Joomla! Users Group Boston

Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 7 - 9pm.

See home page for details, or just register, and get directions.

Partial Agenda

Beginner Topics: (20-30 minutes)

Any Suggestions?

Internal Topics: (most of the meeting)

Our own website -- Joomla! template work as a learning experience for novices and a practical session for the experienced.
Bring your ideas on what changes we should make, potential template ideas, and more.
Please also post your ideas in the meeting planning area for July so we can see them in advance and perhaps have some concrete suggestions based on what people want to see.

Some suggestions to get this started:

A new Forum Category for J1.6 Questions (rather than just a thread, as I suspect this transition will generate many threads

Issues with new user registrations and registered user "sign-ins" (I often have to sign in twice in order to get recognized, for example, and I wonder if it's because of FF remember password feature - let's discuss?)

Blog Feature - do we keep it or stick with Forums? People are using the Forum and not the blog. Shall we discuss?

Automatically link Meeting Announcements to LinkedIn?

Why no "bullets" when you use unordered list in this Forum and in articles (see home page meeting announcement)? Is Keuna Forum the best tool for us?

Advanced Topic:
This is being handled under "Internal" I believe.

OK, here's a "first" template/design question: Why don't bullets show up in the forum posts? The text was reduced in size, with no bullets, when I selected it and click on unordered list. That's perhaps an extension question, but it deserves some attention at as well.

clamo88 wrote:

Why no "bullets" when you use unordered list in this Forum and in articles (see home page meeting announcement)?

In line 1024 of template.css, the list-style property for unordered lists is currently set to 'none'. That means no bullets. Change that line to your desired value.

Here are the possible values for the List-Style CSS Property:

none No marker
circle The marker is a circle
disc The marker is a filled circle. This is default
square The marker is a square
armenian The marker is traditional Armenian numbering
decimal The marker is a number
decimal-leading-zero The marker is a number padded by initial zeros (01, 02, 03, etc.)
georgian The marker is traditional Georgian numbering (an, ban, gan, etc.)
lower-alpha The marker is lower-alpha (a, b, c, d, e, etc.)
lower-greek The marker is lower-greek (alpha, beta, gamma, etc.)
lower-latin The marker is lower-latin (a, b, c, d, e, etc.)
lower-roman The marker is lower-roman (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.)
upper-alpha The marker is upper-alpha (A, B, C, D, E, etc.)
upper-latin The marker is upper-latin (A, B, C, D, E, etc.)
upper-roman The marker is upper-roman (I, II, III, IV, V, etc.)
inherit Specifies that the value of the list-style-type property should be inherited from the parent element

Thanks for looking at the code. That's one item we can discuss Wed night and if everyone agrees on having bullets, we can ask for the change.

2010July 28 meeting notes(very informal, from one attendee's point of view)


Someone asks, where do you start to get a joomla template?

Responses were: what color theme do you want? do you have a theme, like "fishing"? then you want a fishing theme.

Q: do i go free(thats best if possible) or commercial?

Pointer: also make sure a template behaves with your modules.

Also, a good thing about free templates is that if they are simple, then the css is tweakable.

"Block" template from joomlapraise was a possibility.
"shape5.com" comes out with templates specialized towards, for example, specifically for a virtuemart site that is a pizza shop.
"blueprint css" is a precursor to it. part of "blueprint css" template may be included in joomla 1.6
"960" or "J960" is a template that someone used, and was easy to hack or customize.
Joomla's "reset css" function is good to set the template to optimize cross-browser compatibility.
"joomlabear.com" has joomla template with clear theme. and spinning carousel.
"new architect" template doesn't look like joomla.(in a good way)

I'll add my notes from the July meeting.

Joomla Permissions (discussion on giving access to some tools to front end users)

Create a Virtual Back End on the front End that has tables and can include all content: published and unpublished.

use the Joomla tools to create an area that explains to publishers and authors how to create, edit, and publish articles.

Create a New Menu, hidden until someone with authorization logs in. Add these functions to this Menu and make sure it shows Breadcrumbs.

Be Careful. Everything in Joomla 1.5 is visible to Publishers in the Front End, so they don't see pages as they're going to be published. You need to have a generic log-in that doesn't get these permissions so you can see results and work at the same time.

Discussion regarding some essential Extensions for Joomla! sites

Accessibility
Checking a site for usability by colorblind viewers: vischeck.com/

File Sharing: DOCMan and Remository do. Remository is free; latest version of DOCMan is not. Both are great products.

Backup Tool: Akeeba Backup will back up your entire site.

Joomla Content Editor (JCE): an advanced code editor that gives you powerful tools in the Front End.

Granularity: assign people to groups

Add/Remove editor tools based on individual or group

Advanced Links Editor

Advanced Image Editor

Everything can be seen and will be stored under Stories (under Joomla Media Manager section). You can add any kind of media; can add layers and files and create links to them.

Advanced Module Manager: adds functionality and changes how Modules work;