Category: Joomla!
Posted by John Sundberg in Joomla!, Tutorials Friday, 2 April 2010 View Comments
I recently noticed that sometimes the Joomla core contact form will give an “Invalid Token” error page when a website visitor uses the contact form to send a message to the owner of the website. This screen is unmistakable, and somewhat shocking to the unsuspecting website visitor, as it is completely blank except for the words “Invalid Token” in the upper-left corner of the browser window.
What also happens, and this is the really frustrating part, is that their message does not make it to its intended recipient, the sender of the message probably won’t try again, and it makes you and your website look rather incompetent. What’s also frustrating is that you may not know your website is doing this unless you try your own submission form several times in a row.
I discovered the problem by checking the Moovur/Mollom log of one website we’ve built. This log keeps track of all contact form submissions, both spam and ham. What’s recorded is the date, the name, email address, message subject, and a brief excerpt from the message. What clued me in is that there were messages listed in that log that the owner of the website had not received. (How did I know they hadn’t been received? I happen to know the website owner very well – she’s my wife!)
Here’s how to fix it…
Posted by John Sundberg in Business, Joomla!, Resources Tuesday, 12 January 2010 View Comments
Back in December Brian Teeman wrote a blog post called Joomla Manual for Users, and in that post he highlighted a new service called Joomanuals. The idea behind Joomanuals is to provide end-user manuals that a website builder could give to the owner(s) of a new Joomla website so that they would know how to use their new website and manage its content.
It seemed to me like a good idea so I bought a subscription to the service, followed the directions, and downloaded a sample manual for a website I had recently completed. Considering that the service is fully automated (as far as I can tell) the manual that it produces isn’t too bad. I guess I was looking for a little more attention to detail and customization for my own clients though, so I spent a few days last week producing an administrator’s manual complete with relevant screenshots and then published it in a PDF format.
Clicking on the image to the right will open a PDF excerpt from that manual. There is admittedly some more refining to be done, but this is where it’s at for now.
For starters, our plan for these manuals is to include one with each website that leaves our “workshop,” customized as necessary for that website, to enable our clients who are so inclined to effectively use and manage the content in their new Content Management System website.
Posted by John Sundberg in Joomla Extensions, Joomla!, Tutorials, WordPress Friday, 8 January 2010 View Comments
2010 is now one week old. Have you updated the copyright date in your website(s) yet?
When I was updating the copyright date in our website and our clients’ websites this week it occurred to me that there should be a way for the date to be updated automatically, and there is IF your website is dynamic and uses PHP like Joomla or WordPress does.
While implementing these changes I encountered three different ways various Joomla templates (and a WordPress theme) handle the copyright information. There are probably more possibilities, but the basic coding principle is going to apply in each situation, so you may need to put some thought into making this work if your website is set-up differently than one of the three options I’m going to describe.
Also, this tutorial is exactly that, a tutorial. In no way should this information be construed as legal advice in any form. I’d also recommend making a fresh backup of your website (files and database) before making any significant changes. Having said that, here’s how to do it.
Posted by John Sundberg in Business, Free Stuff, Joomla Extensions, Joomla!, Life in General, Resources, Technology Thursday, 31 December 2009 View Comments
This post could go in numerous directions but I’m going to try to stay focused on web-related discoveries, since this is, after all, a blog that lives on a website about and for Black Hills Web Works.
One conversation in particular with an old friend I reconnected with on Facebook is worthy of being called “the milestone of 2009.” I was remodeling the website for my construction company and experimenting with Dreamweaver and static HTML pages and he suggested I look into using a CMS like Drupal or Joomla!. I took his advice and looked at both of those platforms, and though he was pushing me towards Drupal I felt drawn to Joomla!, and the rest of 2009 is history. Black Hills Web Works was born, websites were built, new languages learned (HTML and CSS to name two), and my thinking and experiences were significantly broadened.
And so, here is my list of “significant” discoveries that I made or learned about this year. Some, most, or all of these may be familiar to you already. On the other hand, it’s just possible that there is something new in here that you haven’t found yet. Have a look…
Posted by John Sundberg in Joomla Extensions, Joomla!, WordPress Wednesday, 23 December 2009 View Comments
When I built this website earlier this year I used a Joomla template from RocketTheme called “Affinity.” If I remember correctly it was one of RT’s first templates that was designed to be integrated with K2, the “super-component” from JoomlaWorks. JoomlaWorks makes some great extensions, and K2 is one of them.
According to their website, K2 is the “powerful content component for Joomla! with CCK-like features…[and it] provides an out-of-the box integrated solution featuring rich content forms for items (think of Joomla! articles with additional fields for article images, videos, image galleries and attachments), nested-level categories, tags, comments, a system to extend the item base form with additional fields (similar to CCK for those acquainted with Drupal), a powerful plugin API to extend item, category and user forms, ACL, frontend editing, sub-templates and a lot more!”
K2, WordPress and blogging
I’m convinced I haven’t begun to tap into the possible uses for K2, but the primary reason I started using it was to “power” this blog. At the time WordPress wasn’t a viable option because the customization necessary to make a WordPress theme match the Affinity template was far beyond my capabilities. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to use WordPress since I’ve been blogging on a couple blogs at WordPress.com since 2008, and several hundred posts and a hundred thousand (or so) words later I’ve become rather familiar with WordPress as a blogging platform.
But like I said earlier, it really wasn’t an option at the time so I gave K2 an honest try and managed to produce sixteen blog posts on various topics. To its credit, K2 is light-years ahead of using a bare-bones Joomla blog, but in my opinion it simply can’t match WordPress for features and blogger usability.
