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joomla

The Future of Joomla

by Charles Grimm on April 8, 2011

6 Reasons Why the Latest Version
of one of the Most Known CMS’s is the Greatest Yet

The Future of Joomla

Since its introduction in the year 2005, Joomla has become one of the most broadly adopted open source Content Management Systems (CMS) on the web, providing web publishers with a series of features at zero cost from the very beginning. Now, six years later, Joomla 1.6 has arrived and it is a vast improvement on its predecessor, which had already been around for almost 3 years.

Here is an overview of the core differences that Joomla 1.6 brings along over its predecessor and why they take the usability of this CMS platform to a whole new level.

1. Better Menu Manager: With Joomla 1.5, many users were left disappointed with the lack of depth of the Menu Manager, which at the time just showed four boxed-shaped options at the moment of creating a menu. However, now with Joomla 1.6, users are presented with a much more flexible and integrated Menu Manager that blends in a far more transparent way with the display of menu links.

2. An Overhauled Interface: The new interface of Joomla has received a much welcome improvement as well, with a far more elegant design, better buttons, much better (and more logical) menu organization and many other time-saving details (like the new different SAVE buttons) that make the user experience much smoother overall.

3. Access Levels and Group Organization: With Joomla 1.6, users can choose from many access levels and can also group other users and can assign those groups to any of the existing access level they want.

4. Add Metadata: Joomla 1.6 brings in the possibility of adding meta descriptions and even keywords for categories. Also, articles can change the page title and names can be added to page titles as well.

5. Access Control List: One of the best features that Joomla 1.6 brings over its 1.5 counterpart, is that almost any element of the system can now be controlled using the new ACL system. Also, each element of the ACL System can be accessed in an easier way and can also be set either individually or in groups. And when set individually, items are now able to inherit the settings from items on higher levels, like a single article automatically inheriting the settings from the category to which it belongs.

5. Better Template Styles/Control: The new version of Joomla allows users to apply a series of different setting and looks to any given template and provides also support for layout overrides. And what makes this new feature even more interesting, is that it applies to front end templates and to administrator templates as well.

In summary, the new version of Joomla is by far a vast improvement over its predecessor in ways that will appeal to both advanced users and novices alike. With these changes this CMS platform instantly becomes far more interesting, which will help it acquire users in greater numbers.

If you want to know more about this new version of Joomla or simply have something to say about it, feel entirely free to post a comment or follow us on Twitter.

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Joomla raw outline Module positions

by Charles Grimm on December 28, 2010

A quick joomla post, as I’ve been seeing recently quite a few searches on how to check the module positions in a joomla website. This is particularly handy when you are repositioning the order of modules inside the template.

View all module positions live in your browser by adding ?tp=1 or &tp=1 to the end of your URL. I.E http://yoursite.com/index.php?tp=1.

This is an example of all module positions in a diagram. Many professional joomla template companies will have such a diagram which is a helpful bookmark when building your site.

If you have any easy “how to” development tips when customizing your joomla template, let us know here and we will pass them on.

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Installing Joomla 1.5 and 1.6

by Charles Grimm on October 15, 2010

This is a tutorial on setting up Joomla through Cpanel.

If you are a purist you will be able to find many that say you have to go through the experience of installing joomla manually. I will agree that there is benefit to understanding the process of joomla installation. Yet if you are building a business website and need to get going you will already have to spend a lot of time thinking and creating good content. After all that’s why they call it a content management system. The idea behind a CMS system, like joomla, is that you don’t have too focus on being a web developer to use it, unless of course you want to.

To start

The easiest way to get going with joomla is to work with a great web host provider. I recommend Liquid Web because they have 24 hour phone support. If you tell them you want to set up joomla they will know the correct configuration for your needs. There are many others that host joomla and it usually comes down to the type of support you want. DIY- forum or phone support are the 2 main options. Do your self a favor, pay a bit more and get phone support. It will save you a ton of time in those emergency situations.

What you will need

This description assumes that you will be installing joomla 1.5 or soon out (officially, joomla 1.6).

First you will want hosting that has cpanel in your account. This will not only allow you to set up joomla in minutes but it will also be invaluable in the future if you want to do perform other functions, like setting up your own company email accounts and forwarders etc.

Installing Joomla with Cpanel and Fantastico

The easy way to intall joomla 1.5 and 1.6

Server & account requirements

You don’t have to understand php, msql or apache only that they are installed on your server. Again if you say you are installing a joomla cms, a reputable Host will know the requirements and will have the latest versions of all this software installed. For your reference:

Cpanel – www.cpanel.net

PHP 5.0 or higher – www.php.net

MySQL 4.0 or higher www.mysql.com

Apache 1.13.19 or above – www.apache.org

Finally

Once you are setup with user name and password for Cpanel; login and look in your admin panel for a button or icon called Fantastico. This is a software that automatically installs many different types of software. Click on fantastico. Look on the right hand side for the joomla version you want to intall. Once you click on the that version simply follow the instructions. It’s really that simple.

While their are many other aspect to joomla from setting permissions, to security and so on, this basic instruction will get you up and started with joomla where you can actually start working inside the joomla admin and adding content, different templates and much more. If you have any questions on joomla installation or “business friendly” hosting companies leave a comment or you can go to eMediaWright for more resources. If you want the manual joomla install version you can visit the joomla offical website. This video link, http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task167/joomlainstall.html will make it easy. Or just send me a tweet and I forward you the steps.

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Joomla Site Verification for Webmaster Tools

by Charles Grimm on September 17, 2010

Google Webmaster Tools and Joomla

Google gives you 4 options for site ownership verification when adding a new URL to your webmaster tools account.

1.Add a DNS record to your domain’s configuration

2.Add a meta tag to your site’s home page

3.Upload an HTML file to your server

4.Link to your Google Analytics account

When doing this for a joomla site I have found it easiest to use either #2. meta tag or #3. html verification.

Meta Tag verification:

Log in to joomla administration and go to extensions > template manager. Click the template you are currently using. Your template edit screen will come up. Click the EDIT HTML icon on the right of your screen.

A window will open allowing you to edit the HTML code of your template.

Simply add the code just above the </head> tag.

The code will look something like this:

<meta name=”google-site-verification” content=”gzqCKvvm0NgJaAPYg_jkPz2MzMmPBmJUzk3BPPovcZQ” />

SAVE. Then go back to Webmaster tools and click verify. Your done!

Note: You do not have to be that familiar with PHP/HTML to do this but I would always backup my file just in case.

Joomla Akeeba Backup is a simple and easy component to install and use.

The second method:

Uploading an HTML file to your server.

Note: this example is for Joomla 1.5 and for those using SEF URL’s with “add suffix to URL’s' as YES. This is found in your Joomla Global configuration panel…under SEO Settings.

Again, inside your Joomla admin panel go to content>article manager> new.

Copy the HTML code in the title and into the body.

The code should look something like this; google97a0e98859299a13.html

(You have to add something to the body in Joomla 1.5 or you won’t be able to save the file.) Under the section and category area click “uncategorized”

SAVE.

Then go to your menu manager and add this article page as a menu item. You can add this to your main menu if you wish because you are only going to keep this live for a few seconds until you check that the link works and appears in your address bar. Then clicking verify in webmaster tools.

That’s it! If you have any questions or comments or other suggestions please let me know. Or send me a tweet.

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SEO and Robot.txt File for WordPress

by Charles Grimm on July 15, 2010

Do robots like your source code?

I was searching the other day for a robots.txt file example and it took me a few minutes to find some fragmented samples in forums. So here is a quick post for you wordpress bloggers who are managing your own Search Engine Optimization..SEO.

Joomla fortunately, automatically sets up a robot.txt file when you do your install through cpanel.

With wordpress for some reason, you need to do it manually. I find this a bit bizarre especially since WP espouses to be very search engine friendly right out of the gate. Anyways here is a a basic robot.txt sample.

Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-includes
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache
Disallow: /wp-content/themes
Disallow: /trackback
Disallow: /feed
Disallow: /comments
Disallow: /category/*/*
Disallow: */trackback
Disallow: */feed
Disallow: */comments
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /*?
Allow: /wp-content/uploads

# Google Image
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow:
Allow: /*

# Google AdSense
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Disallow:
Allow: /*

# digg mirror
User-agent: duggmirror
Disallow: /

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

Copy and paste this into a file named robots.txt;

You can use notepad, word or any text program will work. Then, upload the this to the root level of your domain. Another way is to just add a plugin to your wordpress blog. There are several robot.txt plugins to choose from, some will add a meta robots tag to your wordpress pages.

Here is another more comprehensive wordpress robots.txt example.

For more tips on robot.txt and search engine optimization you can post a question in the comments section.

Note, if you are a building blog, wordpress has the best user interface and is great for fast preformatted content development. However if you are building a website with several different types of content that need function, I would check out Joomla 1.5 and it’s joomla seo extensions.

What CMS platform do you prefer for building the best search engine optimization into your website, Joomla, Drupal or WordPress?

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