The Joomlashack Blog
How to Use Google Maps Overlays in Joomla
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 18 February 2021 18 February 2021
Shack Locations is the best way to create a location-based directory in Joomla.
Version 1.5 is available now with a really cool new improvement in the Pro version. You can now highlight areas of a map with graphic overlays. This is possible because we've added an integration with Google's "My Maps" service.
This image below is an example of how this feature works. You can see red, green, and blue overlays highlighting different areas of the map. All of these were drawn with the tools in "My Maps".
How to Display a Search Module in a Joomla Menu
- Written by Valentín García Valentín García
- Published: 18 February 2021 18 February 2021
It's very common for websites to put features inside top menus. You may find some sites do this with a login form. Other sites may include an advertisement or search box in their menu
In this tutorial, I'll show you how to add a search module to your Joomla menu. We won't use any coding in this tutorial. You will learn how achieve this either with the Modules Anywhere extension or with Shack Search.
How the Image Sitemap Works in OSMap
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 10 February 2021 10 February 2021
Image sitemaps help Google crawlers to better find images in your Joomla site. Google then indexes them and includes them in its "Google Images" search.
If you would like to help Google find and index images on your Joomla site, OSMap is your best tool. In this blog post, I will show you how the image sitemap works in OSMap.
OSMap does index all the content in your media library. That would be the wrong approach, because it might reveal private files. Instead OSMap looks for any images that are attached to your content.
Connect Matomo Analytics to a Joomla Site with Shack Analytics
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 04 February 2021 04 February 2021
One Joomlashack customer asked us how connect a Joomla site to "Matomo Analytics".
Matomo Analytics is a server-side PHP/MySQL analytics self-hosted platform. It aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics.
You can quickly install it using your hosting control panel. In this blog post, I'll show you how to connect Matomo analytics software to your Joomla site using the Shack Analytics extension.
Read more: Connect Matomo Analytics to a Joomla Site with Shack Analytics
How to Add Facebook Pixels to Joomla with Shack Analytics
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 03 February 2021 03 February 2021
One of our customers asked about adding Facebook Pixels to their Joomla site. The site had products that they were advertising with Facebook Ads. Once you connect Facebook Pixel to your site, you will be able to measure and optimize your Facebook advertising.
You can create such a connection without technical skills using the Shack Analytics extension. In this blog post, I'll show you how to do this.
Read more: How to Add Facebook Pixels to Joomla with Shack Analytics
Matomo: The Best Alternative to Google Analytics for Joomla
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 01 February 2021 01 February 2021
Over the last year or so, we've heard from more and more people who want to drop large, centralized services such as Google Analytics.
The most common reason is privacy. People want to stop sharing so much data with Google. I suspect this is partly driven by a new focus on privacy and data protection laws. But increasingly, many users just don't trust Google.
Another reason is simplicity. The Google Analytics interface is increasingly busy and people often want easier access to important trends.
Read more: Matomo: The Best Alternative to Google Analytics for Joomla
How to Use Joomla Pagebreaks in Articles
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 29 January 2021 29 January 2021
Pagebreaks are designed to split up very long articles.
If you use pagebreaks, Joomla will automatically generate a Table of Contents for you. This feature is called "pagebreaks" because it will break your content into different pages. Every break in your content will lead readers to slightly different URLs.
Here's how to use pagebreaks inside Joomla:
How to Upload Joomla Files Using CPanel
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 28 January 2021 28 January 2021
This tutorial will show you how to upload Joomla files to your server using the CPanel provided by your hosting company. There are many possible reasons to do this. The reason we wrote this tutorial was the request of a customer whose files had been hacked. They needed to restore a clean set of Joomla files over the top of those that had been corrupted.
Building Modern Joomla Websites With The Cloud, APIs and CLIs
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 27 January 2021 27 January 2021
George Wilson is one of the lead developer working on Joomla 4. You may have seen his very popular video introduction to Joomla 4.
In this new video from the Joomlashack Conference 2020, George focuses on the tools we need to develop modern websites.
- How do you build Joomla websites on Amazon Web Services?
- How do you make Joomla work with Elastic Beanstalk and what are the pros and cons?
- Can you build automation workflows in Joomla?
- How do you use a CLI with Joomla?
Those are some of the questions answered in George's talk.
This is a developer-focused talk for people who want to use modern dev techniques with Joomla. By the end of the talk, you'll see how to create a fully automated Joomla environment with just 7 commands. This means you can spin up that environment again and again.
Read more: Building Modern Joomla Websites With The Cloud, APIs and CLIs
Create Pop-up Windows in Joomla With Shack Toolbox
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 27 January 2021 27 January 2021
Rod Martin and the team at OSTraining were kind enough to create a video showing how to use our Shack Toolbox extension.
Do you need to create a pop-up window in Joomla? This window could show a chat box, a login form, or important information. A pop-up comes in useful any time you need to get your visitors attention.
In this video, Rod shows you how to create a pop-up in Joomla. He uses the example of a customer who wants to show a donation form inside their pop-up window.
Read more: Create Pop-up Windows in Joomla With Shack Toolbox