The Joomlashack Blog
Joomlashack's 2020 Review and Thank You
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 05 January 2021 05 January 2021
Thank you all for your support of Joomlashack.
Joomlashack started in 2005, but our team took over the site in 2016.
At the end of every year we write a review of what happened at Joomlashack. If you want to look back, here is our 2016 review, 2017 review, 2018 review and 2019 review.
Even before 2020, we've always avoided writing "everything is awesome" posts. We try and give you honesty and insight into Joomlashack's year. There are always plenty of ups and downs. You'll find plenty of stories of both success and failure in these posts.
How to Display a Joomla Login Form in a Popup Window
- Written by Alex Smirnov Alex Smirnov
- Published: 17 December 2020 17 December 2020
One question we had this week was from a Joomlashack customer who wanted to display a login module in a popup window. The idea is that visitors can log in without leaving the page they are on.
Our Shack Toolbox Pro extension is the perfect tool for this job. You will have a ton of design options to customize your popup.
In this guide, I'll show you how to display a login module inside a lightbox popup with Shack Toolbox Pro.
Read more: How to Display a Joomla Login Form in a Popup Window
JCal Pro Has New Export Options and Filters
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 19 November 2020 19 November 2020
JCal Pro 4.5 is now available.
JCal Pro makes it easy to display your events in a stylish Joomla calendar. This week's release has a lot of code clean-up and refactoring, plus two new features you'll see while using it.
The first new feature is the ability to create customizable .ICS files or RSS feeds of your JCal Pro events. The other new feature is an improved set of frontend filters, including the ability to see all the events at a single location.
The Joomlashack Conference is December 9 and 10
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 10 November 2020 10 November 2020
Twice in the last few years, our team has held an online Joomla event. The first event coincided with the launch of Joomla 3 and over 1,000 people attended. You can see sessions from that event on YouTube. The second event was last year and filled a gap left by the Joomla World Conference. Those videos are also on YouTube.
I'm delighted to say we're hosting another edition of the Joomlashack Conference on December 9 and 10.
In-person Joomla events are impossible at the moment, so these online versions are a very useful substitute. Just like any normal Joomla event, we'll have presentations of 30 to 40 minutes, followed by questions.
How to Track Button Clicks in Joomla with Shack Analytics
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 08 October 2020 08 October 2020
With the "Shack Analytics Pro" Joomla extension you can easily analyze visitors' traffic to and engagement with your Joomla site using Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. With "Shack Analytics Pro" you can set a button click tracking even if you are a Joomla beginner with limited technical knowledge.
For example, you may want to track clicks on a button on your Joomla site. It could be a button of a contact form. It also could be a button of a sign-up form, or a button of a shopping cart, or a button for a file download.
In this blog post, you will take a look at how to use the "Shack Analytics Pro" Joomla extension to connect your site to Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics and track and analyze clicks on a button of a contact form.
Read more: How to Track Button Clicks in Joomla with Shack Analytics
Does Joomla Support the MariaDB Database?
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 08 October 2020 08 October 2020
Recently, we've had several customers ask us about running their Joomla sites on the MariaDB database.
MariaDB is a fork of MySQL and is nearly identical to it. Yes, it's true that Joomla doesn't officially support MariaDB. However, many webhosts do use it. In fact, Joomlashack.com is running on MariaDB!
You Can Now Choose "Finish Publishing" Dates in OSCampus
- Written by Alex Smirnov Alex Smirnov
- Published: 29 September 2020 29 September 2020
Our OSCampus extension is the best way for you to build an online training site with Joomla. With the latest release, you can choose "Finish Publishing" dates for your OSCampus pathways, classes, and lessons. This feature was sponsored by Graham Jarvis from Advanz S.A. and written by Carlos Cámara, a Joomla developer. We appreciate their collaboration on the project.
With this new feature, you can release your online training blocks in a sequence. For example, you may want to create a series of classes and release them at weekly intervals.
Or if you need students to take your class by a specific date, you can unpublish it automatically on that day.
In this blog post, I will show you the new "Finish Publishing" feature in OSCampus pathways, classes, and lessons.
Read more: You Can Now Choose "Finish Publishing" Dates in OSCampus
Check Out This Video Introduction to Shack Article Manager
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 10 September 2020 10 September 2020
Shack Article Manager is one of the new extensions we released at Joomlashack in 2020.
Shack Article Manager is perfect for sites that don't want to allow users into the Joomla administrator area. You can allow users to write, edit, publish and manage articles from the frontend of Joomla sites.
I say this extension is "new", but the base of Shack Article Manager has been around since Joomla 1.5. The original version was called "User Article Manager" and it was really popular in early Joomla versions. Because so many Joomlashack users asked us to adopt this extension, we eventually agreed to take it onboard at Joomlashack.
Rod Martin and the team at OSTraining were kind enough to create a video introducing the features of Shack Article Manager.
If you like this video, check out OSTraining's other Joomla videos in the OSTips series on YouTube. This includes videos on Shack Article Layouts, Tabs and Sliders, and Shack Toolbox.
Read more: Check Out This Video Introduction to Shack Article Manager
Joomlashack is 15 Years Old!
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 01 September 2020 01 September 2020
It feels strange to write that title. But yes, Joomlashack is 15 years old this week.
This site was launched on September 2nd, 2005.
That's a long time for any software company to survive, particularly in the open-source world. In fact, this site could count as being older as it had a previous life as "Mamboshack.com".
We've celebrated 5 years, 10 years, and now here we are at 15.
How to Allow Frontend Article Submissions in Joomla
- Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge
- Published: 31 August 2020 31 August 2020
One Joomlashack user came to us and asked this question:
"I want to allow some users to create Joomla articles from the frontend of our site. But, I don't want them to see articles written by other users".
In this tutorial, I'll show you how to do this with the Shack Article Manager extension.
If you haven't used Shack Article Manager before, these two videos will be a good introduction. You can then follow along with the rest of the tutorial and set up your publishing workflow.
Read more: How to Allow Frontend Article Submissions in Joomla