Jooma 3.1 Templating - Tutorials/Documentation? - php

I am to develop a Joomla 3.1 Template. The template should consist of a static header and footer, as well as multiple pages, all of which need their own styling. Further, the client would like to be able to add 'events' to a specific listings page. Customers should be able to book said events via a simple form.
Thanks to some really basic guides, I have the header and footer down, as well as some simple template options. However, I am now running into some problems;
How would I approach the content section? Ideally, a page would consist of multiple, editable sections. The client would be able to edit said sections in the backend without having to deal with or accidentally changing the layout or styling of the page itself. Since there are multiple pages, I obviously need different views/containers for each of them. Is this possible and if so, how?
Another problem is the documentation, which I found to be very lacking. Even google only got me so far (basic structure, index.php, templateDetails.xml and so forth). Are there any other resources I may have missed or do I really need to refer to other templates (most of which, obviously, aren't free) and use var_dump all the time?
Writing this, I just realized that I could theoretically build a template for every single page but ... that surely can't be right, right?
If someone could provide a basic outline or at least tell me how you personally would tackle a project like this, it'd be very much appreciated.
All the best
Edit;
I just found some video tutorials but since my bandwidth is limited, I cannot watch them. Please take this into account when writing an answer. Thanks.

I have only one word for you :
GANTRY :D
gantry-framework.org

Joomla revolves around menu items that point to components. For each menu item, you can assign modules to different positions within the template to create a unique page. You only need one template if you really understand how Joomla templating works.
Joomla has very good documentation here - http://docs.joomla.org/
Few things to remember -
Component - this is a type of content or app of sorts. A component will define what content is and how it is displayed. This can be anything from blog articles and categories to an event registration system to a message board or social network. Menu items generally will point to a view in a component.
Modules - these are used to display additional content around the component output. This can be a menu, or a login box, or a weather widget or anything else you can come up with. Modules can be assigned to or excluded from the various menu items on your site.
Plugin - plugins are used to change the final output on a site. They can be used to insert Youtube videos, or forms within content, or even to alter the meta tags on a page.
Understanding how extensions work is an important first step. Once you get how those work, learning how templates and template overrides work will give you most of what you need to know to build a basic Joomla site.

Related

edit magento navigation without coding

I just recently started working with a Magento site, and so far I'm really not liking it. I need to remove a couple links from the main navigation, but I can't seem to find the option for it. I've googled it numerous times, and all I see are examples for coding the navigation. My question is, can you edit the site navigation like you can with say wordpress? Seeing how it's a cms I'd imagine the user should be able to make changes to the navigation using some type of interface, and without having to pull the files from the server and edit them.
Also just out of curiosity, for anyone experienced with Magento would you say it's a good choice for a cms? I've heard of it before, but haven't seen many sites that use it.
No!, so you have three options here.
Learn how to extend the navigation with the 100's of tutorials out there, it is really not that hard, assuming you have a theme you just have to edit app/design/frontend/[theme]/default/template/page/html/topmenu.phtml
Get an extension to do it for you.
Hire a developer to do it for you, we create a static block with installer for the html which make it slightly more user friendly to update in the future.
Stackoverflow is a bad place to ask questions like this, it is aimed at programmers and doing such a procedure is rudimentary stuff, I really hope you are a client trying to be cheap rather than someone who claims they can run this site.
Edit: The cms features are ok but you need to be able to code to set them all up so the end user can make the changes with WYSIWYG.
If you don't want to code for navigation then you can do below things
1) Create category and then Display Settings=>Display Mode=>static block only and Display Settings=>CMS Block=>static block name. In static block u can include in page url or custom page
2)You need to hire developer
If you're using Magento and have an integrated WordPress blog, it's possible to design a completely custom menu in the WordPress Admin using the menu builder. You have complete control over what menu items you want and the hierarchy of each item.
To get this to work, you need to integrate your WordPress blog using WordPress Integration in full integration mode. Your Magento template also has to be using the default Topmenu block.

basic joomla extension development confusion

I want to develop a joomla 2.5 porfolio extension.
So I need something in the backend to enter a couple of details.
On my frontpage I want to have listed the six latest projects and there will be a page in the frontend where all projects are listed.
I'm new to this whole joomla thing. At the moment I'm reading through the joomla docs and tutorials.
I'm a little bit confused because I'm not really sure which type of extension do I need.
Can all this be done with a single component or a module or do I have to mix both?
Because what I've understood so far a component can just be displayed as a independent page.
And a module has to be included in a page. Like {lastSixProjects}?
Can some please enlighten me a little bit?
If you want to create a page with portofolio only, you may create a component without a module...
If you want to put your portofolio in eg.: articles pages, search page, in a sidebar etc (like a image slideshow plugin) you must create a module (with a component assigned to it)
Please read this: http://docs.joomla.org/Extension_types_%28general_definitions%29 .
I undestrand that you want to put your portofolio in your front page... in this chase you MUST create a module.
Little explanation:
A module is an extension (similary to boxes, or widgets) that are arranged arround a component (in this chase com_content - on your FrontPage). Eg: Ads Module, Search Box Module etc.
A component is a super complex extension (similary to mini applications). It has an administration part and front-end part. All Joomla! pages loads a component. Eg: Content component, Search component etc.
I hope this will help you.
You want a component. Please read this: http://docs.joomla.org/Extension_types_%28general_definitions%29
Agree on 2 previous answers, you need a component with at least one table to store your projects. Then you need to link to a menu a view of the elements on a table. You should be able to make it work in 15 minutes with this component creator for Joomla http://www.component-creator.com/

Page Layout Designer CMS

I am currently working on a content management system to be used by future clients sites. The project is currently in its infancy, and whilst thinking through some of the workings I have come across an issue.
I want the CMS to be very easy to use and edit site content, and add new content with minimal technical knowledge for the end user. What I am struggling with is creating a page designer for the admin backend. It will essentially allow the admin of the site to add new content, whether it be image, text, a twitter feed or some custom HTML. My aim is for it to be similar to the content editor used by Concrete5. I have done research and tried to figure out how they do it, but it has alluded me. Unlike Concrete5 I am hoping mine will just display simple blocks in the editor, rather than editing the full site. The blocks will then be stored in a database individually and then output when the page is requested.
I have experimented with the jQuery UI, using draggable elements and constraining them to a set layout, which seems okay but it is not ideal.
I am flexible to changing the way of doing this and very open to any suggestions you can give.
Sounds like you want the admin-users to be able to add some sort of widgets to the site. I would take a look at how for instance Kentico CMS is solving this: http://www.kentico.com/Product/All-Features/Content-Management/Widgets. You may download a free demo from http://www.kentico.com/Download-Demo/Trial-Version.

php joomla template (how-to?) the proper way

Greetings all,
I just wanted to know what is the proper way to do template's in Joomla?
If i have four boxes in footer (4 columns) how can i automate them in the template so their content inside can be managed from the back-end?
So far, i have seen custom html block modules and using those. But wouldn't it be funny if there are loads of such blocks and than managing them from modules individually?
Now suppose if i have a slogan/tag line for my website; and i want it to be managed from backend.. Do i need to create that custom block even for such single line?
May be i am going to wrong direction. Can someone guide me please?
Regards,
Jhon.
A Joomla template is simply a map the outlines the various positions that available to put modules in. These positions are built around the component display area. You can load basically anything you want in to a module position. You will probably need to download some modules from the Joomla Extension Directory, there are tons of options.
The Custom HTML module is appropriate for simple content that is not going to change very often. This would be good for a company tag line that doesn't ever change. There are various modules that would allow you to load content from the latest Joomla articles based on section or category. There are modules for login forms, stock prices, RSS feeds, weather, all kinds of stuff.

Drupal best practices for custom admin section

Is this a common task in your Drupal work when you're asked to create a custom admin section in Drupal for your content?
For instance, you have a few content types and user wants not only to view them, but to search using different filters, to add new items - all inside the same admin subsection.
In essence, this is classic search/grid/record screen/pages and while in typical Drupal distribution content management screents are kind of scattered around, I am talking about more organized spage, e.g. in which Grid (View) also has "Add new" link and you don't have to scroll to "Create content" menu which relates to a different section.
What is your experience and opinion in this relation?
I'm actually working on something like this right now where I work. We've built a custom module to solve Drupal's biggest problem of having unorganized content by organizing it in a nice tree structure. What we've decided to do is go ahead and create a whole new section within the admin just for managing content through this module (it contains a lot more functionality than just a tree structure). There were two big deciding factors when deciding to do this.
We knew we weren't going to be releasing this module so we didn't need to worry about integration with other modules because any such integration would be done by us.
The non-technical staff that this was presented to preferred this method over having several different admin pages with different pieces of functionality on each one, despite all the functionality being related. They viewed at as simply being easier to use.
The point behind my explanation is this: if it makes sense in your situation, then I'd say make either a new section or a new page with several tabs on it. There's a lot of deciding factors to consider:
Do I (or my) clients like the Drupal admin as is?
Do I need to worry about integration with third party modules?
Is time of the essence (this one is a big one)?
How extensible do I need the new admin page(s) to be?
Is upgrading to the newest version of Drupal of big importance (from 5 to 6 and later from 6 to 7 and so on)?
Many non-developers I've talked to abhor the Drupal admin and most content editors I've talked to or worked with prefer having a single admin page they can go to to manage all of their content. As a result, our setup is well received by our clients even though some within the Drupal community may not agree with it.
you can use views_bulk_operation module to show content (or users) to execute (batch) operations on them. in this way you get a sortable grid with search capabilities (exposed filters), pagination and the possibility to execute custom bulk actions. from here it's easy to add a link "create new" in the view footer. furthermore, you can use link as "local tasks" to organize views in tabs.
usually i use simplemenu for the admin backend and i hide the navigation menu in the sidebar for all but administrators.
Another option - much easier to deliver - would be to create a new menu only visible to the administrators - and dependent on the content displayed - with links to the pages for common tasks. Particular views, for example, or to add new content of the currently displayed type, etc.

Categories