Bill Borque
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Joomla Template Framework Review
Joomla template design can take men forms these days. With the tremendous growth of Joomla and the proliferation of developmental tools and techniques its no wonder that there is are differing opinions on template development. There are some that choose to completely 'handcraft' their templates and include minimal PHP module positions and Joomla core code for fast loading. While I admire this technique its has its drawbacks for clients. First of all, starting from scratch means that extending the template to support mobile devices with template switching incurs added development time and costs for clients. Additionally, if the client later would like additional module positions added, they would have to go back to the developer to add the PHP coding to the template, or learn Joomla PHP tempting on their own.
Another option is for Joomla template developers to adopt a template framework that provides a standardized module position layout such as 960 grid layout, easily supports mobile devices such as iphone, allows for position ordering for proper SEO (search engine optimization), and per-menu configuration control allowing for different thematic looks on different pages of the website. Frameworks allow for maximum control from day 1 which gives the client more control for changes in the future. The client benefits whether they choose to make the thematic changes themselves or choose to use a web designer to tweak the look and configuration of the template.
There are several options on the market, some have been around for awhile and are more mature and some not as mature, and some that are in early a BETA release cycle. I am most familiar with the Gantry Framework (http://www.gantry-framework.org) from RocketTheme which I will cover in more detail. Other options are Warp5 from Yootheme (http://www.yootheme.com/warp/) which is not available as a standalone framework but is part of all Yootheme templates beginning back in July 2009. Another option available as a standalone template framework is Morph (http://www.prothemer.com/morph/) from the folks at JoomlaJunkie. This framework, as of this writing, requires a paid subscription to ProThemer, the rebrand of JoomlaJunkie. Other frameworks are in various stages of development, but the previous mentioned frameworks have the most followers that utilize the developers templates.
RocketTheme has released the Gantry Framework with an open GPLv2.0 licensing meaning that it is free to download and use on the Gantry Framework website. The idea of a template framework was born out of the idea of separating more completely than before a set of PHP and XML building blocks from the visual design of the site. This would allow standardization of the PHP code that generates the layout, the XML configuration information, from the CSS and graphics that define the visuals of the site allowing for more rapid development, more flexibility and rock solid dependability while utilizing and incorporating advanced functionality.
Zonegig Design has standardized and will utilize the Gantry Framework going forward and we feel our clients will reap the benefits. Please give us a call if you have any questions or would like to discuss your Joomla web development project.
Akeeba Backup Review
For several weeks I have been working with Akeeba Backup. For those of you that may not know the history Akeeba Backup is the successor to Joomlapack. Joomlapack has been the go to backup utility for several years. For those of us die hards, I could not imagine life without Joomlapack. Now with the release of Akeeba Backup and Akeeba Backup Pro the bar has yet again been raised.The features that are included in the Akeeba Backup pro version will appeal to web site developers that have to support many web sites. The increased features in the Pro version include CRON job automatic backup support; support for backing up to cloud computing resources such as Amazon S3, Dropbox (Dropbox.com), or remote FTP servers; module, plugin, component exclusion. These add up to a very powerful backup utility for Joomla.
I have been trying to work with the Amazon S3 backup functionality and have not had much luck. Most likely not related to Akeeba Backup, but more likely the firewall restrictions on the hosting services I tested the feature with. In testing the cloud backup to Dropbox.com I had much better luck and was able to successfully backup during the post-processing backup phase. What is unique about this feature is that with a client interface (in my case MAC) Dropbox.com synced automatically to my desktop after archiving to my cloud dropbox account. Creating each client directory on my MAC dropbox client created a mirrored directory on the cloud account which I used to separate each individual client backup. This has turned out to be an outstanding feature.
In addition to the Akeeba core features, there are additional utility that also should be considered as part of the overall utility of this software package. The Akeeba Backup Remote control utility allows you to work with the backups on several sites from your desktop. One caveat is that for you MAC users out there, including myself, this utility is currently only available for Windows. I hope that this utility will be available in the future for the MAC platform. I personally do not like having to install a middleware such as WINE or DarWINE. The Akeeba Extract Wizard is another useful utility, especially if you are selecting the preferred .JPA compression format. This allows you to extract files out of an archive and I have used this utility to save a client who had made unsuccessful changes to CSS files and unfortunately had not tracked the changes. With a quick extract of the prior CSS files and copy up to the server, the site was back in the original styling in no time.
Restoring a site from backup could not be easier and with Akeeba Backup Core or Pro you have two choices, one click extraction from the archive which extracts and runs the 4-click installation, or alternately copy the JPA archive file up to the your host server along with the extracted files from the Akeeba Kickstart, then just browse to your web server with the command 'www.yoursite.com/kickstart.php' and the installation process will start the utility to extract the files, create the configuration.php and .htaccess file, create the database and remove the installation directory. The only requirement is that the database actually exist ahead of time with no tables.
I am a big proponent of this utility as you can see and I highly recommend purchasing the Pro version. The developer was very responsive to any questions I had or problems that arose and the additional features are worth the cost.
Please keep Zonegig Design in mind for your Joomla CMS web design projects.
sh404SEF Review
I have been using sh404SEF off and on for over a year. I say off and on because while I did try it and sometimes used it, I did not feel that it had all of the bugs worked out. Several months ago the developer,Yannick Gaultier, teamed with dev,anything-digital.com. The result, in my opinion, has advanced the component significantly. Having subscribed to the sh404SEF service, installed and utilized the latest version I can now confidently recommend it highly.
For those unaware of the component, sh404SEF is a sophisticated piece of software for Joomla that manages the intricacies of making a site search engine friendly, while also adding additional security enhancements to the site. One key thing to keep in mind when installing and enabling sh404SEF is that you want to have the site .htaccess file in your Joomla root directory and ensure that the component is set to use this configuration.
I also prefer to configure the section concerning prepending to title tags with the company name and important key search terms so that the search engines will pick this up during their crawl. The component has many plugins that support major components and one key newer component, K2, supports sh404SEF natively.
The components control panel, familiar in Joomla, contains a wealth of security information based on blocked attacks from several different types of potential attacks including script injections, remote file inclusion, IP address denied and many more. The capability to track this type of information is critical to managing a modern well trafficked site.
I could spend a significant amount of time discussing the tremendous benefits of using sh404SEF. Suffice to say that this component should be on your short list of must have components.
Please keep Zonegig Design in mind for your Joomla web design projects.