Joomla 4 Has a New Default Search Extension

Joomla 4 Has a New Default Search Extension

Joomla 4 is now available and it bring some exciting changes for Joomla users.

One important change is that there is now a new default search extension. The old com_search has been replaced by com_finder.

This isn't an entirely new extension because com_finder was available in Joomla 3: it was called "Smart Search". So for several years, Joomla has had two search extensions in the core. This did not make much sense, and so it's good to remove one of them. The old com_search will join other retired extensions, such as Weblinks, as an optional Joomla download.

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Joomla 3.10 is the Bridge to Joomla 4

What is Joomla 3.10?

Over the last couple of years, we've talked a lot about the upcoming Joomla 4. If you missed any of those updates, you can check out the ultimate guide to Joomla 4.

There is one important Joomla 4-related topic we need to talk about. The topic is Joomla 3.10, which will be the final release for Joomla 3. This will also be the version that you must move to before upgrading to Joomla 4.

Here are some key things to know about this final Joomla 3 release:

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Large Joomla Sites Should Use Multiple Sitemaps

Large Joomla Sites Should Use Multiple Sitemaps

OSMap is the most popular way to create a sitemap for Joomla sites. Thousands of Joomla users rely on OSMap to help Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing and others to understand their site's content.

Over the years of developing OSMap, we've spoken with Joomla users who have larger and larger sites. Some sites have 10,000 URLs, some have 50,000 URLs and we've even talked to users with hundreds of thousands of pages.

For these large sites, we do not recommend using a single sitemap. And search engines don't recommend it either.

If you have a big site, this post has our sitemap advice to help you get as many URLs as possible indexed by search engines.

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Create a Joomla Module Showing All Articles With a Specific Tag

How to Show All the Articles With a Joomla Tag

Joomla tags can be your best option for organizing your content. You can even consider Tags to be better than categories. A Joomla article can belong only to one category. A Joomla article can be associated with as many tags as you want. Joomla tags also work across extensions. If you create a Content Category, you can only use that with articles. However, tags work with Content, Contacts, News Feeds, and multiple other extensions.

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to create a module showing all the content that has a particular Joomla tag. This process is a litte confusing, but the end result can be very helpful.

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Get Email Notifications When Users Join Your Joomla Site

Email Notifications When Users Join Your Joomla Site

One of our users asked us how they could receive an email notification whenever a new user registered at their Joomla site.

In this tutorial, I will explain how to set up your Joomla site so that site administrators will get notifications of newly registered users.

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How to Add Custom Fields to the Joomla Contact Form

How to Add Custom Fields to the Joomla Contact Form

Many people choose to use an extension such as Shack Forms to create their contact forms.

Shack Forms is a great choice, but with the arrival of custom fields in Joomla, you can also customize contact forms with the Joomla core.

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Your Ultimate Guide to Joomla 4

Your Ultimate Guide to Joomla 4

Joomla 4 is getting closer and closer!

The Joomla team have released the beta version of Joomla 4. This version is not ready for use on your live sites, but it is 100% ready for testing.

Click here to download the beta version of Joomla 4.

Read more: Your Ultimate Guide to Joomla 4

How to Catch Every Important Error on Your Joomla Site

How to Catch Every Important Error on Your Joomla Site

Earlier this year, I was working with the Joomlashack team on a project. We were busy and the work was difficult.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that sales were slow, but I didn't pay too much attention.

Perhaps it was just a bad day? Maybe things will improve in the afternoon?

Then I got an email. It looked like this:

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How to Use Joomla's Privacy and GDPR Features

How to Use Joomla's Privacy and GDPR Features

The GDPR privacy laws came into force in May 2018. If you're new to the GDPR, we've got some reading resources at the bottom of this post.

In this guide, I'm going to focus on how Joomla is dealing with the GDPR. The Joomla team have developed several extensions to help you protect the privacy of your users.

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How to Create Custom Administrator Menus in Joomla

Create Custom Administrator Menus in Joomla

One useful feature for Joomla site builders is the ability to create new admin menus.

This is a very handy feature for sites with multiple users. Instead of trying to manipulate the permissions for some users, you can simply give them a different set of menu links.

In this example, I'll show you how to make an admin menu that only shows for the Administrator user group. We also have a tutorial on creating custom administrator modules in Joomla.

Read more: How to Create Custom Administrator Menus in Joomla