isn’t even responding to events: it’s merely there to load up code shared by the other extensions.

Fortunately, Joomla 1.6 and higher provide a better way of handling this. Reusable code libraries can now be installed into the libraries folder without creating extraneous plugins. Just like any other extension in Joomla, a library is packaged as a .zip file with an XML manifest to guide the installation.

If you’ve created Joomla XML manifest files before, creating one for a library is straightforward. The main thing you need to keep in mind is the added <libraryname> element. This element is the “system name” for the library: make sure it is valid as a directory name across platforms. When coming up with this “system name,” avoid spaces, capital letters, and special characters. Upon installation, Joomla will create a subfolder of libraries using name specified by <libraryname>. Contrast this with the <name> element, which identifies an extension with a human readable name.

Read more: How To Package Joomla Libraries

The Ultimate Joomla ACL Tutorial

The new Access Control Levels (ACL) are a huge part of Joomla 1.7. In previous versions you had limited control over that user could and could not do. Now in the 1.6 / 1.7 / 1.8 version of Joomla you have very detailed control.

However, the system is now substantially different. Here is a detailed guide to the best ACL tutorials around.

We also recommend four steps to get you quickly stared and up-to-speed. Let's see Step 1 ...


Introduce Yourself to the New ACL

Step 1: Start with this tutorial from Joomlashine. They take you through a comparison of Joomla 1.5 and 1.7 and explain where and what the new ACL settings are.

Learn by Doing. Try Some ACL Examples

Step 2: Try this specific example from Yireo who walk you through setting up a "Marketing" user who can add and edit their own content.

Step 3: Download this free chapter from my new Joomla Explained book and try the three examples.

Step 4: Jen Kramer posted a two part tutorial on Joomla.org. In Part 1 she explains front-end viewing and controlling what your users can SEE. In Part 2 she focuses front-end editing and controlling what your users can DO.

An Extra Extension to Help Learn ACL

Because the ACL settings are spread throughout the Joomla interface, the ACL Manager extension can be a big help. Read more about ACL Manager here.

More Advanced Tutorials

For those who want to dig deeper, there is also this fairly geeky tutorial on the Joomla docs site.

Joomla ACL Videos

If you learn better via videos, there are also these videos to help you out:

 

The Ultimate Joomla ACL Tutorial

 

 

Joomla ACL Presentations

Here are two presentations from recent Joomla days that also help explain ACL:

Joomlashack Invests in State of the Art Joomla Support System

 

Joomlashack's Stellar Support

In our continuing effort to bring you the very best customer support experience in the Joomlasphere, it is with great pride that I share some recent developments we've made to our support system and briefly explain how these new developments will help us serve you even better...even faster than before.

About six months ago, TJ Baker, our Director of Support, sat me down and explained to me that although customer satisfaction was at an all-time high in the history of Joomlashack, he was not satisfied and felt there was still room for improvement...

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MediaPass for Joomla, an easy way to charge for content

What is MediaPass?

MediaPass gives online content owners -- from magazines and blogs to local newspapers – an easy way to have a sophisticated subscription model in a matter of minutes.

MediaPass for Joomla allows you to integrate MediaPass easily into your Joomla site, without the hassle of adding code in your HTML. You will be able to add MediaPass to all articles of selected categories automatically or to individual articles manually.

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OSDownloads - Joomla Downloads Plus MailChimp

mailchimp-logoOSDownloads is the Joomla downloads extensions designed to allow you to collect emails in exchange for the download.

This is useful if you want to notify users about updates or changes. This also means that you don't have to force someone to register simply to get the download. OSDownloads is designed to work with MailChimp.com.

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OSContent - Quickly add categories, menu items and articles to Joomla

OSContent is an extension for creating and deleting articles and categories in bulk. You can even create menu items for the newly created content.

Why waste time repeating steps over and over again, when you can do the same thing with just a few clicks?

This extension will allow you to:

How Can Joomla and a Kids Piano Page Illustrate Good SEO Tactics?

What does a kids piano web page have to do with Joomla and good SEO? Continue reading to find out. But first of all let's dig in and provide some context.

Joomla is one of the two most popular CMS (content management systems) currently in use by webmasters, with Wordpress being the main competiton. Many users find that Joomla is actually easier to use right out of the box, and it has proven to be a popular choice among website owners brand new to the world of running a website. The fact that the CMS is so easy to use is what has made it such a popular choice, and there are many standard templates that Joomla users are able to utilize for their website.

One of the benefits of using the Joomla CMS is the fact that most of the standard Joomla templates are designed to be as search engine friendly as possible. Search engine optimization plays a huge role in the success of most websites, as it is the best way to drive traffic to any website according to Dan Maynard, SEO consultant with a Saskatchewan video company.

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Unsung features of Joomla 1.7

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Since the release of Joomla 1.6, and now 1.7, most people are aware of the major changes and features that were added to this great CMS platform since the 1.5 version, such as infinitely nestable categories (and the removal of sections), the powerful Access Control List (ACL) system, and the modifications made to the layout of the admin interface of Joomla.

There’s a number of new features that are less well known, and I thought I’d give them a little love in this post. Here’s a list of several new and useful features in Joomla 1.6/1.7 that you may have not been aware of.

Read more: Unsung features of Joomla 1.7