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.

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.

The strtotime function not only converts the string to timestamp value but can also calculate future and past dates. Lets us see some examples

echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("- 7 days"));

This will print the date 7 days ago from current date. simple, isn’t it? yes we can pass offset values into strtotime. The offset values can be any integer followed by days, weeks, months and years. There are other predefined values like now, today, tomorrow, yesterday, first saturday, last saturday, this saturday, next saturday  and so on.

some more examples to make the concept more clear:

echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("- 7 days"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("+1 weeks"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("- 1 months"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("+ 2 years"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("now"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("yesterday"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("last sunday"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("this monday"));
echo date("d-m-y", strtotime("+2 weeks saturday"));

and in a case where you want to find 10 days from today you can simply use
echo date(“d-m-Y”, strtotime(“+10 days”));

And yes this is that simple. Don’t do it the hard way

All components should be created under components folder. This applies to both administrator and user part of Joomla. A component under the root components folder is accessible to general user. This is the part of component that is available to general user. The component under components folder of administrator is available to administrator.

Ok let us see the directory structure of our feedback component.

This is the structure of user part of the component. A little explanation of file structure

1. feedback.php – This is the main file of the component. This file receives control and routes the control to other controllers.

2. controller.php – This is the main controller file. In a single controller file, this responds to the request from the user. In our case we are splitting the controllers, hence this file will only route the control to required controller.

3. controllers (folder) – This folder contains all the necessary controllers for the component. In our case, we have two controllers: category.php – for category controller and feedback.php – feedback ccontroller.

4. models(folder) – This folder stores all models, that will be required by our component.

5. views (folder) – This folder stores all the views. This folder will contain view folder. This view will then again contain layout folder and necessary view files. Here in our case, we have a view named feedback. The tmpl folder under feedback folder contains all the layout that we will use in the component: default.php – this layout displays a simple feedback submission form. list.php – This layout will be used to list all the feedbacks received. Every view folder contains a view.html.php (or view.php). This file is the main view file. I will explain about its usage in up-coming tutorial. We don’t have view for category as we will not require user to enter the category. The selection of category will be available in the feedback view.

6. tables (folder) – This folder contains all the table definitions. In our case we have category.php and feedback.php

This tables folder can be kept in administrator side of the component too. But for our convenience, we have it in the frontend.

This is the structure of the component in administrator side. This is a little unusual structure of admin panel. In this, there is extra modules folder. This is not the standard joomla way of doing the components in admin panel and ofcourse, it does not follow MVC. This is done for our convenience.

A little explanation about the modules folder. This is nothing but a modularize version of large admin.feedback.php and admin.feedback.html.php. Actually, these files are broken down into smaller modules and kept in the module folder. This is just to manage the large chunky codes in admin panel. The actual admin.feedback.php routes the control to these modules on user request.

With this I conclude this tutorial. In this tutorial, we saw the structures of the component in both the frontend and administration panel. We splitted the main controller file to multiple controllers and we also splitted the main large admin file into modules.

In next tutorial, I will talk about the conventions we should follow to write controllers, models, tables and views. Till then happy reading!

JoomRSS is a RSS aggregator that runs on top of One of the finest CMS – Joomla. This wonderful component is built by Joomclan.com and chops off most of the manual work that would generally be needed to do update articles in Joomla. Just save the RSS Url you want the feeds from and leave the rest to JoomRSS. It will periodically pull feeds from the source and puts it nicely in different sections and categories. Yes, without a click to any button anywere you will have your site updated regularly.

This cool component has some cool features you will not find in other RSS Aggregator.

1. Pull RSS from different source and feed it directly into frontpage.
2. Put a file in a cron and leave the rest to JoomRSS. It will pull the
   feeds and post it in sections and categories you have assigned.
3. Oh! your web host does not provide you the cron! No, Problem enable the template cron. This works like the cpanel cron.
4. Create custom source links and display it professionaly at the end of the every post.
5. Create Ad sections for the post and enable it in the post (article). This is cool
6. Set an expiry date so that the feed is not pulled beyond that.
7. Pull media; Yes you can pull media and play it there in the post. Try it with Google Video Feed.
8. Open the link in different window or within an Wrapper

Yes, these and many more cool features. Just take JoomRSS for a roll and that too for $25/Year.
For more information on JoomRSS, visit www.joomclan.com/joomrss

Yes you found a savior! This component is a savior who want to bring more traffic to site. Yes, fresh articles, news bring more people. This savior works for one and all. Great isn’t it?

I will let you know If I find any other cool stuffs from joomclan.com