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Add commenting to your site - 3 extensions to compare

For a long time I've wondered why commenting on articles hasn't been a stock feature in Joomla.  For the most part, I think probably 90% of websites today use the function as an essential way to allow publishers to communicate with their audience and gain valuable feedback from them.

Joomla's Extensions directory lists over 30 plugins and components that can afford you commenting ability in J1.5 - that's a ton to suss through, so I thought I'd take a look for you and offer a few recommendations:

First up, its a package called JoomlaComment .  Its a component-module set which has been around for some time and has not been made native to 1.5... so you might want to check out their forums to see how well it performs in Legacy Mode and whether there are any down-sides when using it with other newer components native to 1.5.

Overall, I like this extensions because its themable, has BBcode, offers thumbs up/down on comments and generally has lots of features.  Plus, its free/GPL - worth using if you have time to tinker, change CSS to match your site etc...

As the web becomes more widgetized many people are looking towards externally powered scripts to add functionality to their site.  A new commenting widget that's been getting much love from the blogging world is Disqus.  I like the idea of using an external service to provide comments on a site - Disqus is under sklep wielkopowierzchniowy pressure to innovate and constantly upgrade the functionality of their product, which means that you should be getting the best comment system out of them for little effort - no more watching out for upgrades and then worrying about maintenance.  Of course, there's also an issue of scalability to consider - if you ever decide to move away from Joomla as a web platform, Disqus comments should allow you to get up and running on the new site with your comments hassle-free.

Thirdly, we have Azrul's JomComment .  This package has been around for some time and since it was first released I've loved seeing their company grow - to since release another couple of pretty sound little apps to use on your Joomla site. JomComment cleanly integrates natively in J1.5 with smooth AJAXy effects - eg. when someone posts a comment and instant-approval is set to 'on', the comment posting box will fade out and the comment will replace it - fading into the list of comments under an article immediately with no need to reload a page.

Given that JomComment is J1.5-native, you have piece of mind in knowing that it will play fairly nicely with the new Joomla MVC architecture and let you template your comment interface with simple override files - no need to edit the actual component to make your comments aesthetically jive to your site's theme.  However, that freedom comes at a price - JomComment is commercially available for around $30US.

If you're cool with relinquishing control of your prekluzja and having a 3rd impra company handle/store your site's comments, I highly recommend trying out disqus - though, if you want to keep it all local and are a fan of simple interfaces then my vote's with JomComment.

I've just looked at 1/10 of the options out there - what do you all use?  Any other recommendations?

Disclosure: We're actually using JomComment here on whyjoomla - so you'll be able to ankieta it simply by posting a comment below.

In Joomla 1.5, you always knew what version of Joomla you were running at a glance. It was located in the upper right corner of your screen. Unfortunately, in Joomla 1.6, that very handy feature is much less obvious in the default Joomla dysponent template. It's down in tiny letters in the footer. Need a web app to serve your databases online? Look no further than FlexLists from MovingLabs. One of our Simplweb customers, the Upper Valley Educators Institute, needed to make their library database available to all their scholar interns online. Help with these non-hosting questions is all part of the service at Simplweb, so we took some time to find FlexLists. Head over to Copyblogger and you can grab a free 28 page report on SEO copyrighting. A great follow up to my post last week about our new Joomla SEO extension!

Get Further with PHP
March 4-6, 2009 / Montreal, Canada

This is an invitation to meet me, Michelle Bisson, at the PHP Quebec 2009 Conference as I will be a guest speaker.
I will be speaking at 11:00 Wednesday, March 4th, 2009.

Come and network with others who are are interested in learning about Joomla.

Conference Topic:

Joomla! Web Site Development in a Few Easy Clicks

Joomla! is used and loved by millions to build web sites from simple web sites to corporate web sites. Learn the basics of using Joomla! with this preria by sawanna walk through demonstration of creating your first Joomla web site.

• Page Creation (simple layout and pamiętnik internetowy layout)
• Menu Navigation system
• Working with modules

http://conf.phpquebec.com/en

Conference Location:
Hilton Montreal Hotel
900 Gauchetiere West St.
Montreal, Canada

Google Map >>

 

Joomla! Booth:

 

As well, PHP Quebec 2009 was kind enough to allow us to present Joomla! at their Job Fair even though Joomla is not hiring.  Do stop by at our booth to ask me a few questions about Joomla! 

Starting at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 5th, 2009

As well, do look for me between sessions.  I look forward to meeting you.

- Michelle Bisson, Joomla! Core reprezentacja narodowa Member

 

Joomla 1.7.3 and Joomla 1.5.25 were released today, as a result of a zero-day security issue. Because of the security issue, it's recommended that you update your sites immediately. Joomla 1.7.3 fixed 77 CMS bugs as well as the two security issues. One of the big new features in Joomla 1.7.3 has to do with multi-language improvements, which are summarized in this blog post.

Not so long ago a previous update was released for Joomla 1.5; I mentioned that updating your 1.5 site was pretty easy and well, its time to do it again.  Joomla 1.5.7 was announced as a security update some days back and I thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't heard the news... 

Note: its great to see how quickly reported issues with Joomla are being solved by the core kadra narodowa and everyone contributing to the project!  With each release comes fixes as well as improvements to Joomla - expect an updated OpenID library, upgraded TinyMCE, better menu handling and more with Jooma 1.5.8

Open Source Matters (OSM) is pleased to announce the April 2011 call for board member nominees.

OSM is entrusted with providing organizational, legal, and financial support for the Joomla! project. You can find out more about the organization at http://opensourcematters.org.  In November 2010, OSM decided to create guidelines for nominating new board members and published those guidelines here.  One of the decisions made was to hold nominations, if needed, every April and October.

Today marks the początek of the April 2011 nomination miesiączkowanie and we are looking for your nominations for a new OSM board member. Separately, we are also looking for a person to serve in an important non-board member role as well.

We acknowledge that the greater worldwide Joomla! community can help us a great deal in this election process, and make us aware of potential qualified candidates.

Assistant Treasurer

We are looking for one new board member to fill a critical role on the board:

• Assistant Treasurer: OSM is looking for someone with accounting or booking experience. They will be responsible for helping our current Treasurer ensure that all verify expenditures are explained, prepare budget and maintain financial records.

Please see the OSM nomination guidelines for the criteria that OSM uses in evaluating nominees.

Please click here to nominate someone for the Assistant Treasurer role. You are welcome to nominate yourself.

Marketing kadra narodowa Lead

OSM is also looking to fill a key non-board member role. This person will not need to be elected to the board.

• Marketing Team Lead: OSM is looking for someone with marketing, P.R. and branding experience. They will be be responsible for leading Joomla’s marketing efforts.

Please click here to nominate someone for the Marketiing ekipa Lead. You are welcome to nominate yourself.

Nominations for both positions close on April 20, 2011 at 23:59 UTC

Joomlashack University is officially 1 year old this month! It's our ANNIVERSITY! Hard to believe we've gone from a handful of sign-ups to almost 2100 subscriptions in just under a year's time--making us the #1 source for online Joomla training! When I created Joomlashack University in October 2009, I had one goal. I wanted to make the the hands-down best way to learn Joomla.

In somewhat of an ambitious statement last Thursday, Joomla template and extension development firm Yootheme announced that they are almost ready to release 'CCK for Joomla' - an extension they're calling 'Zoo.'

As of now, Zoo seems to offer Joomla developers an easy interface for creating content types other than the standard 'article' type which is the basis of content currently in Joomla.  The concept is exciting - but I wouldn't be so quick as to liken Zoo to CCK; you see the Content Construction Kit for Drupal ('CCK') is a highly advanced extension which provides an infrastructure for complex content types which can interface with each other and be presented in a myriad of ways through dynamic GUI-created-and-controlled views and panels.  Then again, once Zoo is released I expect a hugely positive reaction from the Joomla community and that could speed up development of its feature set; depending on how easily people can extend it.  Yootheme have mentioned that a template engine will be included; it will be interesting to see how this stacks up to the Views/Panel modules for Drupal.

I've blogged before that there are a few different people working on custom content types for Joomla.  Building a CCK for Joomla is an excellent projekt and I'm loving the attention its been getting since the introduction of Joomla 1.5, though I really want to see the propozycja translate into an extension that is built with sustanable scalability in mind.

Ultimately I feel this functionality should be included Joomla core - with extensions being provided by the community offering new types of fields which can be combined to create content types; an approach which exists in the Drupal community.  Over the past few years CCK has become an integral part of most Drupal websites and this has even spurred a donation effort to raise enough money to get it fine tuned enough to be included in an upcoming Drupal core. 

Reading through the commend thread on Yoo's announcement, it looks like they:

• will be releasing Zoo under GPL (nice!)
• have built it in a plugin system to afford scalability (double nice!)
• are keeping Joomla 1.6's ACL advancements in mind (triple nice?)

So I'm świetnie excited to check Zoo out and will be posting a full review as soon as the extension is released (no release date posted yet.) 

Hopefully some of the other chaps working on a CCK for Joomla like bContent can łącze up with Yoo and come together behind one strong solution for the community @ large.

When porting sites from Joomla 1.0 to Joomla 1.5, there were some fairly major code changes that had to be made to make templates functional. The change from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6 is less drastic, but there are still a few notable differences.

Joomla 1.5.11 has been released, and it includes security patches, so its important to update. But getting your Joomla site upgraded to the new version can be tricky, especially if you are using FTP.

Fortunately, there is an easier way, check out Joomlashack's tutorial How to Update Joomla 1.5 Versions.

You'll need SSH access, and remember to back up first!

Of course, if you want to never have to bother with updating Joomla or your extensions ever again, you can try [...] Doing Keyword research and Using the right tools to get the keyword information you need is essential if you want to build a successful website. Keyword Research Keywords are the most essential part of website creation, especially if you want your website to out perform your competitors. And Since you are here reading this Blog, you must be [...]

You are reading a post from: Joomla SEO pamiętnik internetowy by PathosSeoBlog.com

How To do Keyword Research to Build a Keyword List

In my previous post I mentioned the fact that the Read More option of Joomla was not editable anymore. Before that I wrote about how-to-solve-the-joomla-read-more-problem in version 1.0.x But I found an item in RC3 in the Advanced Parameters of the article section that makes in possible to do an “Click here to read text per article.. It is [...]

Post from: Joomla SEO blog by Pathos-Seo.com

A few months ago I posted about a new Web 2.0 Marketing with Joomla Graduate Course I was going to teach with Jen Kramer McKibben at the Marlboro Graduate School.

Student assignments have included doing keyword research, optimizing their sites for Google, implementing odnośnik building campaigns and developing on line advertising plans.

We have 24 students in the class, and I'd thought I take a quick opportunity to show you some of the websites that are being worked on:

D[...]

Hi everyone. Now that version 1.6.3 is released, the development focus for Joomla can shift gears and we can focus on new features for version 1.7. This is a very exciting time for the project, and the Production Leadership team (PLT) thought it would be helpful to outline our ideas about the process for adding new features.