Chapter 10. Getting the Most out of Your Site – Extending Joomla!

When you've got your basic Joomla-powered site up and running, and you've got all of your content and functionality covered, chances are you'll want more. Maybe your client has specific requirements, or maybe you just want to increase the wow factor of your site and add some eye candy or cool effects. Doing more things with Joomla and making your site stand out from the rest of them—that's where extensions come in. The real power of Joomla lies in its extensibility. If you need any functionality that's not built into the basic Joomla installation (or core), you'll very likely find it in the huge treasure house that's called the Joomla extension directory. Extensions are little pieces of software that you can download and install to extend Joomla's capabilities.

In this chapter, you'll be doing the following tasks:

• Trying out Joomla's core extensions

• Downloading and installing third-party extensions

• Putting extensions to work...

Extensions in all shapes and sizes

Before digging into the wonderful world of extensions, it's good to know they come in different shapes and sizes. Basically, there are three types of extensions.

The big ones – components

You can manage components through a special Components menu in the backend. They are the most comprehensive extensions, often providing lots of administration options and settings. Component output is usually displayed in the main content area. An example is the Contacts component (to manage a system of contacts, contact details, and contact forms). We'll have a more detailed look at this component later in this chapter.

The medium ones – modules

Modules are blocks that contain special functionality. You've already seen examples at work, such as the menu module. You can manage modules by navigating to Extensions | Module Manager.

Modules usually turn up around the main content area, in the left-hand side and right-hand side column, or in the header and footer. These module...

Enhancing your site using core extensions

Let's first explore some extensions that are part of the Joomla core package. We'll put the Newsflash module to work and after that, we'll have a closer look at the use of a more complex extension, the Contacts component.

Highlighting articles using the Newsflash module

When your site grows, it's important to make sure that the home page properly reflects all of the content categories to prevent your valuable new content from staying unnoticed. By selecting the Featured Articles option (check the Adding items to the home page section in Chapter 4, Web Building Basics – Creating a Site in an Hour), you control what articles show up in the central area of the home page. However, there are more ways to attract attention to specific articles.

Time for action – adding the Newsflash module to the home page

Let's use the Newsflash module to show a random article's introduction text from a selected category each time the page is loaded. Every time the visitor returns, another item will be displayed in the Newsflash module position. The steps are as follows:

1. Navigate to Extensions | Module Manager. Click on New and select Articles - Newsflash. This is shown in the following screenshot:

   

2. In the next screen, make sure the Status setting is set to Published so that the module displays the articles. This is the default setting.

3. In the Title box, enter an appropriate title. In this example, we'll enter Recent Lectures as the module title. Make sure the Show Title option is set to Show.

4. Set the Position setting as position-7 to display the module in the right-hand side column in the current template (called Protostar).

5. Click on the Menu Assignment tab and select Only on the pages selected. Set the module to show on the home page only.

6. Click on...

Time for action – adding a series of contacts

We'll create a contacts category, add contact details, and finally make a menu link to point to the new set of contacts.

1. Navigate to Components | Contacts | Categories. If you installed Joomla using sample data, there may still be sample categories present. It's easy to remove them; select them all (make sure All is selected in the select box at the right-hand side above the contact listing) and click on the Trash button.

2. Click on New to create a new contacts category. In the Title field, enter CORBA Staff. In the Description box, enter a short description that will be displayed above the contacts list. In this example, we've entered Are you interested in joining CORBA? Do you want to support us or organize bad art activities? Don't hesitate to contact our staff! Click on Save & Close. This is shown in the following screenshot:

   

3. Click on the Contacts link in the menu on the left-hand side and then click on New. Make sure the CORBA Staff category...

Enhancing your site using third-party extensions

When you run into the limitations of the Joomla core extensions, it's time to check out some more sophisticated and dedicated extensions. Any functionality you can think of is likely to exist in the form of a component, module, or plugin (or a combination). It takes just a few steps to add a new extension to your website. Basically, there are two methods:

• In many cases, the fastest method is using the Install from Web functionality that has recently been added to Joomla. For extensions that support this functionality, Install from Web simplifies the process of downloading and installing extensions. To use it, you first have to enable it. Navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager and click on the Add "Install from Web" tab button, as shown in the following screenshot:

  

  This adds a tab that gives you access to extensions that you'd normally have to browse the Joomla extension website for. In many cases, the Install from Web functionality allows...

Time for action – downloading and installing an extension

We'll install an alternative module to show teasers on the home page: the BT Content Slider module. This new module can only be downloaded after you create an account on the developer's site; however, the power and advanced features of this extension certainly make up for this extra effort. Let's find out how to get it.

1. Navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager. In the search field in the Install from Web tab, enter BT Content Slider and hit the search button. Click on the BT Content Slider search result to see the extension details, and then click on the button that says Register & Download. This is shown in the following screenshot:

   

2. You're taken to the developer's site. After clicking on the Download button there, click on Register to register for a free account and follow the required steps. After registering, log in to the site with your username and password. On the download page, download the ZIP file of the BT Content Slider...

Time for action – putting the extension to work

Let's get the BT Content Slider module to display article teaser texts on the home page. The steps are as follows:

1. If you've followed along and installed the Newsflash module earlier, you may want to hide that module now. To do so, navigate to Extensions | Module Manager. Locate the Newsflash module that is titled Recent Lectures.

2. Click on the green check mark in the Status column to unpublish this Newsflash module, that is, hide it on the frontend.

3. In the Module Manager screen, locate the BT Content Slider module (mod_bt_contentslider) and click on its title to set the available options. These options are shown in the following screenshot:

   

   This looks quite different compared to the default Newsflash module. The Content Slider settings are divided into eight tabbed panels! Here, dozens of settings are available to customize the extension. But don't despair, you'll only have to tweak a few settings to get this module to work.

4. Let's start with the...

Time for action – creating an image gallery

1. To show all images as a gallery, we'll use a plugin called Simple Image Gallery Extended. Navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager and click on the Install from Web tab. In the search box, enter image gallery extended. The Simple Image Gallery Extended plugin will turn up in the search results. Click on it and then click on the Download button.

2. You're taken to http://joomla-extensions.kubik-rubik.de/sige-simple-image-gallery-extended. Download the latest version; at the time of writing, this file is called plg_sige_v3-2.zip.

3. Navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager and click on Upload Package File. Select the plugin's ZIP file that you downloaded and click on Upload & Install. You'll see a message when the installation is finished: Installing plugin was successful.

4. As this is a plugin, we'll use the Plugin Manager to enable the extension. Navigate to Extensions | Plugin Manager and locate the Content - Simple Image Gallery Extended plugin...

Time for action – replacing the default text editor of Joomla!

Let's install JCE and set it to be the default text editor.

1. Navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager. In the search field in the Install from Web page, enter jce. The JCE will be shown as the first search result. Click on the JCE details and then click on the Install button, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

2. A great thing about JCE is that it fully automates the installation. Just hit the Install button in the next screen and you're good to go. The installation should take about half a minute. You'll see a message: Installing component was successful.

3. There is just one thing to take care of now. Tell Joomla that you want JCE to be the default editor. Navigate to System | Global Configuration. In the Site Settings panel, set the Default Editor option to Editor - JCE and save your changes. This is shown in the following screenshot:

   

What just happened?

You've just installed JCE. From now on, whenever you create or edit an article...

Managing the site language

In the Extensions menu, you'll also find the Language Manager. This allows you to extend the language capabilities of your Joomla-powered site; you can add new languages for both the administrative interface and the frontend of the site. To install a new language pack, click on Install Languages to see an overview of all available languages. Adding a language pack is just a matter of selecting it and clicking on the Install button. Once it's installed, it's available in the Language Manager screen and you can set the default language for both the frontend and the backend of your website.

Changing default text strings

Another great feature of the Language Manager is that it enables you to change the default texts that a Joomla site contains—just think of words and sentences such as Read more, More articles, and Details. In most cases, you won't have to bother changing them. However, sometimes the default texts don't fit your website. It's simple to remove these texts...

Time for action – removing or replacing default texts

Let's say we want to remove the word Details that's displayed with every article. After all, it takes up valuable space on the screen and doesn't really convey useful information.

1. In the Joomla backend, navigate to Extensions | Language Manager and in the menu, click on Overrides. Then, click on New. In the Search text you want to change section, enter the word or words you're looking for (in this case, details) and click on Search. Joomla will display all matches. In this case, the first hit is the one we're looking for as shown in the following screenshot:

   

2. Click on the search result (in this case, COM_CONTENT_ARTICLE_INFO Details). It's automatically displayed in the Create a New Override section on the left-hand side of the screen. In the Text box, enter the text you want to replace the current text with. In this case, we want to display no text at all, so keep the text box empty.

   

3. Click on Save & Close. You're done! Check the frontend...

Summary

In this chapter, we've covered the magic of Joomla extensions. You've learned that there are three types of extensions: components (the big ones), modules (the medium ones), and plugins (the small ones). The Joomla core already contains several components, modules, and plugins.

If you need any functionality that's not built into the basic Joomla core, you'll very likely find it in the JED. To add a third-party extension to your website, you download it from the Web and install it. Some extensions can even be installed directly from the Joomla administrative interface. After the installation, you can adjust it in the backend and activate it (enable it, in Joomla terms).

Language files allow you to set the default language for the frontend and the backend of the site. In the frontend, this will translate all preset texts (such as Read more and Written by) to a language of your choice. Using language overrides, you can replace default pieces of text with your own texts.

Now that you've...