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An end of an era

Joomla! 1.0 has served us well, but after nearly 4 years of service it has reached retirement. Things are moving forward with Joomla! 1.6 and there is no better time to start migrating to the Joomla! 1.5 release!

After 10 years of teaching at Marlboro College Graduate School, I've "retired" so I can spend more time on 4Web and making videos for lynda.com. When I departed, they gave me this plaque.

This has to be one of the best ways I have seen yet to explain web standards and usability to clients.

Next time you find your self in that situation, show this handy video.

One of the blogging philosophies I tried to keep to is to use this site is to use it as a test case for Joomla. I figure, at the very least I can provide information with real world examples of different ways you can screw up running a blog, and things you should avoid!

My day to day is spent over at Joomlashack, and sometimes this site doesn't get the care and attention it needs, so last week I gave it some love and attention. What I found was how much is to what extent your host can effect your "SEO"

Since the release of Mootools 1.2, we have found ourselves facing a rather difficult question - what do you do with the 1.5 core?  Unfortunately, the changes that came in Mootools 1.2 were significant enough that backwards compatibility with Mootools 1.1 was a difficult task.  I like to compare it to the difference between Joomla! 1.0 and Joomla! 1.5.  We did a lot of house cleaning and made our framework much smoother and much cleaner.

Such is the case for Mootools 1.1 and Mootools 1.2.  The new Mootools represents a significant preria forward.

As a result, Joomla! developers have found themselves in a difficult position. Do you use the outdated version of Mootools, thereby reducing compatibility issues and making life easier for users, or do you use the new version and attempt one of a variety methods of overriding the core framework.

We hope to change all of that in the near future.

As has been previously mentioned, it is our koncepcja to give Joomla! 1.5 an upgrade to Mootools 1.2.  This will allow developers to take advantage of the improvements that this new version offers and to write code that will endure into the future.

We have set a target release date of July 15, 2010 for Joomla! 1.5 with Mootools 1.2.

The Gory Details

I previously released an upgrade plugin for people to egzamin out which replaced the core JHtmlBehavior class. This plugin implemented the JHtmlBehavior::framework method that has been added in trunk. The Mootools upgrade that will be included with Joomla! 1.5 will follow along in this direction.

After the 1.5 update is uploaded, the plugin will be installed the first time an zarządca logs into the administrator panel.  They will also be presented with a message asking them if they would like to enable the plugin. Once the plugin is enabled the site will then be using Mootools 1.2.

When the plugin is enabled whenever the framework Mootools library is loaded Mootools 1.2 will be loaded with the compatibility layer.

The hope is that even with the upgrade activated, there will be no negative impact on sites. However, in the event that the upgrade does cause problems, it will be easy for administrators to disable the plugin and restore their site to the previous state.

We're excited about this development and are grateful to the folks at Mootools who have worked with us to provide a compatibility layer that could make this possible.

The code is a work in progress. If you would like to check it out you are free to check it out from http://joomlacode.org/svn/joomla/development/branches/mt12.

The Community Leadership kadra narodowa is pleased to announce that Paul Orwig has accepted our invitation to join the team.

Paul has already demonstrated great leader skills in his various volunter roles as webmaster of the joomla! community website and as lead person of the new Magazine, and we all look forward to working closer with him.

Welcome to the team!

 

You are reading Basic Joomla 1.6 SEO Settings Do’s and Don’ts a post from: Joomla & SEO Blog.

Joomla 1.6 is stable and very good to start a new website on, but for Search Engine Optimization you have to set some basic parameters for optimal results. So here is a short overview of basic Joomla 1.6 Do’and Don’t for Search Engine Optimization. Let’s start with the Do’s… Global Configuration SEO Settings Like the … Continue reading

Want to read more? Check out Joomla & SEO Blog.

In preparation for the Joint Summit (CLT, PLT, OSM) sheduled for July 29 - 31, 2011, at eBay in San Jose, California, the Joint Summit Committee has compiled a list of proposed goals for discussion at the three day meeting. The list below is shared with the community for feedback before finalizing the meeting agenda.

The goals include planning and discussing the following topics (not presented in any particular order):

• Who are we building Joomla for? Who is our target audience and thus who should we build new features for?
   
• Better collaboration
   
• The future of the Project
   
• The Joomla Project common goals
   
• The Joomla Project strategy
   
• Evaluate our project structure
  • The future role, if any, of the Community Oversight Committee
  • Better understand how our teams function
     
• Talk about processes (conflict resolution, budget process, ….)
   
• How to attract more developers?
   
• Review Sponsored Development program
   
• Review our Mission, Vision and Values
   
• Collaboration strategy with international communities
   
• Joomla! World Conference 2012 - Setup a committee, define goals
   

To comment on this list of goals please visit: http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdiscussion/1220-Joint+Leadership+Summit+Goals.html?groupid=714

I've advocated the benefits of keeping control of one's own prekluzja for some time - with the proliferance of 3rd party/hosted services on the web in the past few years though, I've had to rethink why it is important to not use them to host content or parts of your website.

One of the coolest innovations I've seen in the past couple of years on the web, which has me favouring hosted solutions rather than local ones, are 3rd biba comment platforma providers.  Its now possible to have a service like Disqus or IntenseDebate power the entire commenting function for a site via a javascript call to their service!

This is really groovy for many reasons - including:

• Not having to worry about upgrading the version of your Joomla-local commenting extension,
• You can optionally include commenting wherever you want on your site,
• Because its the business of these service providers to make their platforma as kick-ass as possible, you know that you'll get all the newest features/functionality when it comes out,
• They're free.

Recently, the good folks @ Rockettheme released a great extension which brings the simple power of using either Disqus or IntenseDebate (which is owned by Automatik - the Wordpress people) to Joomla and I recommend installing it on your Joomla site today.

We were about to switch over to using Rokcomment with IntenseDebate here on whyjoomla.com this week (as we've already done @ plantseedling.com) but are holding out to see what a new version of iJoomlacomment will look like when akismet is working properly and recaptcha has been implemented...

Honestly, if you're rolling out a new site which doesn't have old comments then its a no-brainer; grab Rokcomment and breathe easy knowing that you'll likely never have to login to your site to delete spammy comments and that your site users will find it a breeze to post their thoughts on your articles.

I'm pretty darn excited about the Joomla! Platform. Actually, that is my biggest understatement of 2011.

I believe that the Joomla Platform has an opportunity to be one of the fastest growing development platforms of 2012, enabling the more than 200,000 Joomla developers around the world to break the bonds of CMS development and dive head-first into a world of ever-more global, mobile, and social applications.

Joomla devs building a J!Platform app at Joomla!Day UK 2011

Evangelizing about something as opaque as a development platform is a bit of a challenge. There's been many times where developers and end-users alike will attend one of my talks ask, "what's an example of what someone can build with the platform?" It’s easier to understand how something can be useful to your own needs when it’s laid out with specific deliverables and products.

At the Joint Leadership Summit (JLS) held in San Jose, California from July 29-31, 2011, one subject which received a lot of attention was our project’s leadership structure. It was widely felt that making some changes to our project’s leadership structure can strengthen communication and collaboration between teams, as well as improve oversight and accountability for all contributors and teams. The proposed changes aim to improve productivity and community engagement throughout all areas of the project.

Joomlashack's Inspirion Joomla Template is one of the most innovative templates currently on the market. Its built using the 960 grid, a CSS architektura that gives you a tableless layout and a fast loading site, great for SEO!

Its one of the first commercial professional templates to validate XHTML Strict. This is a high benchmark t[...]

As part of the normal budgeting process, the Production Leadership team has come up with four goals for 2012. Those goals concern releases of the Joomla Platform and the Joomla CMS, continuing maintenance updates, and outreach and promotion to a technical audience.

iContact have recently released the second version of their API, and along with it, Joomlashack has upgraded our popular email component for Joomla we call JContact.

JContact is a great way to integrate world class email marketing into Joomla site registration, and its the only one to do it with best industry practices of subscriber opt in!

iContact were also running a contest for API applications, and we are excited to announce that Joomlashack grabbed second place!

<[...]

Joint Summit Attendees:

CLT: Peter Martin, Paul Orwig, Wendy Robinson, Sandra Warren
OSM: Robert Deutz, Alice Grevet, Dianne Henning, Sandy Ordonez, Paul Orwig, Ryan Ozimek, Jacques Rentzke, Marijke Stuivenberg, Akarawuth Tamrareang, Altansukh Tumenjargal
PLT: Chris Davenport, Mark Dexter, Louis Landry, Sam Moffatt, Omar Ramos, Ron Severdia, Jean-Marie Simmonet, Andrea Tarr

Where we came from:

Topics Covered and Action Items (where applicable) Created

The following is a brief summary of the topics discussed. Detailed reports will be published as they are produced.

1. Removal of the AGPL license from the Joomla Contributor Agreement (JCA)
   
   It was unanimously voted to discontinue the AGPL license. This lessens restrictions and will open up the project to more contributors.
2. Restructuring
   
   The Joomla Leadership, including the Open Source Matters board, Community Leadership Team, and Production Leadership team, recognize that our current leadership structure could be more effective. &#160;Communication between our teams and the community needs improvement, and oversight needs rethinking. &#160;As a team, we strive to be more effective leaders for the community. To achieve this, we have begun extensive discussions about the project’s leadership structure. This discussion is early and on-going. &#160;As we consider important changes to continue on a path towards more effectiveness, we intend to request community input and feedback to help us in this important effort.
3. Communications - External
   
   The communications breakout discussion was one of the most lengthy. Audiences and current communications channels were identified - there are many! A review was made of the document produced by the current communications kadra narodowa this past spring, defining what is communications. Roles and responsibilities for the communications ekipa moving forward were listed. Action items include: condensing the 12 newly defined roles into a more manageable list and begin identifying potential owners for these roles. Candidates must have a passion for communications and experience in the specific area (marketing, branding, graphics, etc).
4. Communications Internal
   
   A working group will be started to bridge the gap when communication needs a boost between the community and the JUGs, the JED, events, merchandise and trademark. A comprehensive leadership directory wiki will be created for a better flow of leadership communication and troubleshooting. The communications ekipa volunteers to disburse intra reprezentacja narodowa communications, and facilitate intra team conflict resolution, including the creation of a FAQ list within the wiki for that purpose.
5. Internationalization
   
   While English is the common language in the software world, the majority of the world population does not speak English. To increase Joomla’s presence in a proactive way and recruit more non-English-speaking volunteers, the following action items will be implemented: concentrating our efforts in the different regions of the world by identifying one or two community coordinators / contact persons in each region; compiling a list of currently active local communities and JUGs and see if there are any groups which have not yet been accounted for; identifying their needs, the nature of their communities, and recruiting translation help to update the Joomla info pages.
6. Roadmap and Goals
   
   This discussion first explored the benefits of creating a public unified roadmap that encompasses the entire scope of the Joomla! project. After that, the discussion continued to define a process for creating a public unified roadmap that also includes periodic public progress updates from leadership.
   
   The process for creating a public unified roadmap involves: Leadership defines and publishes an overall mission statement for the project. This is high level and conceptual.
   
   Each leadership kadra narodowa defines and publishes their team’s mission statement, which should support the project’s overall mission. Each leadership team’s mission statement may need to be revised to insure that they all tie in well with the overall project mission statement. Each leadership reprezentacja narodowa defines and publishes their annual goals which support their team’s mission statement. For each leadership team’s goals, the following supporting details will be added and published: milestones (achievement and target completion date); action items (each task required to progress toward achieving the milestone; resource(s): volunteer or paid workers, financial (specify the purpose and budget line item); features (if applicable), action items (if applicable), resources (if applicable). Each leadership team publishes periodic updates during the course of the year regarding their progress on each of their goals.
7. Volunteer Recruitment and Rentention
   
   The PLT discussed forming a Joomla Outreach Project (JOP), where a "bucket" of tasks is created by teams, using the wiki. Community members would be invited to join these teams, and they would work in alignment with development goals, under the guidance of the PLT. Incentives (such as T-shirts) would be awarded upon the completion of each set of tasks.
   
   Volunteer Now is a myśl for recruiting new team members, because teams should be created to manage recurring, long-term tasks that require deeper knowledge. A volunteer engagement page will be created on the wiki, and a Volunteer Now button will hiperłącze to it from the joomla.org home page. In the wiki a future volunteer will find documentation on how and why we build teams, and contacts for the projects major teams and assets.
   
   A concept will be drafted listing outreach ideas for engaging university students.
   
8. Process Improvement
   
   Regarding processes and messages in correspondence (for example, in areas of trademark, the JED and events), we often need more differentiation and adapted responses to specific situations.
   
   Action items include: reviewing our texts to verify if we are using a friendly approach aimed at optimizing communication; listing and identifying situations and creating responses adapted to them; simplifying language.
9. Review Developer Sponsorship Program
   
   We talked about the state of the Developer Sponsorship Program and how we handle the involvement of sponsored development time from companies and guide this process more effectively in the future. One propozycja was to move from pre to post recognition and use a to-do list and let people pick from the “cookie jar” list to sponsor development time.
   
   Action items include: speaking with the existing sponsors about their experience and writing a report; deciding if a money only approach or money and development time approach is best, finding a volunteer to manage the cookie jar.
10. Certification
    
    A 1 - 2 pomysł of certification ideas and how to approach them will be drafted. Feedback from each leadership team will be gathered. The plan will include creating levels for web masters, designers and instructors of joomla, creating a curriculum and courses template for trainers, financial and licensing fees to create more revenue, a badanie database infrastructure.
11. Improving Recruitment of New Developers
    
    A story we want to help tell is that Joomla can provide students with CS degrees experience on a global team that goes far beyond just a curriculum. Action items include creating a spreadsheet where we can determine which events developers are attending, and writing a one page messaging document outlining persuasive reasons why the Joomla Platform and CMS are useful for developers, and target university students.
12. Long Term Roadmap
    
    We talked about the process for establishing goals and milestones for the Joomla project long term releases. Once every 6 months the PLT and developers will meet just before or after an existing event such as a Joomla Day or JandBeyond. We are hoping to do the first one this fall where milestones and goals for the July 2013 long term release will be discussed.

The entire leadership would like to thank eBay for the use of its offices for our summit, and Louis and Ron for coordinating with them. Thanks to Rochen we had tasty lunches, ordered with care by Wendy. And Gunner, our Summit Facilitator Extraordinaire kept us on target and on time!

For comments and feedback click here

Over the last week I have been talking (How to Track Offsite Links for Google Goals i...) about how to use Google Analytics for your Joomla site to better track conversions, marketing efforts, and the usability of your site.

&nbsp;Allowing users to register at a Joomla site is very very common. It also makes a great goal to track. Discovering the URL to use in the funnel path is a little tricky, as there is a confirmation email involved. When users register on a Joomla 1.5 site, they geRead More...