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Sydney JUG - meeting notes for Nov 13
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TOPIC: Sydney JUG - meeting notes for Nov 13

Sydney JUG - meeting notes for Nov 13 4 years, 6 months ago #68

  • fulltilt
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Re:Sydney JUG - meeting notes for Nov 13 4 years, 6 months ago #69

  • dex
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Thx Chris for taking these on-the-fly notes at our user group meeting last night. I have added some explanations so we can remember what we were referring to.

fulltilt wrote:
config file - add or erase the \"www\" prefix [Explanation: site login and admin WYSIWYG popups dont work if you login to your site using www.yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.com (or vice versa, depending on your configuration.php setup)

http://www.joomla.org/index.php?tp=1 [Explanation: if you want to see what module positions are used in your site template. Can be found on admin menu at Site > Preview > Inline with Positions]

www.joomlatwork.com/products/free_produc...ef_patch_joomla.html not for J1.5 [Explanation: Gives some additional meta capability to your Joomla - see link]

mod_security

register globals OFF!!! [Explanation: Where/how to turn register globals off, as opposed to register globals emulation that can be found in 1.0.13 Global Configuration]
PHP5 using .htaccess
PHP4 copy php.ini into every folder

extensions.joomla.org/component/option,c...iewlink/link_id,102/ Itemid,35/ [Explanation: JoomlaXplorer - very handy for roaming access to Joomla File Manager where you have no FTP. Restricted to superadmin. Needs a code mod to restrict access to a particular directory (e.g. Joomla root) on the server - see Xplorerer forum for details]

forum.joomla.org/index.php/board,483.0.html [Explanation: Joomla tips & tricks forum. Has a very good article on all the ways to speed up Joomla 1.0.x. It's aquite illuminating on the factors that influence this, e.g. GZip, Database cleanup, mambots, stats]

[Explanation: Good hosts]
www.unlimited-space.com/
smartartist.com.au/

fckeditor [Explanation: Good WYSIWYG editor. Has some useful features such as Flash embedding, image upload, user template snippets, advanced table editing capability, good preview, nice inclusion of template style sheet styles, customisable interface per user. I have found it better than JCE!]

slideshowpro.net/ [Explanation: very good/clean/professional Flash image slideshow. Has Joomal module available. Runs off XML on an image folder]

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60 [Explanation: Indispensable Mozilla plugins - Firebug and Web developer toolbar - try them! Fantastic for debugging your style sheets and many other things]

www.tangerine.net.au/ [Explanation: colour pallettes]

VirtueMart - switching out of SSL properly, and when applicable.[Explanation: How to switch back out of SSL when you go between Virtuemart checkout and the rest of your site - avoids 'Some elements are not encrypted' error message]
forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=21413.0

www.sitepoint.com/ [Explanation: Site optimisation article]
www.sitepoint.com/article/web-site-optimization-steps
Dex Randall
Joomla! web design and production
Sydney JUG organiser + joomla.org.au site admin
www.spikesystems.com.au
www.twitter.com/dexx

Re:Sydney JUG - meeting notes for Nov 13 4 years, 6 months ago #70

  • dex
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To everyone who chipped in with tips last night - if we've missed anything, could you please post here? Also if you've any extra ones... Thanks

I've got a couple more, might be old and familiar, but anyway....

Invisible Menu
To set up an invisible test menu, I create a new menu 'testmenu' then I publish the testmenu module only on its own menu entries, thus hiding it from the public. To get to it in the front end, I copy and paste one of the menu entry's URLs in to a browser and bookmark it. Useful for adding new functionality to a live site and testing before go-live.

Hide configuration.php
Also, in the security checklist thread on the Joomla forum, a very handy idea is to place configuration.php outside your public_html, hack-proofing it. It has your MySQL database access in it and nice not to give to hackers! In Joomla 1.5 its even more useful, as your full unencrypted root FTP details are also in there.
See help.joomla.org/component/option,com_eas...w/id,167/Itemid,268/
and
forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,122594....04266.html#msg604266
Watch out though, as if you go in to Admin and edit and save your configuration, it will write configuration back to the original spot inside Joomal root.

Menu choices
I've been through some intense investigation of dropdown and other menu add-ons. My conclusion is that the best (functionally and cross-browser) for dropdowns is still ja_transmenu and the best for image-based (no text) menus is swmenupro. The latter introduces a bug in IE7 though, because it puts an HTML comment in the code that makes IE7 go bonkers and double the padding on ensuing elements..dont even ask!

Hope something here is useful to someone!
Dex Randall
Joomla! web design and production
Sydney JUG organiser + joomla.org.au site admin
www.spikesystems.com.au
www.twitter.com/dexx

Re:Sydney JUG Nov 13 - Acajoom 4 years, 6 months ago #71

  • dex
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Ok one more...

Mailing lists on shared hosts
I recently discovered that besides email capping (maximum send of x emails per hour) there are four other things that may prevent you sending a mailout from your Joomla (or other) mailing list....

1. Joomla admin timeout. You've set you m.list to run 450 emails per hour then wait out the hour before it sends the next batch. But your admin session timeout in config needs to be at least a coupla hours to cope.

2. PHP has a timeout that varies with your host - check what it is - it may be less than a minute inactive!

3. MySQL has a timeout that varies with your host - mine is 10 seconds! So although the mail send will continue, your stats will not be recorded in the DB and lots of error messages will ensue.

4. If your ordinary email goes out via the same server, your ordinary email is included in your hourly email capping quota. So if it's 500/hour (try to increase it with your host) you must allow for ordinary emails when you set your batch size per hour.

So instead of sending in batches of 450 then pausing for (up to) an hour, try sending one email per 8 seconds (for example). This works at my host!
Dex Randall
Joomla! web design and production
Sydney JUG organiser + joomla.org.au site admin
www.spikesystems.com.au
www.twitter.com/dexx

Re:Joomla beginner tutorials 4 years, 6 months ago #72

  • dex
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Couple of tutorials you might like to look at:

Joomla quickstart: www.netshinesoftware.com/joomla-tutorial.html
Joomla Jargon explained: www.howtojoomla.net/content/view/41/2/
Administrator tutorials: www.floatingworld.ca/content/category/12/28/130/
How to organise your content in Joomla: www.compassdesigns.net/tutorials/joomla-...ng-your-content.html
Dex Randall
Joomla! web design and production
Sydney JUG organiser + joomla.org.au site admin
www.spikesystems.com.au
www.twitter.com/dexx
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