Schedule:
- 11:45, Lunch and introduction of new members
- 11:50, Bending components to your will - JEvents: hacking a solution by Tom Egan
- 12:15, short break
- 12:20, Joomla 1.6 - a sneak preview of the new features/code contributed by jXtended by Dan Knauss
- 12:45, Site showcase
- 1:00, Group troubleshooting/open discussion
- 1:15, Announcements and networking
Speakers:
Tom Egan:
- B.A. Broadcast Communications -- Columbia College Chicago 1984,
- Actor, briefly -- member Screen Actors Guild.
- Captain, US Marine Corps -- Desert Storm Vet.
- Production Assistant -- Ground Hog Day and some TV shows shot in Chicago.
- Marketing Communications Manager at a few small companies then started Egan New Media in 2001. Marketing Communications Consulting and projects. Mostly websites for the last 4 years and mostly Joomla for the last two years. Married, father of 8 (5 boys 3 girls) teaching my son to use Joomla.
Dan Knauss:
- I build websites with open source applications as New Local Media
- Specialities: Web development, web design, web publishing, Open Source software; PHP/mySQL-based Content Management Systems; Joomla CMS; XHTML/CSS; writing; editing; communications; political campaigns; web 2.0; social media; hyperlocal, journalism; social publishing
- Experience on boards of several companies and with teaching writing/rhetoric at college level.
- Father of 4
Meeting Summary:
Programs & Websites we discussed:
- Navicat - http://www.navicat.com/ - series of graphical db mgmt & development software for MySQL, Oracle & PostgreSQL. Explorer-like interface, supports multiple db connections for local & remote db's
- SQLyog - http://webyog.com/en/ - compact fast graphical tool to manage MySWL databases from anywhere
- MTW Migrator - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/3895/details - migrator tool that works really well
- Dial2Do - http://www.dial2do.com/ - lets you do common tasks by just calling a number and speaking. supports text messages, record reminders, post updates to twitter, gmail, yahoo
- Ninja Security - filter out bad content in forums/comments
- AlphaContent - organizes articles, ajax rating system, Google maps location
- Joomlapack extension - www.joomlapack.net - creates extensions you can move around
- Gravatar - globally recognised avatar, allows other sites to pull it & use on your profiles anywhere
- elgg - elgg.org - create your own social network quickly and easily
- ZOO - soon.yootheme.com - custom content creation for Joomla based on Content Creation kit (CCK) for Drupal - due out in March.
Tom Egan - Bending Components to Your Will: JEvents: Hacking a Solution
Tom went through the steps he took to get graphics to show on the calendar & upcoming games modules in JEvents, for a football website team website.
Added team logo graphic in place of team name in calendar item
- Noticed input "title" width needed to be changed to accommodate graphic - found it in adminevents.html.php in components; changed the type to multi line (char width ~90)
- Placed image tag with break inside of title tag
- added extra space to his event incase client needed to note "rained out" to game
Changed the italicised "single event" in the calendar item rollover popup to include a graphic (team logo)
- In component directory "events_calendar_cell.php" - added his own information to the $cellString to include "adresse info" so he could give further information on the team rather than "single event" designation (was not applicable to his site)
Altered latest events module
- Gave the ability to put in strings to determine content display
- In module config for latest events module
- Created a "Custom format string" entry - help file gives you information on what all the codes are
General tips/notes:
- this doesn't allow updates from the frontend - all admin/superadmin
- goes directly into db to load in events
- prefers to have necessary information available at a glance using the hover popup in calendar - limits the amount of clicking through separate pages for info - it's all available on one page.
- found JEvents and JCal equivalent in terms of usability
- Tom found JEvents version for 1.5 not fully stable; 1.4.5 runs in legacy only
Dan Knauss - Joomla! 1.6: preview of new features and code contributed by jXtended
Dan gave an overview of things to look forward to in Joomla 1.6 (still in
1.6 will not support legacy
- Pre-1.5 sites will have to be migrated to 1.5.
- 1.6 will be an update from 1.5, NOT a migration
Comments
- comments component w/ set of modules rolled in from jXtended.com developers
- highly sought after in past versions of Joomla; will now be standard core feature
- includes Social Sharing, AJAX (won't lose comment text if submit fail) including ratings comment form (available now from jXtended)
- BBCode, Gravatars (Wordpress), CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, more advanced content filter
- Backend: Admin module for published, pending comments
- sends email to alert for new comment
- filter spam - has moderation. can see IP & mark as spam.
phpGACL
- 1.5 includes unused full phpGACL - this is fully implemented in 1.6
- JX Control is evolving to be "members" component & access
- will allow you to add user groups beyond registered - with more specific access levels
- create permissions, bind permissions to user groups
- can come up with fairly complex permissioning on site
- Access sections will group related permissions, users, items & rules
- User profiles can be modified for everyone
- specific, no longer hierarchical, permissioning
- can create backend permissions
Install Extension Suite Pkgs (in ltd use now)
Unlimited Nested Content categories
L10n/Localization Tool
Polls will be removed from core features.
Website Showcase - slopeflyer.com
by Greg Smith - a large website with a lot of pages and content, moved from another CMS to Joomla
Used:
- Sh404 SEF used to make more SEO friendly
- JomComment - used in state section to allow users to post about local wind conditions, changes to landscape etc.
- Flicker pull-in extension, Tweets
Notes & Suggestions:
Greg was looking for a pay-to-view subscription service to control content access. Suggestions:
- AC Subscription
- JoomSuiteMember (used on JCal pro site)
- Community Builder guys have one - email them for it
Greg has all his sites in a subdirectory and uses a redirect; wanted to know how difficult it would be to transfer all from the sub to root
- recommended to move all over - Cpanel - dl the zip file of all content, package locally on his hd, then upload to root, expand all there and update the config with new path.
- mind SEO campaign with any move
General notes from the meeting:
Joomla Expo is on track to give us $100 off registration fee. Victor will follow up with an email for more information.
April idea for consideration: with all of the experience & talent showing up for Joomla meetings, why not put everyone's experience into a project? By creating extensions and offering them on the website, we could generate tons of web traffic and become more of a presence on the web and locally. We're looking for someone to spearhead the project and come up with an idea for an extension: social, gallery, ...??
Joomla Day - We had an idea for a Joomla Day in late summer/fall 2010 - it will give the group more attention in the community and recruit new and current users not yet aware of the group, and just generate a general buzz about the Milwaukee JUG.
Victor is working on getting the forum up and working on the website -- ideas for categories include job posting, networking, showcasing & troubleshooting sites, best components to use...
Ideas for future meetings included an open discussion of good practices in building a Joomla site (which can also be a forum post), "showdown"/comparison of components e.g. Joomunity vs Community Builder vs JomSocial, General overview of Joomla including how the folder structure works
UWM is now offering a Joomla course in the School of Continuing Education. It runs April 30-May 1, 8:30am-4:30pm, cost is $525. For more information: http://www4.uwm.edu/sce/course.cfm?id=17282
Find Joomla Milwaukee on LinkedIn and Facebook!
Next Month: Template Development: 1 hour on how to design, edit and use a Joomla template.
Site Showcase: John Fisher
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