Last month we asked you to share the links to your favorite articles from the Joomla Community Magazine in 2023. And you did! Turns out you really love tutorials, and a lot of you also like the articles about leadership and communication. From the articles you submitted, we've managed to make a top 20. Let's dive into the most valued articles of 2023!

Community articles

How to volunteer for Joomla without volunteering for Joomla? 

Article by Daniel Dubois about pushing Joomla forward by shouting about it on various platforms.

What you said about it: "Encouraging entry into community dynamics."

Leadership interview: Crystal Dionysopoulos

We interview every newly elected board member about their hopes and plans for Joomla. This was an interview with Crystal Dionysopoulos when she was elected President.

What you said about it: "interesting to know who is behind the leadership of Joomla: our leader is a real good person." 

How Joomla became my Ikigai 

Serge Billon wrote a touching story about what Joomla means to him. And apparently people have similar stories (I know I do, and now I also know I'm certainly not the only one).

What you said about it: "This article reflects how I feel about Joomla and what I've experienced."

Interview with Joomla's President: six months in, how is it going?

We've interviewed Crystal Dionysopoulos, Joomla's current President, about her highs and lows in the first six months of her term.

What you said about it: "Human and authentic leaders."

Making a safe space for all in Joomla

Philip Walton wrote an article about the way we're behaving and how we're treating each other, and what we can do to make this better.

What you said about it: "Because it was necessary to write it, to say, and to read it. Thanks to the author."

And we have another winner with the same theme:

Language! How to comment and be heard

That was one of mine actually. A lighter article about how we communicate and how we could change that to a more positive way.

What you said about it: "It promotes goodwill between members and stops bad behaviour."

The promise you made

Daniel Dubois wrote about donating money to Joomla. 

What you said about it: "What can I say…"
(Editor's note: not much, apparently 🙂)

How to write for the Joomla Community Magazine

Helpful article to encourage people to write and get new authors started.

What you said about it: "This article told me: hey, you are able to write something for the community."

Marketing Joomla

10 Common Misconceptions about Joomla!

An article by Christopher Mavros that can really help you ‘sell' Joomla to clients. 

What you said about it: "Promotes the advantages of Joomla."

Tutorials and articles about features

Understand and create forms with conditional custom fields

An explanation by Olivier Buisard.

What you said about it: "Summary of an advanced feature."

Scheduled Tasks

Marc Dechèvre wrote an explanation of this Joomla feature, which is present in both Joomla 4 and Joomla 5.

What you said about it: "I never thought about scheduled tasks before, thanks."

Turning the Joomla website into an ActivityPub server and being an independent participant in the Fediverse - A start

Fediverse, Mastodon, ActivityPub, what have they got to do with Joomla? Astrid Günther explains.

What you said about it: "Go far with Joomla."

Explore the Core: Energize Your Joomla 4 Website with the Banner Manager 

A tutorial with examples by Yann Gomiero (and don't worry: it applies to Joomla 5 as well).

What you said about it: "Because it shows an example of visual implementation, an example of website design and an example of how to use Joomla's features... Because it focuses on beauty and design!"

Joomla is Yours: create user avatars in the Backend Template Atum

A tutorial by Christiane Maier-Stadtherr about making the backend more personalized.

What you said about it: "It is important to get familiar with Joomla's features and capabilities, because I am always comparing, and when I am aware of the excellence in design, SEO, access, user management, and many other core capabilities in Joomla, I feel satisfied with my choice. I do and I am interested in developing and improving it." 

Less than 5 mins to change the design of the search module

Daniel Dubois explains how to easily style the search module.

What you said about it: "I am very much looking to use Joomla's default features, then I will not need many useless and unnecessary plugins and I will have a much lighter site and I will not need many plugins due to updates and purchase costs!
But I am not a developer, so how much can I benefit from Joomla's features as a user who wants to manage his own business?
As a result, the more tutorials and user examples I have at my disposal, the more satisfied I will be with the help of Joomla to fulfill my wishes and needs."

Playing with the Joomla Web Services (API) - part 4

Marc Dechèvre wrote a tutorial series about Joomla's built in Web Services feature, AKA the API.

What you said about it: "I should link the full series here, not only this one. A great insight into the world of the Joomla API. Most of it I learned on my own, when I needed it, but all put together in a logical, comprehensive manner was a truly inspiring read."

Rich Snippets in Joomla 5

An article by Shazma Siddiqui about Joomla 5 bringing structured data right into the core and how Rich Snippets can supercharge your website's performance.

What you said about it: "For years I have been searching for the best solution for this problem, and I tried out a number of third party components. It was a revelation to me to find out that for now all I need is here, under my fingertips."

Extensions

More than 30 gems for Joomla 4 I can't live without 

Article by Marc Dechèvre about the extensions he values and uses.

What you said about it: "Full of useful information, some of the entries really surprised me, others I have also in my toolbox."

Showcases and Case studies

Joomla: the ideal web solution for local governments 

In this case study, Olivier Guillard (Deputy Mayor, Saint-Léger-en-Yvelines) tells us how his town used Joomla to structure and create their municipal website. 

What you said about it: "Concrete example of use for large sites or institutions."

Get inspired! 18 Joomlers share 18 Joomla 4 sites

For the 18th birthday issue, we asked people to share the J4 sites they're proud of. We got so many responses, we did another showcase article the next month.

What you said about it: "Such interesting articles prove that we can do everything with Joomla!!"

What you said about JCM

And what do you think of the Joomla Community Magazine as a whole? We'll quote a couple of comments:

"I'm always looking forward to a new issue."

Good to hear, thank you!

"Many excellent articles on diverse topics which is perfect but (only a personal view), the JCM team should also post articles about Joomla on major online media (f.e. Smashing magazine has over 3 million monthly page views). If Joomla is absent from these large media, Joomla simply doesn't exist for many web users.

Anyway, great job to the JCM team!"

Authors, if you read this: do not, I repeat do not run away immediately to post on other media 🙂. If you have more time on your hands, feel free to do so, but please, please, stay with us as well. We value every article you write and we would love to keep you on board for as long as possible. 

As does our next submitter:

"People are always comparing, and always looking for the best or the perfect!
As a result, in order to feel satisfied with their choice, they need to see that everyone approves and encourages their choice. As a result, the content that is a sample of ready-made facilities in Joomla and introduces them helps me to realize that others are on the same path as me, and in this way they have had valuable achievements.

These results and samples can be anything, such as samples of ready codes, samples of specially designed websites, samples of features designed with the help of Joomla core, samples of SEO results and optimization in search engines, and in general the introduction of any An example that can be attractive and encourage me as a user who chose Joomla and confirm my choice in my mind and when comparing!

Seeing such content, I will say, I made a professional choice and it couldn't have been better!"

That's what we're here for, so thank you!

"Definitely you are on the right track." 

"The magazine is awesome and should be on top of the portal welcome page."

OK so now we've come to the point where the blushing starts.

Thank you all for sharing your favorites with us. Did you miss your chance to share the articles you like? Feel free to put them in the comments below! And if this article inspires you to start writing yourself, please don't hesitate. These two articles can help you on your way: How to write for the Joomla Community Magazine and Submitting your article(s) to the Joomla Community Magazine