Create Pop-up Windows in Joomla With Shack Toolbox

Create Pop-up Windows in Joomla With Shack Toolbox

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

Check Out This Video Introduction to Tabs and Sliders

Video Introduction to Tabs and Sliders

Rod Martin and the team at OSTraining were kind enough to create a video showing how to use our Tabs and Sliders plugin. This extension has over 100 reviews on Joomla.org, and it's one of our most popular downloads.

There are a number of "Tabs and Sliders" plugins for Joomla, but not all of them support templates that use the Bootstrap 4 framework. In this video, Rod demonstrates the Tabs and Sliders plugin and shows that it works just fine with Bootstrap.

Read more: Check Out This Video Introduction to Tabs and Sliders

Get Much Better Google Drive Embeds for Joomla

Get Much Better Google Drive Embeds for Joomla

A few weeks, we updated OSEmbed Pro with support for the new Facebook and Instagram embeds.

This week's OSEmbed Pro update is equally significant. It has much better support for all Google Drive embeds including Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and Drawings.

Our team re-wrote the underlying code to make the embeds much more reliable. There's also a new "Preview Mode" which presents a really clean view of your embeds.

Read more: Get Much Better Google Drive Embeds for Joomla

Joomlashack's 2020 Review and Thank You

Joomlashack's 2020 Review and Thank You

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 review2018 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.

Read more: Joomlashack's 2020 Review and Thank You

How to Display a Joomla Login Form in a Popup Window

Display a Joomla Login Module in a Popup Box with Shack Toolbox

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

JCal Pro Has New Export Options and Filters

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.

Read more: JCal Pro Has New Export Options and Filters

The Joomlashack Conference is December 9 and 10

The Joomlashack Conference is Online: November 6th, 7th and 8th

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.

Read more: The Joomlashack Conference is December 9 and 10

How to Track Button Clicks in Joomla with Shack Analytics

How to Track Button Clicks in Joomla with Shack Analytics Pro

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?

Does Joomla Support the MariaDB Database?

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!

Read more: Does Joomla Support the MariaDB Database?

You Can Now Choose "Finish Publishing" Dates in OSCampus

You Can Now Set "Finish Publishing" Dates in OSCampus

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