Not that I mind delving into other topics and projects in the MJUG course of events, but I could also do that by going along to the Melbourne PC Users Group which is nice and generically targeting computer stuff in general.

However, we are a Joomla User Group, so I hope that we'll be getting back into more Joomla topics over coming MJUG meetings that can benefit Joomla Users in creating, managing and administering their websites.

That said, at times I find my knowledge levels of Joomla and interest in various areas to be a tad higher than some others in the group, so am happy to prepare some presentations, but really would like to know more about what MJUG members would like to know about at the moment so as to deliver topics people are interested in.

Some suggestions:

• Demonstration of how Peter Van Westen's (www.nonumber.nl) extensive collection of extensions can be used to enhance your site - including Modules Anywhere, Content Anywhere, Tabber, Slider, Content Templater, CDN and more.
• Basic template overrides - in both 1.5 and 1.7 templates
• K2 CCK - Some basic examples of creating template overrides to work with K2
• Joomla Lockdown - live workshop to walk you through testing and checking your website is secure, up to date and using best practice

If you're interested in any, all or other topics, please put your suggestions here!

Valid points Patrick. Peter is always asking for topics of interest to address at meetings so it will be good to see what the masses bring to the floor.

All your suggestion warrant merit in their individual rights so we could possibly draft a schedule for future meetings starting with your own topics.

Anyone else got any input towards this?

Cheers

Shane

Great ideas Patrick

I particularly like the idea of workshops. The thought of practical workshops with lesson plans would be a fantastic introduction to Joomla and its extensions that everyone can take part in on there own laptops.

They are all great suggestions. I think Pete the Great Leader's cunning plan is to do a less traditionally interesting topic to ensure my small studio will fit everone in!

I've just done some custom work flow development with ChronoForms on Joomla! 1.7. It's as good a forms-based development framework as anything I've used on any platform, and I'd be happy to show what can be done with it. But I'm away in September, so I can't present until October or later.

Also +1 for Patrick to present on template overrides.

Cheers,

Russell
Principal Consultant, Psicom

Thanks for the ideas. No, Nick, no master plan, I'm afraid. But I'd be happy for you to perpetuate that rumour.

I don't know if you guys realise but volunteers are very thin on the ground around here. I reckon I can count on the fingers of two fingers (yes, two), the number of people who have come to me and offerred to present something. And one of those was Norm Douglas. What we have achieved has been the result of much persuasion and the occasional arm twisting.

We have some great experience, knowledge & capability in our group but we're very reluctant to share it in a structured fashion such as in a presentation. So to the challenge . . .

We can chat about it all we like, but if any of you - any of you - wants to put your your hand up to present or prepare something for a meeting, you're in, it's on, you've got the gig. Nothing would give me more joy!

And Russell, sorry I didn't read your contribution closely enough. Thanks very much for your kind offer.

That makes three fingers.

I'm generally happy to present from time to time, but don't want to end up with boring people with presentations over and over. It has been a while however since I've put you all through that, so must be time again soon.

So far replies are all from regulars - but not with much in the way of extra suggetions! Hopefully some newer MJUG members will also indicate topics they're looking at needing help with.

Another suggestion, perhaps for September, is a casual troubleshooting night at a pub somewhere... BYO Joomla problems or questions and solve them over a quiet one.

I was just thinking this morning that I could give a presentation on "usability: a case study", using a site (finally pretty much0 finished) that I've been working on over the past few months (can't give you the URL yet, but will be live in the next week).

I've done a whole bunch of new things myself, which I'm sure would be interesting:

• auto login + redirects
• advanced module manager: module on a page using regular expressions
• using cURL to fill in another form, and sessions + RSForms to give the data straight away, inline (hey, I'm not a programmer!)
• pre-filling forms
• adding 'lastname' field to user table / and front & back-end interface (okay, it's a core hack. shoot me)

And a stack more little things.

+ wouldn't mind some good feedback esp. re some of the php coding.

I like Patrick's suggestion of the NoNumbers extensions review - I use a few of them but haven't had time to look at the rest and its always good to see how others use things.

I recently launched my first K2 site and it was a big learning experience for me. Would be happy to present it as a case study to the group as a possible session. I did a bit of tweaking to the template overrides for the K2 content and to the CSS but other than that it was all about working closely with the client to sort their content into relevant groups and use tags and extra fields appropriately.

I can't make it tonight but would be happy to do a session in September if the location is closer to the city. I will then be out of action from October onwards I think!

Any chance of being able to listen/join in to the meeting via Skype still?

Wonderful suggestions and I accept all the offers!

Nathan, I'd be more than happy to look through your PHP code. Will you be there tonight?

Jen, for mine K2 remains the biggest new star in the consellation. Keen to hear more. I'll talk to Nick about the Skype idea - if we get it up the quality won't be too flash!

And Patrick, I'll be all over you about the September idea (well as much as I can when I'm half your size!)

And I'd be happy to talk about a project that involved AJAX form submission. Well the 'X' is a bit of a lie - it's JSON, so that'd be 'AJAJ'.

We had suggested to draft a schedule for presentations of future meetings. Has this fallen between the cracks or still in the discussion phase.

I contacted a noob today to see if she wanted to come to our meetings and she actually asked what was on the horizon etc which bought me back here.

Any further input apart from listing the options given already in this topic into an agenda format?

Cheers

Shane

Nudging again after joomla.org.au/forum/mjug-discussion/wordpress

Topic suggestions:
- making a Joomla Blog (including looking at how to get Wordpress functionality happening)
- Importing data regularly from other databases into Joomla components

Workshop Ideas:
- SEO in Joomla 1.7
- Triple Migration - How to migrate from 1.0 to 1.5 to 1.7
- Template Overrides workshop

Adding items already suggested but not included -

Topic suggestions:
- Making a Joomla Blog (including looking at how to get Wordpress functionality happening)
- Importing data regularly from other databases into Joomla components
- Basic template overrides
- Security set up requirements
- K2 CCK - Some basic examples of creating template overrides to work with K2
- Flow development with ChronoForms - Russell Searle
- Usability: a case study - Nathan Keene

Workshop Ideas:
- SEO in Joomla 1.7
- Triple Migration - How to migrate from 1.0 to 1.5 to 1.7
- Template Overrides workshop
- Security set up Requirements

Others should add to this and next meeting we can post or distribute an agenda to follow on a monthly basis.

Cheers

Shane

I 'd be happy to do a Fabrik workshop (in the style of Patrick's K2 workshop in October) in January/February?

Also, now I've discovered that it really works well on the Mac, I'd be happy to do a session on "Build your own Joomla test environment".

Thought you were trying to slow down Pete ! ! ! !

Somewhat belatedly, here is the schedule for year 2012 that we came up with last month:-

Jan: Russell: Chronoforms
Feb: Patrick & Norm: Joomla lockdown
Mar: Russell: Artisteer
Apr: Pete: Fabrik workshop
May: Martin & Russell: Shopping carts
Jun: Pete: Case study &/or Make your own webserver
Jul:Patrick: Template overrides
Aug: Bree: Useability

Pete & Shane,

Ignore my email - finally got through my inbox to see this 5:22am post from Pete!

Will add them all to Meetup (unless one of you wants to learn the process in there)

NP Patrick. We will get it all covered and sorted on Wed night as well to make sure everyone is on the same page

Cheers