template

• How to reuse Joomla 1.0 Templates

  Do you have a huge collection of nice Joomla 1.0 templates, and dunno what to do with them? Let's go green and reuse them!

• How to reuse Joomla 1.5 Templates?

  This seems to be an ever returning question in Joomla world, you might already read the first part of the sequel: How to reuse Joomla 1.0 templates?. So, let's go one step further, and let's see how we can easily reuse those nice Joomla 1.5 templates in the post-Joomla 1.7 world (more specifically under Joomla 2.5). Don't expect a fully covering guide on how to convert Joomla 1.5 template to Joomla 2.5 template, but instead a detailed description on what I usually do - less theory, more practical knowledge.

• How to setup properly a 404 error page using Joomla 1.7+ and sh404SEF

  You might think, that this is an easy job, you just set up sh404SEF, and you're done! Maybe... but sometimes this might be really wrong. Especially if you have a multilingual site, and a properly built Joomla 1.7+ template.

• How to turn on the "?tp=1" trick in Joomla 1.7+?

  In a previous tip I enumerated couple of methods on how you can make visible the template positions in Joomla 1.7+.

  But there seems to be at least two different problems for some users.

• I want the print and email icons back as in previous Joomla!

  A client called me one of these days with this request. He told me, that what was once a simple one click action to print, email or edit an article in frontend in Joomla 1.5 has became an uncomfortable, two click  process, which in some devices proved to be increasingly difficult. After a bit of digging around I found for him an easy to implement template override which make him happy.

• Insert a plugin (or a module) anywhere

  You might need to use a plugin's output in a component, or to insert a module in a page outputted by an arbitrary component. I mean ANY plugin which has it's own output in ANY Joomla component you like.

  I know, there are couple of ready-made solutions, but all of these are specific to a given component(s) and some components have their own plugins to do that.

• iPad and iPhone - how to design a Joomla site for them

  What you must be aware of, when designing a Joomla page that should work on iPad and iPhone too? It is enough to have a proper template and the proper tools to display the respective versions when your Joomla site is displayed on these devices?

• iPad and Joomla

  The Apple iPad is the buzzword of the day, and probably will stay on the top of many people's wishlist on the top - or near to the top. The iPhone's big brother arrived in early 2010, and Apple has sold a huge number of devices already. The iPad is a success, and as a mobile device for consuming information it's really great.

  So how does this relate to your reality as a Joomla developer? In short: You need to make sure that your Joomla website works on the iPad. And not just that it works. It should be a delight surfing your website on the iPad. On a previous tip I touched already the subject, here are more tips on how you can build an iPad-friendly Joomla site.

• Joomla Chrome and Template Overrides

  When you developing a template for a new site you often get stacked, and hit your head against the wall: the code outputted by Joomla sometime severely limits your ability to format the output as you wish. This is true not only for Joomla 1.0.*, but partially for the Joomla 1.5.*. Yes, partially, because you can do things here - and you can do a lot. Searching for a solution for a problem I had run into developing a template for one of my clients I found this great tip of Jonathan on his blog on http://www.beckettwebdesign.com:

• K2 items list sortable freely by custom fields

  Recently a customer of mine asked for a page with a list of K2 items, sortable by the custom fields and item titles. And I accepted the challenge. a first search on the "k2 list sort by extra fields" term returned a whopping number of 1,120,000+ results... and most of them where how to hack the core component to obtain a list sorted by a given extra field - which was not what I wanted. But, reading these pages an ideea sparkled - and in less, than a hour I had in place a solution wich was clean, no core code was hacked, and the table of results is freely sortable.

• Layout

  Components, as you already know, are fairly complex and have the ability to display different information in different ways.

• Learn Joomla 4 - Power Tips - Live or Dev?

• Learn Joomla 4 - Power Tips - User.css
• Load module position in component layout template

  What if you need to load a module inside a Joomla component?

  Simple, not? Theory says, that you need to add this code to the template override of desired output, and you're done!

  <jdoc:include type="module" name="mymoduleposition" />

  Well, not allways..

• Making templates translateable

  Joomla is a truly international application and supports the translation of all strings contained within it. Templates are no exception on this. They are a bit neglected, but a little extra time spent here will ensure that the strings used in your templates are translatable will pay back - and will give you an edge over your competitors.

• Module Chrome - an evolving concept

  Styling the output of the Joomla was - and is - one of greatest challenges. One of tools making this easier for template developers is the "module chrome" concept/toolset introduced with Joomla 1.0 and constantly evolving ever since.

• Module Layout Overrides

  The best way to create individual look of your Joomla website, since Joomla 1.5 is to create module overrides. These are special files, placed in your template's directory, used to override the output of your existing modules.

• Modules In Content

  Modules are typically displayed on the left and right sides of the page... in module positions everywhere . It's not uncommon to also find modules on the top or bottom of a page. The display location for a module is controlled by the site administrator through the Joomla administrator panel, and it's limited by the template's internal structure. Generally you can insert modules only in the pre-defined module positions. The module management screen provides several options as possible locations for a published module. But Joomla does not provide an easy way if you want to display these modules in the main content area of the site.

• More PHP code snippets to be used in your template

  In a previous article about useful  PHP code snippets to conditionally add things to your template I allready listed couple of tricks, let's add a couple more to them!

• Navigation

  To find your way around the website, you will need navigation with corresponding links. In Joomla! we call this a menu. You may create as many menus as desired and nest them into as many different ways as you wish. Each menu is a module which can be positioned on a provided area in the template.

  Important note: Joomla! is a genuinely menu driven system, the most important behaviors: as what module when to be shown, what template to be used on a certain page, etc all can be controlled using by associating behaviors to menu items. So, plan carefully your menu - it is the core of your site's end user experience!