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the whyjoomla? blog
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New posts making Joomla simpler.
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Hide areas of content from the public
I've had my eye on Dioscouri (http://www.dioscouri.com/) for a little while - they're the Joomla services guys that released JUGA, or Joomla User Group Access - an extension which gives you control over registered user groups and the power to define content access per group category/section.
Well, they've obviously given a lot of thought to this whole idea of ACL and I like the most recent little extension they've released; called Hider (http://www.dioscouri.com/blog/p,50/) . As you might imagine, it lets you simply hide certain areas of content from public site viewers.
Ultimately, this might get messy if you have a lot of content with embedded tags all over the place to display certain info to certain user types, but for simple uses I could really see it being handy.
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Security Update - Joomla 1.5.7
Not so long ago a previous update (blog/the-joomla-community/upgrade-to-joomla-1.5.6.html) was released for Joomla 1.5; I mentioned that updating your 1.5 site was pretty easy and well, its time to do it again. Joomla 1.5.7 was announced (http://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5212-joomla-157-security-release-now-available.html) as a security update some days back and I thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't heard the news...
Note: its great to see how quickly reported issues with Joomla are being solved by the core team and everyone contributing to the project! With each release comes fixes as well as improvements to Joomla - expect an updated OpenID library, upgraded TinyMCE, better menu handling and more with Jooma 1.5.8
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Custom content types - thanks Google Summer of Code!
I've been a huge fan of Drupal's Content Creation Kit (http://drupal.org/project/cck) for a long time - its a module that extends the core content functionality of Drupal, allowing you to create different types of 'content' - made up of a variety of fields such as embedded media (photo/video/etc...), email links, html/web links and so on. CCK's architecture is scalable and allows for 3rd party developers to add new fields to it as additional modules; so the usefullness of CCK grows exponentially in time.
Actually, for a time I saw this amazing module really setting joomla and drupal apart - as, Joomla felt really limited in its potential to grow beyond a CMS and become let's say, an 'application framework.' However, I'm excited to report today that this is all about to change...
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Add commenting to your site - 3 extensions to compare
For a long time I've wondered why commenting on articles hasn't been a stock feature in Joomla. For the most part, I think probably 90% of websites today use the function as an essential way to allow publishers to communicate with their audience and gain valuable feedback from them.
Joomla's Extensions directory (http://extensions.joomla.org/index.php?option=com_mtree task=listcats cat_id=1764 Itemid=35) lists over 30 plugins and components that can afford you commenting ability in J1.5 - that's a ton to suss through, so I thought I'd take a look for you and offer a few recommendations:
First up, its a package called JoomlaComment (http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,4389/Itemid,35/) . Its a component-module set which has been around for some time and has not been made native to 1.5... so you might want to check out their forums (http://www.compojoom.com/index.php/forum.html) to see how well it performs in Legacy Mode and whether there are any down-sides when using it with other newer components native to 1.5.
Overall, I like this extensions because its themable, has BBcode, offers thumbs up/down on comments and generally has lots of features. Plus, its free/GPL - worth using if you have time to tinker, change CSS to match your site etc...
As the web becomes more widgetized many people are looking towards externally powered scripts to add functionality to their site. A new commenting widget that's been getting much love from the blogging world (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/30/disqus-joins-the-battle-for-your-blogs-comments/) is Disqus. I like the idea of using an external service to provide comments on a site - Disqus (http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,5259/Itemid,35/) is under market pressure to innovate and constantly upgrade the functionality of their product, which means that you should be getting the best comment system out of them for little effort - no more watching out for upgrades and then worrying about maintenance. Of course, there's also an issue of scalability to consider - if you ever decide to move away from Joomla as a web platform, Disqus comments should allow you to get up and running on the new site with your comments hassle-free.
Thirdly, we have Azrul's JomComment (http://www.azrul.com/products/joomla_comment_system.html) . This package has been around for some time and since it was first released I've loved seeing their company grow - to since release another couple of pretty sound little apps to use on your Joomla site. JomComment cleanly integrates natively in J1.5 with smooth AJAXy effects - eg. when someone posts a comment and instant-approval is set to 'on', the comment posting box will fade out and the comment will replace it - fading into the list of comments under an article immediately with no need to reload a page.
Given that JomComment is J1.5-native, you have piece of mind in knowing that it will play fairly nicely with the new Joomla MVC architecture and let you template your comment interface with simple override files - no need to edit the actual component to make your comments aesthetically jive to your site's theme. However, that freedom comes at a price - JomComment is commercially available for around $30US.
If you're cool with relinquishing control of your data and having a 3rd party company handle/store your site's comments, I highly recommend trying out disqus - though, if you want to keep it all local and are a fan of simple interfaces then my vote's with JomComment.
I've just looked at 1/10 of the options out there - what do you all use? Any other recommendations?
Disclosure: We're actually using JomComment here on whyjoomla - so you'll be able to test it simply by posting a comment below.
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Upgrade to Joomla 1.5.6
Incase you didn't catch the heads-up on joomla.org yesterday - a new security patch for and full version of Joomla 1.5x has been released.
Apparently a bug in 1.5.5 was allowing unscrupulous fellows to change people's login passwords... which is quite a big deal in my book. Typically the error is reported to leave the main site admin account open to editing! You can read more on this issue in the Joomla Developer Blog (http://developer.joomla.org/security/news/241-20080801-core-password-remind-functionality.html) .
Security bugs are always a little scary but one thing to note with Joomla in general is that the loopholes always get closed very quickly - in fact, when you cruise through the Joomla forums (http://forum.joomla.org/) its hard to find many posts reporting sites being hacked due to security flaws in Joomla core.
I recommend upgrading your Joomla 1.5.x site immediately to 1.5.6 - there are simple patches available on joomlacode.org (http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/) (scroll down to the 1.5.6 upgrades section) which you can download and just upload on top of your current install; a process which takes just a couple of minutes.
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