Tag: Joomla

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Development

GCalendar

I downloaded and installed the GCalendar Joomla! component, and am very impressed thus far with it. I’m a big fan and think that Google Calendar is the best calendering system around, especially with some of their sharing features.

While Joomla! does have some very impressive calendar components available, I was really hoping to include a Google Calendar and this component makes it fairly easy to do just that.

If you already have a Google Calendar, installation and setup of the component is a breeze. It currently offers a custom calendar display or you can embed the standard Google Calendar display into your site as well. It’s great, you get the features of a Google Calendar and the integration with a Joomla! site. Very impressive.

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Development

Mullica Hill Skin Care Joomla install/conversion

Just finished up converting Mullica Hill Skin Care’s site to be powered by Joomla. Their site was a series of basic html files setup in Dreamweaver, and the client had used a Joomla powered site in the past and wanted this site to be powered by Joomla as well.

Joomla is an open source CMS (content management system). It’s pretty awesome and has been an excellent solution for many people I’ve worked with.

The site’s design stayed the same, with barely any changes made to the existing markup with the change over. We’ve also included a blog for the client to use too.

“Let me just say thanks again for converting the site so quickly…it’s so much easier to use!!!:)”

There’s some amazing tools available now for site owners, and it’s always great when I can set them up with the right tools to make their lives easier while at the same time having a current site.

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Development

Insert swf into Joomla article

Joomla TinyMCE Editor settingsI was having a hard time with inserting a swf into a Joomla Article using the TinyMCE editor. It seemed pretty simple, just click the media button, set the path and  you’re done. That seemed fine and simple enough, but the TinyMCE editor was just displaying an image tage, not the object code that I was expecting it to render.

After some time researching this, and trying just about everything I could think of it dawned on me. I have the the Code Cleanup on Save setting for the TinyMCE plugin set to Never, so the editor was never converting the swf code to the necessary code to embed it one the page.

Simply setting the TinyMCE plugin setting Code Cleanup on Save to Always fixed it for me. It’s amazing just how often it’s something so incredibly easy that can be the source of a problem. I’m thinking of a fine script to fix it when all I had to do was simply adjust a setting.

Categories
Development

Jom Comment

I needed to incorporate a comment system for a client. Their site is powered by Joomla, so I was checking out what options were available. Instead of making this completely from scratch I figured I’d see what existing extensions were available.

After some research, Jom Comment turned out to be the best fit for the clients needs. Installation was fairly simple, and it gives the client a very user friendly admin interface to work with. I highly recommend this commenting solution if you are running a Joomla site.

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Development

Bioderma Medical Laser & Aesthetics Redesign

Bioderma Laser & Aesthetics

Just went live with the redesign I had been working on for Bioderma Medical Laser & Aesthetics.  Been working with them on a site redesign and incorporating many new features to their website.  Working with them has been a pleasure and the site has turned really nice.  There’s a lot of heavy tech running in the background that gives users a great and informative experience while giving the client the tools necessary to manage their website with little training.

Some notable features include:

CMS powered by Joomla

Building on top of Joomla for the CMS gave the client an amazingly powerful and easy to use CMS solution.  They now have the ability to make basic content edits to their own site at their own convenience.  Allowing them to keep the site content current and up to without having to pay a web developer for basic edits.  

interactive mapping and driving directions powered by Google Maps API

To help their customers find them, mapping powered by the Google Maps API was incorporated into their site.  Current map, satellite, and hybrid information is delivered via Google for users.  Custom driving directions are delivered with no page refresh/reload via AJAX scripting to save users time and unnecessary load times.

newsletter management

A full newsletter management system built upon the ccNewsletter Joomla component has been incorporated into the upgraded site.  Users can easily sign up to receive a newsletter via the newsletter sign up box or through the contact form on the website.  A full admin panel is built into the CMS for the client to easily manage, create, and send out newsletters to users who’ve signed up to receive their newsletter.  A very cool feature.

custom contact form

A custom contact form allows users to easily contact the client.  Submissions are delivered to the client as well as recorded to a database for easy retrieval of information for the client.  DOM scripting found in the contact form hides/reveals content if relevant for the user.  Leading the a cleaner, simpler experience.

lightbox powered before & after photos

Before and after photos associated with their respective services are powered by the slimbox lightbox extension.  This enables full sized detailed photos to appear via a modal window ontop of the page via clicking on a thumbnail photo.  This reduces unnecessary page load for the user while looking really nice.

Categories
Development

Joomla! 1.5

JoomlaBeen messing around a bit recently with Joomla! as a CMS (content management system) solution.  I’ve very much impressed thus far, this is a great CMS solution.  Especially for medium to large sites.

The whole section, category, article form or organization took a little bit to adjust to.  But once you make sense of that, this really makes a lot of sense.  Plus the admin portion has a polish to it that you don’t see on many commercial CMS solutions, let a lone an open source one.  I think that most content managers would feel very comfortable working with articles to manage the content on a site.

Think I’m good with creating a custom template.  Now I’m going to have to try and create my own custom component or extension.

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