Category: Joomla
Posted by Radoslav Bogdanovic - 2009/12/08 - Joomla, Wordpress
It seems that the new fashion in template creation for Joomla and WordPress is frameworks as it makes it easier to produce new templates every month. In the Joomla world we are used to these well known template clubs where one can get really nice and cool templates with all latest Web 2.0 features. To name a few of these such as
RocketTheme and
YOOtheme for Joomla where one for a reasonable price $75 for one year subscription get access and support to their templates. I am subscribing to both of these template clubs as they seem to be the one according to my opinion who are the leading ones.
Gantry
RocketTheme have recently launched its Gantry framework which look very promising. With the December 2009 template named Reaction we get the first glimpse of what is possible with the new Gantry template framework.
Key Features
The Gantry framework is packed with many great features that enable the rapid development of feature-rich designs with a minimum amount of effort. Some sample of the features Gantry brings to the table:
- 960 Grid System (http://960.gs) for simple consistent layout
- Cleaner more understandable index.php. All the complicated bits are handled for you in the Gantry core.
- Flexibility to configure up to 6 modules in row position.
- 65 base module positions in the Gantry core. These can be easily extended to add more
- 36 possible combinations for the layout of the mainbody/sidebars alone!
- Flexibility to configure different grid-size layouts based on number of published modules. You are not forced to use the same grid layout for every page
- 12 built-in Gantry Features like Logo, font-sizer, to-top smooth slider. Easily create your own to add more functionality with little coding required.
- Ability to force module display and ‘blank’ module positions for advanced module placement ability.
- Stunning new Admin interface providing better usability and control.
- Unique Layout controls allow you to configure your layout without having to do math or ever create a ‘broken’ layout.
- Layout controls provide visual representation of your front-end layout for simple and intuitive customization.
- Gantry is XML driven, adding another row of completely flexible module positions is as simple as editing one XML file.
- New flexible parameter system allows loading preset theme attributes and modifying for a custom design. Also support session and cookie level overriding for development.
- All new table-less HTML overrides based on the excellent GNU/GPLv2 overrides from YOOtheme
- New standard typography and Joomla core elements styling
- New advanced caching system makes using Gantry really fast!
- All configuration state is stored in params.ini and cached for speed.
- Optimized codebase with speed, size, and reuse core tenants of the framework design
Warp5
YOOtheme have their template framework called Warp5. That template framework was introduced with the July 2009 template named Phoenix.
Key Features
Warp5 is a fast and powerful template framework for Joomla. It lets you create sophisticated templates in no time, even for comprehensive websites. It provides a hybrid fluid-pixel grid and all the elaborate functionalities that make our templates easy to edit, nice to look at and super fast, in every browser.
- Flexible Layout – The flexible grid with its modern multi column layout lets you achieve any design layout.
- Menu System – Create clearly arranged & even comprehensive interfaces with Warp’s enhanced menu system.
- Developer Toolbox – CSS, JS and PHP kits for rapid template development make creating websites a breeze.
- Module System – Warp provides a clear grid for modules and a wide diversity of templates for module variations.
- Ultra Fast Loading – Optimal loading time thanks to minimal file requests, gzip compression and image sprites. – Search Engine Optimized
- Search engine friendly 2-1-3 column ordering for fully accessible sites, even without JS.
In the WordPress world we have
Thesis and
Headway even if these more provide the framework with rudimentary looks. This site is actually using the
Thesis theme with a free “
Fresh Company” skin from
ThesisThemes who specialize in providing customizations for the
Thesis theme.
Posted by Radoslav Bogdanovic - 2009/11/30 - Joomla
Just after fixing some of the limitations in the metaWeblog XML-RPC plugin I did find that there is another plugin for Joomla which actually fixes all the limitations that I had before with metaWeblog XML-RPC plugin. This plugin is provided by joomler.net in Japan. It is strange how I could miss that from the beginning when I was searching for plugins which would allow me to use Windows Live Writer as blog editor with Joomla. Anyway this plugin is on version 2.3.3 and as this version number suggests without any of the limitations that the metaWeblog plugin had. This plugin is also available from the Joomla extension directory
Here is a brief installation guide
- Download MovableType XML-RPC plugin and install via "Extensions->Install/Uninstall"
- Turn on and configure the plugin parameters under "Extensions->Plugin Manager" (and turn off other XML-RPC plugins)
- Enable "Web Services" under "Global Configuration->System"
- In your blog editor you need to add /xmlrpc/index.php to the end of URL for your homepage. If your homepage URL is http://www.homepage.com then the URL to use here is http://www.homepage.com/xmlrpc/index.php. If your blog editor cannot find or determine the type automatically then you would be offered to choose. Select Movable Type API
Here is another link to Using Windows Live Writer with Joomla
Note: I did have have some issues with installation of this plugin. When I tried to install the plugin using "Extensions->Install/Uninstall" It would give me an error which said someting that it could not find installation xml file or similar. I really don't know what I did it but it suddenly worked. I have seen other blog posts where they have tried to install this plugin and given up in favor of the metaWeblog plugin where it just worked. Another explanation is that there are many blog posts which show how to install the metaWeblog plugin but only a few on the MovableType plugin. Also what's confusing is that the joomler.net site is in japanese and no installation instructions in english is given from the plugin developer.
Posted by Radoslav Bogdanovic - 2009/11/29 - Joomla
I have now finally fixed the bugs or better said the limitations in the metaWeblog XML-RPC API plugin for Joomla by Justo de Rivera. My initial statement was "how hard can it be" and it was not that hard but it took me some time anyway. The trickiest part was to figure out how to return a string array with XML-RPC in Joomla.
My main concern was handling of categories and the problems were:
- If multiple categories with same name but with different section existed then the wrong category was chosen when creating a new post
- The ability to change a category on a post was not available
- The ability to get the categories for already posted posts. The category would always be empty.
All of these problems have now been fixed in my new version of the metaWeblog XML-RPC API plugin which I also have changed version to be 0.9.1 as it is based on the 0.9 version of the same plugin by Justo Gonzalez de Rivera. I have tried to keep the original code as is and only add those missing parts or change what's wrong. I have also tried to contact Justo for adding these changes to his original plugin in
JoomlaCode.org without success. I think that these changes could be valuable for more people than me so that's why I have made it available to the public.
Here is a brief installation guide for enabling blog editors such as Windows Live Writer or
MarsEdit and
Blogo on Mac to connect to Joomla.
- Install my new version of metaWeblog XML-RPC API plugin via "Extensions->Install/Uninstall"
- Install Real Simple Discovery plugin via "Extensions->Install/Uninstall"
- Turn both plugins on under "Extensions->Plugin Manager" (and turn off other XML-RPC plugins)
- Enable "Web Services" under "Global Configuration->System"
- In your blog editor add the URL to your site
This has been tested on Joomla! 1.5.15 with Windows Live Writer 14.0.8089.726, Marsedit 2.3.3, Blogo 1.2.10 and ScribeFire 3.4.6.
Now it's time to reconsider my previous statement to skip Joomla in favor for WordPress for blogging and install Joomla on this site as well.
Posted by Radoslav Bogdanovic - 2009/11/24 - Joomla, Wordpress
Even if I have decided to go for WordPress on this blog I have not completely given up on the idea on using Joomla for blogging.
To get working comments with Joomla one can use JComments from JoomlaTune. JComments is released under the GNU GPL license and is distributed for free. JComments seems to have all required features that I would expect from good comments components.
One of the other complaints I have with Joomla and blogging is the ability to use remote blogging tools like Live Writer on Windows or MarsEdit and Blogo on Mac. Some might not consider this as a problem as one can always use the online web editor to write and post. There is a description on the MarsEdit support forum on how to setup MarsEdit with Joomla. See the link for more details.
One other problem with Joomla and blog posts is that a post in WordPress can belong to multiple categories whereas in Joomla an article is what a blog post is mapped to can only belong to one category. Remote blogging tools allow one to set multiple categories but then the question is what category will it end up in. So the rule is to only set single category on blog posts.
The metaWeblog API plug-in used in the description seems also to have its bugs when it comes to categories. In the setup for the plug-in one can specify the default category to be used for posts. Initially I assumed that one only could post to a single category from a remote blogging tool but it should rather be that this is the category used when the blog post does not have a category set or if the category specified cannot be found.
At least testing with posting from Live Writer did not work and the blog post will always end up in the default category.
I have decided not to give up but to try to fix the bug. How hard could it be?
I have found following links and the next step is to setup a Joomla development environment.
Setting up your workstation for Joomla! development – Part 1
Setting up your workstation for Joomla! development – Part 2
Stay tuned. I will let you all know when I have fixed the bug.
