Joomla! Community Magazine™

Background: December 2009, New York City

When the newly-formed Production Leadership Team (PLT) met in New York City in December 2009, we faced a challenge. Although Joomla! version 1.5 was popular and successful, it had been released almost two years earlier. The code for version 1.6 contained many incomplete and untested features, and no one could say how soon version 1.6 might be ready for release. (It turned out to be a little over a year, in January 2011.)

Give your clients a backend menu that is tailored for them. Here’s how.

Improve user experience by customizing login modules, menu items, and other content to provide a consistent, tailored experience for your users.

Now that you have a grasp on the terminology of ACL, let's implement a simple system where different users see different content on a website. To follow along with this example, you should be working with Joomla 1.7 or higher.

One of the most powerful new features in Joomla 1.6 and later versions is Access Control Lists (ACL). ACL stands for access control lists. It refers to who has permission to do what on the website, including read, create, edit, delete, or log in, among other permissions.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how-to: 1. Make entry in the JomSocial feed on new/edited article.2. Make entry in the JomSocial feed on new comment.3. Add user points for new article.4. Add user points for edited article.5. Add user points...

One of Joomla!'s best features is how easy it is to change the look and feel of a website simply by using a different template. But many users may not know that the look and feel of the backend administrator's area for a Joomla! website is also defined by a template, and backend templates can be changed just as easily as frontend templates. This article shows how to do that and also gives links to some different current free administrator templates.

As you all know – Joomla!'s page loading speed is not one of the main advantages of the system. Of course, there is some advice you could follow and there are two very important things that needs to be done:

Joomla!’s temporary off-line mode is a very handy option to temporarily take your site down while performing maintenance —e.g. updating the Joomla! core or an extension— and is even suggested by the official documentation for the unfortunate time that your site has been compromised. However, is this really off-line, or are there any pitfalls you should be aware of?

I promise you, this article doesn't have to do anything with religion. It talks about site security. The beast I am referring to, is unwittingly opening a back door to your site to potential hackers. You may not know it, but you could be a sitting duck. It all lies in the dark world of ownership, users, groups and permissions. This is a long article, but I promise you that you will learn things you would have never imagined. Let us shed some light to the mystery of the 777 number, and kill the evil beast!