Joomla Logo

Out of the box, Joomla! does a great job of managing the content needed to make your Web site sing. But for many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in the application framework that makes it possible for developers all around the world to create powerful add-ons that are called Extensions. An Extension is used to add capabilities to Joomla! that do not exist in the base core code. Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available Extensions:

* Dynamic form builders
* Business or organisational directories
* Document management
* Image and multimedia galleries
* E-commerce and shopping cart engines
* Forums and chat software
* Calendars
* E-mail newsletters
* Data collection and reporting tools
* Banner advertising systems
* Paid subscription services
* and many, many, more

You can find more examples over at our ever growing Joomla! Extensions Directory. Prepare to be amazed at the amount of exciting work produced by our active developer community!

A useful guide to the Extension site can be found at:

http://extensions.joomla.org/content/view/15/63/

Types of Extensions

There are five types of extensions:

* Components
* Modules
* Templates
* Plugins
* Languages

You can read more about the specifics of these using the links in the Article Index – a Table of Contents (yet another useful feature of Joomla!) – at the top right or by clicking on the Next link below.

Component

A Component is the largest and most complex of the Extension types. Components are like mini-applications that render the main body of the page. An analogy that might make the relationship easier to understand would be that Joomla! is a book and all the Components are chapters in the book. The core Article Component (com_content), for example, is the mini-application that handles all core Article rendering just as the core registration Component (com_user) is the mini-application that handles User registration.

Many of Joomla!’s core features are provided by the use of default Components such as:

* Contacts
* Front Page
* News Feeds
* Banners
* Mass Mail
* Polls

A Component will manage data, set displays, provide functions, and in general can perform any operation that does not fall under the general functions of the core code.

Components work hand in hand with Modules and Plugins to provide a rich variety of content display and functionality aside from the standard Article and content display. They make it possible to completely transform Joomla! and greatly expand its capabilities.

Module

A more lightweight and flexible Extension used for page rendering is a Module. Modules are used for small bits of the page that are generally less complex and able to be seen across different Components. To continue in our book analogy, a Module can be looked at as a footnote or header block, or perhaps an image/caption block that can be rendered on a particular page. Obviously you can have a footnote on any page but not all pages will have them. Footnotes also might appear regardless of which chapter you are reading. Simlarly Modules can be rendered regardless of which Component you have loaded.

Modules are like little mini-applets that can be placed anywhere on your site. They work in conjunction with Components in some cases and in others are complete stand alone snippets of code used to display some data from the database such as Articles (Newsflash) Modules are usually used to output data but they can also be interactive form items to input data for example the Login Module or Polls.

Modules can be assigned to Module positions which are defined in your Template and in the back-end using the Module Manager and editing the Module Position settings. For example, “left” and “right” are common for a 3 column layout.
Displaying Modules

Each Module is assigned to a Module position on your site. If you wish it to display in two different locations you must copy the Module and assign the copy to display at the new location. You can also set which Menu Items (and thus pages) a Module will display on, you can select all Menu Items or you can pick and choose by holding down the control key and selecting multiple locations one by one in the Modules [Edit] screen

Note: Your Main Menu is a Module! When you create a new Menu in the Menu Manager you are actually copying the Main Menu Module (mod_mainmenu) code and giving it the name of your new Menu. When you copy a Module you do not copy all of its parameters, you simply allow Joomla! to use the same code with two separate settings.
Newsflash Example

Newsflash is a Module which will display Articles from your site in an assignable Module position. It can be used and configured to display one Category, all Categories, or to randomly choose Articles to highlight to Users. It will display as much of an Article as you set, and will show a Read more… link to take the User to the full Article.

The Newsflash Component is particularly useful for things like Site News or to show the latest Article added to your Web site.

Plugin

One of the more advanced Extensions for Joomla! is the Plugin. In previous versions of Joomla! Plugins were known as Mambots. Aside from changing their name their functionality has been expanded. A Plugin is a section of code that runs when a pre-defined event happens within Joomla!. Editors are Plugins, for example, that execute when the Joomla! event onGetEditorArea occurs. Using a Plugin allows a developer to change the way their code behaves depending upon which Plugins are installed to react to an event.

Language

New to Joomla! 1.5 and perhaps the most basic and critical Extension is a Language. Joomla! is released with multiple Installation Languages but the base Site and Administrator are packaged in just the one Language en-GB – being English with GB spelling for example. To include all the translations currently available would bloat the core package and make it unmanageable for uploading purposes. The Language files enable all the User interfaces both Front-end and Back-end to be presented in the local preferred language. Note these packs do not have any impact on the actual content such as Articles.

More information on languages is available from the

http://community.joomla.org/translations.html

In this short tutorial, I will tell about creating elements and using it differently on different places. Elements are special files that generally adds value to parameters. For this tutorial, I will create a color element that  can be used in different components, modules, plugins where color selection is done through a color picker. I will use moorainbow as web color picker.
Also note, I am creating this element for my adsensebingo module. Hence this code has been tested and used.

Creating Color Element File

Element file are generally single php file that has element class that extends JElement base class. The class overrides fetchElement method of JElement Base class to provide color picker.
Let us create a folder that will hold all files necessary for color element.  Let us call this folder “element”. Download the latest moorainbow library and place it in a subfolder directly below the elements folder. Now create a color.php file . This file is the element file and has a class JElementColor that extends JElement base class.
Now override fetchElement method of JElement base class. The important part of element is the fetchElement method. This method actually returns data that can be used by parameters.

A little explanation about fetchElement is necessary. method fetchElement requires 4 arguments namely
$name – is the unique name of the parameter, from the name argument.
$value – is the current value of the parameter.
$node – is a JSimpleXMLElement object representing the <param> element.
$control_name – is the parameter type from the type argument (eg. ‘category’ or ‘color’).

The fetchElement method for Color element is as below

function fetchElement($name, $value, &$node, $control_name)
{
        ob_start();
        $img=JUri::root()."modules/mod_adsensebingo/elements/moorainbow/images/rainbow.png";
        $imgx=JUri::root()."modules/mod_adsensebingo/elements/moorainbow/images/";
        static $embedded;
                if(!$embedded)
        {
            $css2=JUri::root()."modules/mod_adsensebingo/elements/moorainbow/css/mooRainbow.css";
            $jspath=JUri::root()."modules/mod_adsensebingo/elements/moorainbow/js/mooRainbow.js";
             ?>
<link
    href="<?php echo $css2;?>" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="<?php echo $jspath;?>"></script>

            <?php
            $embedded=true;

        ?>
<script>

            window.addEvent('domready',function(){
//Get sibling function from http://www.sanjeevshrestha.com.np
                Element.extend({
                    getSiblings: function() {
                        return this.getParent().getChildren().remove(this);
                    }
                });
            $('.rainbowbtn').each(function(item){

         item.color=new MooRainbow(item.id, {
                    startColor: [58, 142, 246],
                    wheel: true,
                    id:item.id+'x',
                    onChange: function(color) {

                    item.getSiblings()[0].value = color.hex;
                    },
                    onComplete: function(color) {

                    item.getSiblings()[0].value = color.hex;
                    },

                    imgPath: '<?php echo $imgx;?>'

                });

                });
            });
            </script>
            <?php
        }
            ?>
            <label>
<input
    name="<?php echo $control_name;?////>[<?php echo $name;?>]" type="text"
    class="inputbox" id="<?php echo  $control_name.$name ?>"
    value="<?php echo $value;?>" size="10" />
<img
    src="<?php echo $img;? />" id="img<?php echo $name; ?>" alt="[r]"
    class="rainbowbtn" width="16" height="16" /></label>
        <?php

        $content=ob_get_contents();

        ob_end_clean();
        return $content;

    }

That is it.

Using it in Module Parameters.

Now let us use this in module parameter. Parameters are generally written in
element block. For these params block to render our color element we need to specify path to our elements folder in this params element node as below

<params addpath="[path]/elements"> </param>
--- list of <param> elements ---
</params>

In our case this is written as

<params addpath="/modules/mod_adsensebingo/elements"> </param>
<param name="foreground" type="color" default="#CC0000" label="Foreground Color" description="Select foreground color for your google ad" > </param>
-- other <param> elements
</params>

Now this block is aware of new elment type and knows where to find the element rendering code. The parameter section of module setting page now correctly shows a color picker.
You can create any kind of elments, from a simple integer list to a complex color element or elements that shows records from your component. The usage is limitless.

That is all for color element. More to come on element tutorials till then happy reading.

Recently I created a donation module for joomla that collects donations on Joomla sites. This module uses Paypal to collect donations and is simple to setup and you can get it up and running within a minute. This module is free to use and is released under GNU/GPL. You can see live demo of the module at www.joomlaguru.com.np.

Features

Version 1.0 has following features. You can view the parameters for this module. This module has rich set of configuration options as explained below.

Select Server - This has two options and lets user to select between live and sandbox environment on paypal.

Paypal Merchant  Email/ID - Paypal Email. You can also enter paypal merchant ID instead of paypal email. This increases security without exposing your email address.

Donate To Text - Configure text that is displayed on invoice and paypal donation collecting form.

Fixed Donation – You can choose to accept fixed donations or Donation through input box or a drop down box. If you select fixed donations, please enter donation amount in next field too. If you select “Show amount in select box” user is presented a drop down box with different denominations. These denominations can be configured from a file that is under modules->mod_osdonate->data->amounts.dat

Fixed Amount Donation – Fixed donation amount. This is used only when fixed_donation is active.

Your locale currency - Select currency in which you want to accept donation. Be advised this currency should be active in your paypal. If not this may cause error. You can add currencies in your paypal account. Please refer to paypal help on more about this.

Your Country locale - Select your country. This should be from your paypal account.

Thank you page – Select article that will be displayed when user makes a successful payment through paypal donation form.

Cancel Page – Select article that will be displayed when user cancels the payment.

Donation Intro Text - Text that will be displayed before paypal donate button. Be expressive and a little funny to your viewers.

Donation Post Text – Text that will appear after the donation button.

This is all you need to collect donations from your joomla site.

You can view more details about this module here. Also you can download the module here.

If you like this module consider contributing at Joomlaguru.com.np. Your small contribution can make a difference.

Happy reading!!

Features

1. Two modes

User can select to replace mootools with jQuery completely or use jQuery in conjunction with mootools. Using jQuery with mootools introduces noConflict features of jQuery and replaces ‘$’ operator with jquery. This allows other libraries to use ‘$’ operator without conflict.

2. Where to use selection

Use can select where to use jQuery. User can choose to use jQuery in frontend and/ or in administrator.

3. Allows other application to check if jquery is loaded.

This plugin also introduces a variable in application session that allows others to check if jquery is loaded or not. The illustration of use is as below\

    $app =& JFactory::getApplication();

        //Check to see if jquery is already included
        if( $app->get('jquery') === true ) {

            //Code here

        }
    else
    {

    //Code here

    }

Here is the screenshot of plugin parameters

License

The module is released under GNU/GPL license and hence users are allowed distribute and modify the module without warranty what so ever. The developer does not bear any liability for the extension.

Download

Download the latest release from the download section of joomlaguru.com.np or you can click here to download the plugin.

Send in your comments and feedbacks on the plugin. Hope you will like the plugin. Happy reading.

Features

Website ID – Website ID from Google Analytics. These website ID are unique to each website profile.index.php?option=com_content

Domain – Enter domain without http://www e.g. joomlaguru.com.np

Track – Select tracker type. User can select from tracker type. There are 3 types of tracker available.

1. Single Domain Tracker
   Tracker Tracks single domain only.
2. One Domain With Multiple Subdomains
   Tracker tracks multiple subdomains under single domain
3. Multiple Top Level Domains
   Tracker tracks multiple top level domains.

Download the plugin from the joomlaguru.com.np download page.

If you find this plugin useful please consider contributing. Your contribution can make a difference

Hope you like this plugin. Happy reading!!

I have already launched twitter box – a free and easy twitter module for joomla through Joomlaguru.com.np.

I hope overwhelming response from readers. Let us pray for its bright future.

Thanks
Sanjeev

JCal Pro is a fantastic extension to manage events on Joomla enabled Sites. Last week I used JCal Pro for a project and required some modification. JCal Pro is a great extension but lacks spam protection like CAPTCHA or any thing that stops spam posting. But I needed spam prevention in event posting, So I set out to add a CAPTCHA to the fantastic component.

I used reCpatcha as it is audio enabled, a free service and is also owned by google now. ReCaptcha has enabled more than 100,000 sites and I added one more to the list.

The component now has a reCaptcha for spam filtering and JCal Pro has a missing gem installed on it.
You can view a of modified JCal Pro here

I wanted to distribute this modified extension for free but cannot distribute it as it is developed and distributed by dev.anything-digital.com and the extension is subscription based.

However you can contact me for modified version of JCal Pro or if you want to add reCaptcha to your existing JCal Pro or any other extension. Yes I charge a little for my time.

Happy Reading.

If you find this post or modified JCal Pro Useful, please consider contributing. Your contribution can make a difference

Below is the screenshot of the module parameters.

The only parameters required to set the box running is username and password. You need to have valid twitter account for this module to run. You can create a template for individual tweet in Twitter Template parameters. There are few variables you can use to create a template

{username} – Twitter Username of the poster
{tweet}  – Twitter status. This variable displays each status
{postdate} – The date the tweet was posted
{userimg} – Image link of the poster
{userurl}  – The homepage of the poster
{tweetlink} – The twitter account link of the poster
{source}  – The source from where the tweet was posted e.g. web, mobile
{reply_to} – The status to which the current tweet is replied to
{reply_to_user} – The user to which the current tweet is replied to

That is all we have. and I hope we don’t need more.

You can use the module anywhere but please give me some credit for spending some hrs in this module.

Download the module here . mod_ostwitterbox .

Update 14 Dec 2009

Twitter box version 1.1 is released. This version includes timeline selection. Read more about new version here

If you like this module, consider making contribution. Your small contribution can make a difference

Happy tweeting.

The media manager is cool with multiple upload and that too with ajax but I could not get it running. Another inspiration for me

This is an opportunity and challenge for component developers like me to upgrade and update. I am getting my hands dirty on the new arrived code, better get yours too.

Download the latest release of joomla from here
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=3585

Happy coding with joomla.

I was sceptical if it will work for me or not and gave it a try. After feeding some information, I got an installable skeleton of my component. “Awesome”! yes, I said awesome for this tool. This installable component had everything from administrator files, config files, manifest files to router.php for SEF urls. I would recommend this to everyone. You can try it for yourself. This tool is created by notwebdesign.com and the location of tool is at http://www.notwebdesign.com/joomla-component-creator/index.php

I am using it for my all of my coming projects.