Joomla

“Now, people are calling and saying they found my site through an internet search.”
- Chris Pip, owner of CP Construction

We recently rebuilt this website for a local contractor and wanted to share the results.  

Rather than writing an article that dissects each CMS platform, I've decided to discuss the similarities between Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, and ExpressionEngine.  Combined, these 4 platforms power more than 20% of all websites, so let's not choose sides just yet.

Domain Registration -> Hosting & Email -> Framework, Content, Updates

As a business owner, the thought of not having control of your website is is most likely frightful.  I've experienced a handful of situations where a client hired a different web developer previously, hire me to re-engineer the site, then come to find out that their prior developer has more control of the site than they do...

I wish someone had written an article like this when I first started with Joomla.  It would have saved me a *LOT* of time.  The first thing that Joomla does, whenever it loads, is to check and see if an ItemID exists for a given page.  Normally, a Joomla link will include an "&ItemID=" statement, but not always.  If it doesn't, then Joomla will look for a match in the database.

An ItemID in Joomla effects all of the following:

- Component
- Modules
- Template
- Access Control (ACL)
- sef URL

...we will explain each in detail below.

1.  Enhanced visibility for your members and yourself.

Build your own online community and news portal.  Let your members advertise on the site.  Manage all of your members’ directory listings, contact information, and site content through a web-based control panel.  Visitors will be able to search your directory by zip code or keyword. Some of the latest third-party extensions for Joomla, like the K2 Framework, make managing content a breeze!  [Video]

2.  Online payment processing for membership dues, donations, and events.

Automatically send email reminders to past-due members for payment.  Offer online payments through PayPal, Authorize.net, 2Checkout, or other supported platforms.  Do your members pay with cash or check?  No problem, offline payments are supported as well.  Your members’ information is stored in a database, so we can connect Joomla with third-party platforms.

1.  Design Options:

• Provide the Photoshop / Illustrator file and we can build a custom template from scratch.
• Choose a professionally crafted stock template and we’ll customize it to suit your needs.

2.  White Label Support

If you want, set up an email address for us to use with your clients (e.g. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

3.  No monthly recurring fees

We only charge for actual time spent updating and customizing your site.

This is a follow-up to a previous post which demonstrates how to connect RSForm Pro to PayPal using a custom amount field.  This takes it one step further, and connects the custom amount field to a recurring payment plan (e.g. monthly subscription).

Problem: PHP warning messages when visiting the 404 error page in sh404sef

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /components/com_content/helpers/route.php on line 106
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /components/com_content/helpers/route.php on line 106
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /components/com_content/helpers/route.php on line 106

Bad karma : we can't find that page !

You asked for http://www.yoursite.com/page_name/, but despite our computers looking very hard, we could not find it. What happened ?

Background: While researching some Joomla extensions for a client project, I decided to create a comparison table to help the client decide which Joomla extensions to use for a particular application.  In this case, we needed to build some sort of a download manager.  After narrowing the choices down to 2, K2: a CCK (Content Construction Kit) and DocMan: an actual Download Manager.

While Docman is built primarily for downloads and file management, a CCK presented a viable option as it offers better control over the style and presentation of the content.

One of the great uses that K2 (Joomla Component) claims that their system can do is act as a download manager.  However, it does not have the ability to restrict downloads to only logged-in users.  I needed a system where we could display the K2 item, with a preview and description, but not actually let them download the attachments.  This was not achievable using just the included K2 parameters / settings, so I made this hack: