This was the motto of this year's JoomlaDay Poland 2017! This two-day event is an annual event for users and fans of this amazing content management system. Every year it is organized in another place, and this time we met in the capital of the West Pomeranian Province - in Szczecin.

Such meetings are full of knowledge about Joomla! and web technologies gained during lectures and backstage talks. It is a fantastic opportunity to personally meet people who are involved in the development of the Joomla! in Poland and one of the few occasions to meet friends and spend a few moments with them. And finally, it's also a great opportunity, to make new friendships that often turn into business partnership or work together on a particular project.

The first such event Joomla Day Poland was in 2012 in Poznan and since then I have said that no matter where JoomlaDay Poland will be - I will be there! Since then, the emotions that accompanied it before, during and after this event have practically remained unchanged. Only their intensity changed, year by year, they are getting stronger! Before the JDPL I feel excitement, curiosity about the topics and speakers, about what's new in the Joomla! Community. During the event I feel joyful meeting with the joomlastic people and gained knowledge. And when it's time to go home, I'm surprised it's over so quickly that it's over. I'm sad that I did not have time to talk to all the people I wanted and that I have to wait another year for the meeting.

 

Admiration and great thanks and applause for the organizers, who so did a fantascic job! Their main core are joomlers from Szczecin: Sebastian Dajnowiec, Norbert Sulżycki and Sławomir Rauchfleisch, with support of Justyna Michallek, Aleksander Wiśniowiecki, Stefan Wajda, Michał Trzepizur, Ewelina Miśkiewicz, Alicja and Ania Olszańskie, Katarzyna and Tomasz Karolscy. The passion and committed of this people is stunning! I'm honored to be able to help them and help in JoomlaDay Poland 2017 organization!

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

I am proud that this year's our Joomla! User Group Jawor came with 4 cars! It was amazing that each car left from another city and at another time - we met at one point on the route. We also met friends from Joomla! User Group Silesia :-)

A large part of Joomla Day Poland 2017 participants arrived in Szczecin on Friday, the organizers have made sure that we did not get bored and organized us Before Party! It was an unforgettable meeting with so many JFriends from all over Poland! We were having a great time at the PRL (Polish People's Republic) bar "Seta i Galareta" (something like "Hundred and Aspic"). It was a great opportunity to get to know this more "laid back" site of Joomlers ;-) I am glad that I could be with them and aspecially the mega party team of Joomla-Monster! 

Saturday, 23.09.2017 - Business Day

Every year I have a huge problem with the choice of lectures, because practically all seem to me interesting to me. I just hope that like every year, after the even there will be many interesting video from the various lectures on the YouTube channel of the PCJ Open Source Foundation.

Stefan Wajda was the first speaker. He was talking about some amazing news in Joomla! 4. One of the most important information is the fact that Joomla! 4 will meet the accessibility requirements of WCAG 2.0! As of today, Joomla! is probably the only CMS that will be so friendly for people with different disabilities. This will allow us to more easily create sites for public offices, public institutions, and public service providers that must meet these requirements with ease. 

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

During the next lecture, Wojciech Babicz - President of Smarthost.pl showed us some interesting statistics of choosing hosting company by customers. He talked about what is important in this industry and how his company supports its customers. It is worth saying that this company actively supports the Joomla community! in Poland and beyond for several years now. Smarthost administrators can quickly and professionally help you with your hosting setup. Often, they help in resolving non-hosting issues ;-) I have repeatedly "tested" helpdesk. They have been reliable so far!

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

Another lecture in which I had the pleasure to participate was by Andrzej Kasprzyk, who presents himself as a IT veteran  :-) Andrew talked about the safety of communication with customers. Very often we receive from customers or we send them access to the site. This is dangerous when we do not encrypt data. It's common knowledge that customers are not so tech savvy and can not send encrypted messages themselves. Remember to do zip file and secure it with a password previously set with the client!

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

Very interesting and very profitable for me was the lecture by Andrzej Bolewski. He argued that HikaShop was a good extension for building online stores. I'm using this extension, so I did not have to convince myself, but I learned a few new things and got an annual subscription to HikaShop!

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

After a lunch break, interesting conversations and snapping many cool photos, together with Justyna Michallek we decided to announce a competition for a creative photo with a Pixpro Labs paper plane. The idea was to make a paper airplane using special cards with instructions and then take a cool, funny, creative photo with it. The award for the most creative photo was a coupon for all Pixpro Labs extensions, donated by Sarah Watz - CEO of Pixpro Labs. To encourage all participants, we made own model of the plane and snapped the first photo ;-) The results of the competition were to be decided the next day, just after the lunch break.

After the action with the Pixpro Labs plane I decided to learn some new tricks to run a Facebook page. Mateusz Grabowski led his excellent lecture and showed several ways to gain fans and posts that are effective. We learned how to check when and how to post your posts and how to use chat bots.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

Another choice is the lecture by Andrzej Herzberg, the owner of DJ-Projects creating Extremely Functional Extensions (DJ-Extensions) and Templates (Joomla-Monster) for Joomla! Title of his prelection was: "9 Ways to Get Business With Joomla!" He showed  us specific examples of implementation of business ideas based on Joomla! I'm sure a lot of them will be an inspiration for others, perhaps soon a few new businesses that will start supporting the Joomla! community.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

I was also able to "jump" to the lecture by Paul Frankowski. He is the author of many books on Joomla! in Poland (latest: Wordpress and Joomla! Websites securing and recovering). He showed us how to use the Helix4 framework and the SP Page Builder extension and that it can be a very quick way to create a complete website.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

The last lecture I had the opportunity to attend on Business Day was a lecture by Wojciech Wojtowicz. He presented an analysis of extensions to facilitate the creation of multi-lingual websites and attempted to answer the question whether they were still needed. Joomla! already has solutions to help create multilingual websites, but for large projects, additional extensions may be helpful.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

At the end of Business Day there is always a lot of excitement exciting moments, special thanks to the speakers and sponsors. It's also a prize draw for of many attractive gifts from sponsors, including books on Joomla!:

• Joomla! 3.x. Practical course;
• Creating Templates for Joomla! Gantry;
• Wordpress and Joomla! Websites securing and recovering;

It is the tradition of JoomlaDay Poland that after the presentation part we meet on After Party! This time, nearly a hundred people took up the whole floor in Nowy Browar Szczecin. In addition to the excellent food and beer we could admire the performances of the football players displayed on the big screens. It was a great pleasure to be with so many of JFriends. Pity that time flies so fast ;-)

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Sunday, 24.09.2017 - Community Day

The night was very short and another day started terribly fast ;-)

Sebastian Dajnowiec together with Norbert Sulżycki welcomed the participants of the Community Day. Surprise was a special greeting from Robert Jacobi - President of Open Source Matters. I am happy that the organization supporting the Joomla! project remembers the Polish community! I am proud that Robert has Polish roots:-)

What can you do for Joomla!? - this is the title of the talk by Stefan Wajda opening the Community Day. Stefan has shown us a lot of opportunities for us to support Joomla! You do not have to be a very experienced and advanced Joomla! User to help grow this project. Stefan strongly encouraged us to become Joomla volunteer! and Joomler :-)

I could not participate in Michał Wargacki's lecture with whom we co-organize the Joomla! User Group Jawor! This time, Michał showed us the possibility of a new generation slider - Smart Slider 3. This extension is not just a slider! It also allows you to create interactive web pages and One Page website. It's really an extension that has great potential.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

The next two lectures focused on a very interesting tool for creating templates for Joomla! - Gridbox. During the first lecture Artur Żugaj showed the possibilities of this tool. It is very interesting that it can be used to improve individual elements of the site by keeping track of the changes that are taking place.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

During the next lecture, Tomasz Gratkowski showed how Gridbox can manage the look of one page for different responsive views. It seems that this tool makes creating templates even easier for people who are not very familiar with programming. Even as a Joomla! beginner with Gridbox you can make your own template for your website, quickly and easily.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

After a lunch break, Me and Justyna went to a short meeting, where we chose the most creative photo with the Pixpro Labs plane. That was not an easy taks! We liked a lot of pictures and we could not decide for a long time. However, we chose two candidates. The prize was one voucher for all extensions Pixpro Labs, but we wanted to honour the two works! Finally, I decided that I would offer my coupon, which I had to give away during my lecture. Thanks to this, the first prize for the creative Pixpro Labs photo was received by Alicja Żydołowicz with her daughter Aleksandra, the second winner was Tadeusz Klupa. Congratulations!

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

Another very interesting presentation was given by Alicja Żydołowicz. She showed us a very interesting tool - Google Material Design. It's a global style that is becoming more and more popular with its simplicity and ease of use on many websites.

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

Another lecture I could not choose, because ... I was going to lead it ;-) I always feel honored to have the chance to share my knowledge with Joomla! users and fans! This time I presented a few new extensions that will help you publish content and get a higher position in search results. These extensions are Pixpro Labs products. Sarah Watz, asked me to perform a Polish translation for these extensions, so I had the opportunity to learn them and to test them thoroughly.

The extensions I have presented:

• PixPublish - it allows you to schedule articles using the calendar view;
• PixTitle - returns the breadcrumbs and places them as a page title;
• PixAnalytics - it allows you to insert the Google Analytics tracking code;
• PixTracker - it allows you to insert the Google Analytics tracking code in any article or page of your site;
• PixSearch - it allows you to place a fast search engine using AJAX technology, which sends a query after entering 4 characters;
• PixBuilder - it presents articles in a module so you can use them to create and store your site content, regardless of where and how content is presented;

Foto: Tomasz Karolski

Only pity that persistent cough after illness did not allow me to say freely :-(

Time passed so quickly that we noticed and the event ended :-( The official end of the event was honored by the organizers with special thanks in the form of medals, which can also be placed on the shelf as a statue! As usual, thanks also to the speakers and sponsors, drawing lots of attractive gifts from sponsors and a common photo!

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I can not wait to see another JoomlaDay Poland 2018 meeting. No matter where, I will be there! And there is a good chance that we will meet in the beautiful region of Poland - in Masuria. Especially in Giżycko! Or maybe we will meet together with the families? Such a Joomla Family Day! But remember, this is completely unconfirmed information ;-)

See you somewhere in Poland!

Ah, hundreds of pics made by the camera master, Tomasz Karolski you can see on the fanpage JoomlaDay Poland!

{YouTube}https://youtu.be/rDROX1jhRRA{/YouTube}