How to Create a Joomla Site for Online Events with JCal Pro

How to Create an Online Events Joomla Site with JCal Pro

One of the questions from our customers this week was how to create an online events site with JCal Pro.

JCal Pro is the best Joomla extension for managing calendaring events. It offers simplicity, flexibility, a robust feature set, and gorgeous templates to fit virtually any Joomla site.

Creating an online events Joomla site with JCal Pro takes four steps:

  1. Install JCal Pro.
  2. Create required JCal Pro events.
  3. Enable events registrations.
  4. Set the events display.

Let's take a look at these steps in more detail.

Read more: How to Create a Joomla Site for Online Events with JCal Pro

Interview with Richard Hughes from GingerWeb.co.uk

This week, we had the chance to interview one interesting customer from our Everything Club. Richard Hughes has been a Joomlashack customer since 2011. He has been running gingerweb.co.uk and building websites for clients since 2004.

In this blog post, you will learn:

  • How banter with a work colleague led Richard to the launch of his Joomla business.
  • One rock-solid marketing technique Richard has been using to consistently find Joomla clients.
  • The goal Richard aims to achieve in every Joomla project.
  • His three super tips for anyone starting a Joomla website building business.

Read more: Interview with Richard Hughes from GingerWeb.co.uk

Why We Use Recurring Subscriptions at Joomlashack

Why We Use Recurring Subscriptions at Joomlashack

Yes, we do use recurring subscriptions here at Joomlashack.

The main reason is that extensions and templates require continuous maintenance and development. Our team needs to upgrade the code for every new Joomla version, even the minor ones. We are also constantly updating them to work with other Joomla extensions, to fix bugs, and to meet the needs of third-party services such as Google and Mailchimp.

Here are 5 other key reasons why we use subscriptions:

Read more: Why We Use Recurring Subscriptions at Joomlashack

With Simple Renew 3 You Can Use Stripe for Joomla Subscriptions

Simple Renew Now Supports Stripe for Joomla Subscriptions

Over the last few years, we've managed to grow Joomlashack. Yes, we have some good extensions and templates, but one thing has made that growth possible: recurring subscriptions. Here's our explanation of why we use subscriptions.

I am 150% convinced that the most stable businesses are subscription businesses. That conviction has deepened since the arrival of COVID-19. I've talked with a lot of business owners in the last two months, and the happy ones are those with strong subscription revenue.

If you're not there yet, you really should move your business over to subscription revenue. Our aim at Joomlashack is to help you make that move by creating a reliable subscription extension that's very easy-to-use.

So today, I'm delighted to introduce Simple Renew 3.0. This is the extension we use to power Joomlashack.com. This release adds support for the Stripe payment gateway. We've chosen Stripe because it's the most popular choice for new subscription services.

Read more: With Simple Renew 3 You Can Use Stripe for Joomla Subscriptions

How to Protect A Landing Page with Google ReCaptcha in jInbound

How to Protect A Landing Page with Google ReCaptcha in jInbound (2)

jInbound is a great Joomla extension to generate leads and convert them to customers. You achieve this by setting a landing page with a web form. But according to DataProt, "45% of all emails are spam".

Last week, one of our customers asked how to protect their jInbound form from spambots. This is a four-step process:

  1. Generate your Joomla Site and Secret Keys with Google Recaptcha free service.
  2. Create a new jInbound field by the "captcha" type.
  3. Add this new field to your iInbound form.
  4. Enable a Joomla Captcha plugin of your choice. For my demonstration, I selected the "Captcha - Invisible reCAPTCHA".

In this blog post, I'll give you a walkthrough of this process.

Read more: How to Protect A Landing Page with Google ReCaptcha in jInbound

Using the "Magazine" Layout in Shack Article Layouts

"Shack Article Layouts" is one of our newest Joomla extensions. It already has a good review from a happy customer at Joomla Extensions Directory. Yes, it is a module but you can display it as a focal point of your Joomla site, just as if it would be a fully-fledged component. 

We decided to use "layouts" in its name due to its six beautiful built-in layouts. One of them is the "Magazine" layout. Embed "Shack Article Layouts" module in a Joomla article, and the "Magazine" layout will neatly display your Joomla articles in a nice grid. 

In this blog post, I'll show you how to display the "Shack Article Layouts" module inside a Joomla article using the "Magazine" layout.

Read more: Using the "Magazine" Layout in Shack Article Layouts

Fixing the invalid_grant Error in Shack Forms Pro

Fixing the ivald_grant Error in Shack Forms Pro

One of our customers bumped into the ivalid_grant error in their Shack Forms/Google Sheets integration. The "Shack Forms Pro" Joomla extension allows you to automatically feed data submitted in a Shack Form to your selected Google Sheets.

You need to authorize your "Shack Form" connection to Google Sheets for this data transfer to take place. But such authorized connection may get corrupted. Then you will see the "invalid_grant" error in your form. Let's take a look at how to fix this error.

Read more: Fixing the invalid_grant Error in Shack Forms Pro

What Layouts Are Available in Shack Article Layouts?

What Layouts Are Available in Shack Article Layouts

Layouts are at the center of the "Shack Article Layouts" Joomla extension. You can neatly display your Joomla articles with this module in one of the following five grid layouts:

  • "Blocks"
  • "Cover"
  • "Default"
  • "Magazine"
  • "Wide".

Each of them offers your Joomla site visitors a unique preset design. Each of them, except the "Wide" one, allows you to nicely layout your Joomla articles in a neat grid with more than one column.

Let's take a brief glance at the five layouts of the "Shack Article Layouts" module.

Read more: What Layouts Are Available in Shack Article Layouts?

Shack Article Layouts is Now Live at Joomlashack

create complex layouts with advanced relationships using only this module, the Joomla core and your template.

We are happy to announce that Shack Article Layouts is now available for Joomlashack members. This is the 31st extension available at Joomlashack.

Yes, you read that correctly. Joomlashack Everything Club members now get access to 31 extensions!

"Shack Article Layouts" allows you to display your articles in many attractive layouts. This extension is perfect for creating homepages, or landing pages for blogs, portfolios, testimonials, and other content.

You have the freedom to choose how to display your articles, as well as what to display from the articles. You can display images from articles, some or part of the article's content, links, and read more buttons included in the article, or authors, dates, and so much more. Additionally, you can pick from several stylish layouts and organize the number of columns and rows to fit your needs.

Click here to get "Shack Article Layouts", or click here to join the Everything Club.

Read more: Shack Article Layouts is Now Live at Joomlashack

How to Send Shack Forms Entries to Google Sheets

How to Send Shack Forms Entries to Google Sheets

Shack Forms Pro is the easiest and most powerful way to add forms to your Joomla site.

With Shack Forms, you can integrate your Joomla forms with Google Sheets. If you enable this integration, every time someone submits a Shack Form, their data will automatically be sent to your Google Sheet.

This integration can be incredibly useful if you need to share or analyze the data sent via your forms. Google Sheets has all the power of a spreadsheet, and can also make your data pop with colorful charts and graphs.

This guide will show you how to send Shack Forms entries to Google Sheets.

Read more: How to Send Shack Forms Entries to Google Sheets