The Joomlashack Blog
How to Get Joomla Sending Emails via SendGrid
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 25 February 2021 25 February 2021
Some of our extensions, such as Shack Forms Pro, OSDownloads, and JCalPro send out emails. A few of our customers told us that their users had issues with receiving such emails.
One of the first steps to troubleshoot such issues is to test your Joomla Mailer with an external SMTP server. We suggest the free SendGrid SMTP service for such testing.
In this blog tutorial, I will show you how to switch your default Joomla PHP Mailer to a free SendGrid SMTP testing server.
How to Export Your Joomla Database with phpMyAdmin
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 09 September 2019 09 September 2019
We had a request from a reader to provide more detailed instructions on working with your Joomla database.
In this tutorial, I'm going to help answer his request by showing how to manually export your Joomla database.
To perform the tasks in this article, you will need phpMyAdmin installed on your server. This comes pre-installed on most hosting company servers.
Read more: How to Export Your Joomla Database with phpMyAdmin
Deploying Large-Scale Websites with Joomla - Part 1: An Interview with Mitch Pirtle
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 10 June 2010 10 June 2010
I've heard a lot of talk lately about whether or not Joomla can handle large-scale websites, or if it's best used for small mom-and-pop sites. I can say emphatically that the answer to that question is that Joomla is not only useful for small mom-and-pop sites, but it can also be used to build it medium and large-scale sites. There are a few popular examples of large-scale websites built with Joomla, and two developers have been involved in a number of these sites: Mitch Pirtle from Space Monkey Labs and Fotis Evangelou from Komrade and JoomlaWorks. In this 2-part series, I am interviewing both Mitch and Fotis to get their insights on what it takes to deploy large-scale websites with Joomla. Part 1 is my interview with Mitch.
Read more: Deploying Large-Scale Websites with Joomla - Part 1: An Interview with Mitch Pirtle
How To Find Available Attributes for Parameter Elements
- Written by James Hafner James Hafner
- Published: 03 November 2009 03 November 2009
This how-to is aimed more at Joomla! developers than our beginner or intermediate Joomla! user crowd. When creating an extension (module, component, plugin, or template), it's often necessary to give users the ability to choose custom settings by giving them Parameter options. Interacting with parameters will be for another How-To, but today I want to show you how to find the available attributes for a particular parameter element.
Read more: How To Find Available Attributes for Parameter Elements
How to Change your favicon (Joomla! 1.5)
- Published: 09 February 2009 09 February 2009
Another popular article on this site explains how to change your favicon in your Joomla! 1.0-powered site. Naturally, a lot of people want to know how to change your favicon in a Joomla! 1.5-powered site, so this article goes through the process of changing your favicon in a Joomla! 1.5 site.
How to Find Joomla!-related Resources
- Published: 06 January 2009 06 January 2009
I am happy to announce that I have just put the finishing touches on a Joomla!-specific search engine at resources.howtojoomla.net. HowToJoomla! Resources started as a way to easily search Joomla!-related sites that offer useful resources to the Joomla! community. Using traditional search engines to search for terms like "templates" or "components" won't turn up Joomla!-related information, but using this search engine will because it only searches sites that offer services and resources to the Joomla! community.
If you have a site that you think should be included in the list of resources, please feel free to submit your site for consideration. Not all sites will be accepted. Only sites that provide Joomla!-related services and resources to the community will be considered.
How to pick a Joomla! host
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 10 October 2008 10 October 2008
There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a web host. Usually the first things we look at are price, storage, and bandwidth, but I would argue that storage and bandwidth are mostly irrelevant as criteria for choosing a host. Buying a hosting service because it offers a huge amount of storage and bandwidth is like buying a car because it has tires. Every web host offers tons of storage and tons of bandwidth for a reasonably low price, so that really takes those two things out of the equation. Price is important, but I would also argue that it should not be the most important factor either. Read on to get some tips for what to look for in a Joomla! host.
How to change your default images directory in Joomla! 1.5
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 26 September 2008 26 September 2008
One of the most annoying things about Joomla! (in my opinion) is that the default images directory (or folder, whatever you want to call it) is yoursite.com/images/stories, and the default directory for the media manager is yoursite.com/images. That makes no sense to me. Read on to find out why this makes no sense, and how you can easily fix it.
Read more: How to change your default images directory in Joomla! 1.5
How to view just your component in Joomla! 1.5
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 22 July 2008 22 July 2008
Here is a neat little trick I picked up last Friday at the Joomla! 1.5 bootcamp in Austin led by Johan Janssens.
In Joomla! 1.5, if you simply want to display your component without any modules and without your template styles, all you have to do is add "?tmpl=component" or "&tmpl=component" to the end of the URL, depending on whether or not there are already other parameters on the end of the URL.
For example, if you just want to view the component on the home page of the new community.joomla.org site, you simply add "?tmpl=component" to the URL like this: https://community.joomla.org/?tmpl=component.
This trick is really useful for template designers because you can isolate the HTML used in a specific component, so you can determine how best to set up your CSS for styling that component.
Enjoy!
How to Learn from a Joomla! lead developer
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 20 June 2008 20 June 2008
OK, I admit it. This isn't exactly a "How-To" article, but I wanted to draw everyone's attention to an upcoming event in Austin, TX that I will be attending. It is called "Joomla! 1.5 Bootcamp," and it will be held on Friday, July 18 from 8am to 4pm CST (GMT -6) at the Doubletree Hotel Austin. I want to strongly encourage anyone who can make it to come to this event. The keynote speaker/teacher for this event will be none other than Johan Janssens, one of the lead developers of Joomla! The event is being put on by Chris Justice (a.k.a. MegaJustice) from Sparksight.com.
Click "Read More" to see more information about the Bootcamp.