Chad will be the standard bearer for the essential ‘must-have’ seminar for beginner tracks at Joomla events. He will discuss extensions that are critical for every site as well as the best extensions for specific cases/functions common in web development.
This talk is perfect for new Joomla users as well as integrators looking to get first-hand referrals of the top Joomla extensions.
Hello Everyone thank you for coming.Essential extensions are different than just any other joomlaextesion. These are tools for you or your users that make managing and using your Joomla site easier or improve the experience. I think it’s pretty important to be sure that the extensions you install on all your Joomla sites are high quality, secure, and actually useful. As I point out in the tagline of this presentation, I chose to use the tag line “ “ because really, if you’ve not done a great job picking these extensions then you and your users will suffer. You might spend time and money reworking, researching, or losing customers due to poorly chosen or implemented joomla extensions.
I think it’s pretty important to be sure that the extensions you install on all your Joomla sites are high quality, secure, and actually useful. [PAUSE][SPEAK SLOWLY][DON’T BE NERVOUS]So because of that importance, I added a tagline to this slide – “Choose wisely, your Joomla site depends on it”
So why is this so important
Well because, if you don’t carefully pick the right extension for your sites, you could end up having to deal with outdated code, unsecure extensions, hacked websites, or extensions that are difficult for you and your users to work with.
Basically this decision could end up deciding the fate of you and your joomla site! You could end up dashing the hopes and dreams of hundreds of site users by making a bad choice here. Are we paying attention yet!?
In short we can say, picking the right extension is deciding the success or failure of your web project.
When you select an extension to install a few things need to come into your mind.QUESTION: Does anyone have any ideas on what types of things we will want to watch for when selecting or installing extensions?
[PAUSE][AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION][DRINK WATER?]So first on the list of things to think about
Is that extension you’re preparing to install safe and secure.[AUDIENCE PARTCIPATION]: Has anyone ever installed an extension that wasn’t secure? What was wrong with it? What did it do? Did it cost you anything?Extensions are written by well meaning and helpful people. But sometimes they may have some errors, or have been put together by people who weren’t aware of better methods to do things. So there might end up being some issues with the code. Did you know that you could write a Joomla extension to create a superadmin and give someone else access to your joomla site without you knowing? Scary stuff!
Make sure the extension is up-to-date! Does the developer keep track of what’s going on in the Joomla community?
Don’t run extension that are still requiring legacy mode. Those extensions are outdated, have depreciated Joomla code or PHP, can make your site lag, and cause all sorts of problems with other extensions.[SLOW DOWN][DRINK WATER]Ask for questions
Developers of extensions should provide some way to help their users with questions or errors. Good developers will create some sort of support system, like a forum or FAQ.
Hopefully if you ever need help or support with your extension, you can get it from someone who knows the most about it – the folks who made it![SLOW DOWN]Ask for questions
Documentation is really important. I spent some time a few years ago working on Joomla’s official documentation team. Those types of docs get used and referenced all the time, I bet some people here in the audience have even read the joomla documentation papers. QUESTIONS:Do you read documentation? Do you prefer video or written documentation?
Some of the more complex extensions with lots of configuration options can be really useful, but the documentation becomes extremely useful and helpful Documentation can also be distributed to your web team or your users and help you reduce training time or costs for clients.It can also help if you’re dealing with a component not written in your native language. You’ll find some of the best extensions
Ever feel like navigating through your Joomla site was like this?Maybe you’ve installed K2, Zoo, Sbelod, Fabrik, and some other CCK like tools for al their different functionalities? You should avoid bloated installs. The more code you install on your site the larger the opportunity for hackers to find vulnerabilities is. Also it could be difficult for you to keep track and manage all these different extensions, keep them up to date, and ensure they are actually adding value to your site.BE CAREFUL NOT TO ‘BLOAT” your Joomlainstall.
JCE is great because it allows you to do a lot of things that in the past you might have installed 3 or 4 extensions to do. Simple content things like:Popup images (lightbox), video, or other content items, tooltips, and some other really neat WYSIWYG features. All in addition to its great content editing function.
Xmap will allow users to navigate through your site easily, and give you the ability to get a clear picture of your menu structure on a single page. Sitemaps are great for SEO purposes as well. Xmap will generate an XML sitemap that you can submit to Google’s Webmaster tools for their crawlers. Xmap was built with an extension layer that allows developers to write an extension for Xmap and another component which improves navigation and link routing. This is a link that you will find in the footer of every single Joomla site I build.
Nothing is more frustrating or annoying than having your custom javascript from Paypal or Facebook get stripped out of your content or module WYSIWYG editors. Currently in Joomla 1.5 and 1.6, 1.7 you have to save your content, run over to the user manager, change your editor to ‘no editor’ and then make your change. Editor switcher gives you a toggle right inside your WYSIWYG editor to add in this code.
This tool is absolutely amazing and trying to manage modules in Joomla after using this is like going back to windows after using a mac!The power that Advanced Module Manager brings to the module manager can make managing hundreds of modules way less complex and difficult to deal with. There are functions built in that allow you to assign to not only menu items, like default Joomla, but also things like specific content items, categories (sections / categories in 1.5), components.One function that developers find especially interesting is the PHP function, where they can query the database or use other JAPI functions and tell the module what the assignment on the current page / module should be.ASK FOR QUESTIONS ON THIS – WHO USES IT? WHO DOESN”T?
This tool is absolutely amazing and trying to manage modules in Joomla after using this is like going back to windows after using a mac!The power that Advanced Module Manager brings to the module manager can make managing hundreds of modules way less complex and difficult to deal with. There are functions built in that allow you to assign to not only menu items, like default Joomla, but also things like specific content items, categories (sections / categories in 1.5), components.One function that developers find especially interesting is the PHP function, where they can query the database or use other JAPI functions and tell the module what the assignment on the current page / module should be.ASK FOR QUESTIONS ON THIS – WHO USES IT? WHO DOESN”T?
SH404SEF is by far the best SEF urls tool I’ve used. It allows for some pretty useful SEF configurations on your joomla site other than just SEF tools.Sh404 helps clean up a lot of the duplicate URLs issues that can make Google decrease your PR and give you punishment for duplicate URLS.Vic has even let me know they’re going to be adding in an analytics tool as well which will use some open graph technology, that should be pretty exciting!
BS through this part.Talk about Jeff Drinking!?
How am I doing?
Okay great – here we go. The picks!
Exceptionally good CCK. Allows for some easy templating, custom plugin. One thing I am a big fan of is creating complex layouts for content in a K2 template for a particular category, and then give users just some text boxes to edit information with custom fields. This much easier than creating a single content item with custom divs or classes in the content, do it in the K2 template.
Forms, Databases, CCK, large data tables, visualizations – Fabrik handles all of these needs extremely well. Fabrik is really the developers form builder’s tool. It allows you to get extremely close with the database. This becomes pretty important for when you’re building some custom APPLICATIONS in Joomla without having to write all the code yourself. Fabrik is also built with Joomla and MooTools in mind, so you can build gorgeous looking forms with Moo JS available for you to work with.I’ve used Fabrik to do everything from simple contact forms to really complex applications for user data, joined tables, membership sites, payment processing and subscription scripts etc..This tool allows you to be as simple or complex as you want. Simple forms, it’s quite easy to layout fields, set up simple validation rules using JS, and publish a working functional form with no code. Or as I said you can start getting into some pretty complex code, php, javascript that does all sorts of cool app-like functionality.
DT Register is a staple extension when it comes to wanting to do a straightforward event, ticketing, and attendee type of website. It has a lot of payment processors available, such as paypal, authorize.net, etc… DT Register allows you to export an attendee list, create discounts, group rates, etc..DT Register is being used on the jandbeyond website.
