In response to our discussion at the Sydney JUG meeting last night, I'm starting a thread on 'My favourite Joomla extension', so we can share our experiences and successes (or failures!).

Extensions come and go with some speed, and may slide up and down the ratings equally fast. If you got a favourite extension (add-on of the week), or one that has slipped from grace, please help us out by letting us know here. It's impossible for all of us to keep track of the curently 2,145 extensions as individuals...

Please put the extension NAME in the SUBJECT of your post, to help us track them down.

Thx

OK, it's time for a cheesy PM add-on. I used to use MyPMS, which has now bitten the dust. If you neecd one, I recommend JIM. It's lean on admin and in the database (deleting PMs once the recipients trash them), it doesn't allow the administrator to view PMs in the backend (privacy issue) and it's a very lightweight, clean and simple PM system in the front end. Once you log in it shows you a module with new messages AND it integrates with Community Builder and Fireboard.

Mind you it has not had developer activity since May 07 and does not run on 1.5 - it's 1.0.x only.

Actually - slight amendment. Jim does (don't tell anyone) run on 1.5 as long as you have legacy mode on and you aren't too ambitious. You can see here that it's working from the Members menu once you log in, and also from Fireboard. It just doesnt quite integrate with CB yet.

D

Recently installed this on several sites and I have to say it's much easier on the eye than Simpleboard that I was using before. It just has some really nice featuers and a good look. It also integrates very sweetly with Community Builder and JIM PMs. We're using it here - what do you think?

The one thing I don't like about it is that although you can edit your personal Fireboard settings in your CB profile, the default thread view is oldest first. Some of my clients like newest first, but you can't set this at a component level, you have to go in and set it for each and evey user in their profile.

Apart from that, I'm loving it.

Oh, and it's not advertised as being able to run on 1.5 yet, but as you see here, it pretty much does.... there are a couple of miniscule glitches...(thanks Andrew)

I recently required a registration system for some courses I was running and found Attend Events to be suited to my needs. My requirements were:

Ability to add custom fields to registration process
Able to download list of participants in csv format
Email notification to registrants and myself
Automatically remove course when completed
Ability of registration to course without registration to joomla site

Registration was easy for participants and I was able to download in csv format to create sign on sheets etc. The sessions basically managed themselves which meant I didn't have any extra admin time.

Worth a look in my opinion and will definitely use it again in the future as it was easy. Next thing that I am hoping to work out is a built in invoicing system so that when they enrol, an invoice is emailed.

You can read more at extensions.joomla.org/component/option,c...nk_id,989/Itemid,35/

Fabrik has been a very good component for me as I have been a programmer that would develop form and database systems for cleints, hardcoded from scrtatch. Now using Joomla I wanted to find a better soluiton for managing DB information and forms.

DBQ looked like the answer but you had to know your way around SQL and also there was quite a learning curve.

Once I found Fabrik I used the memberhsip on his site (www.fabrikar.com) and got some video tutorials to get me going. VERY much faster than the RTFM method. I hate reading manuals all day!

All database tables, forms, SQLs etc. are managed from the admin interface so there is no need to understand any PHP or SQL to achieve some great results. Customising the data display interfaces is also a great feature of this system.

This component has recently had some issues for me, possibly due to Joomla *.13 version release. I am hoping that this is all sorted out very soon as I have some major projects I would like to develop under this component. It even has the ability to use the Joomla user system to customise permissions for data on the site.

This is just a short description but you can see more about it on the website. If anyone else has had experience with this component, positive or negative, I would love to hear, or if you know of anything out there that you know to be better please let me know.

Hi Brendan

Yes, I like Fabrik, although it's not 100% simple to set up. I've also used DBQ which is a pretty strong contender, but I'd only use it if I needed to maintain and search form data after it's been submitted. Both take a bit of learning!

I've never seen the Fabrik vids - I might take a look. If you set things up in a way not anticipated by the developer, things can go a bit wrong. I think it's a very flexible component that needs to be understood well before using.

I've heard tell that RSForms is a good component too, but am yet to try it.

d

Wow how time flies! 3 and a half years already since this post. Time to revise it a bit.I am still a huge fan of Fabrik. It has really grown over the years to become versatile enough to build custom component style applications for commercial clients. Recently we have applied this practise to systems such as AFL football club player tracking sytems and Parliament intranet document tabling systems. They have recently added a feature that will allow you to use Balsamiq Mockups to speed build your entire interface.

I should try to login to the site a bit more often...

www.fabrikar.com
www.balsamiq.com

Recently the JED introduced a couple of few new features: the most-rated, top-rated and most-reviewed.

For my mind, nothing beats Akeeba Backup as the most important extension that users should install. Of course, it also goes without saying, that I have a particular preference for Kunena as a web-based forum component for Joomla.

dex wrote:

Hi Dex, I am sure that this upcoming question will show just how green I am, though my thumb is black.
When PMS is spoken about it, computers and their programs do not enter my head. Matter of fact they are not even in the same paddock that I am standing in. So, here is the green bit, what is it that you are talking about and is their an extension that you know of that dose the same thing for 1.7. If there is a direction to where to get it would be nice. Laughs, hell and I don't even know what it dose. Also, Fireboard & CB?

Shows you what happens with you resurrect a message that was posted over 4 years ago. I read (and laughed) at references to JIM, Joomla 1.0, Fireboard ... all dead-and-buried. As far as PMS are concerned, I agree with you, Xplodin, and I don't really have the interest in digging around for those things.

Community Builder and JomSocial both have PMS features; uddeIM is another fairly good PMS component for Joomla. Kunena (the forum component) can work with those things.