How-To Tutorials - Web Development

Using video files Video files are generally large due to the amount of content they contain and their length. It's beyond the scope of our article to describe them in detail, but in basic terms, they are a linear sequence of still images placed together to create a sequence of movement, usually accompanied by an audio track. Original video files are compressed using a codec to produce a compressed video file. The various codecs produce different results for file size, quality, and export. Video files play in the browser by downloading the data through the Internet, progressively streaming it so the movie begins to play before the whole file has downloaded. Audio files work in a similar way, but are often not as large. The final quality of a video also depends on the method used to capture it and how it's stored. The better the quality of the camera, the better the result. If you want to learn more about video, Wikipedia has a page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_formats. Just like anything else, there are pros and cons of adding videos to your website. YouTube alone has proven there is a strong market for a more visual medium. However, there are still many people who prefer text-based content as well. Consider whether adding a video to your site will enhance your user's experience. Is the material promotional or instructional? Is the content better demonstrated than explained? Video material can broaden your target audience. Many people prefer watching a video online to reading lengthy bodies of text. Videos aren't that great for search engine optimization. Consider adding a transcript to the page as well, in order to increase the ability to search. Choosing the best video file format Video played through the Internet requires a media player, which acts as an interface between the video file and the browser. These days most Internet users have one embedded within their browser. Popular versions include: QuickTime, a player created by Apple Windows Media Player WINAMP Real Player, developed by Real Networks Adobe Flash Player The following are some of the video file types that can be played through your website using third-party media players: .wmv files are a popular format developed by Microsoft and which come bundled within the Internet Explorer software package and are, therefore, preinstalled on Windows PCs. This is a format good for movies with movement within them. This format works with Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and another called VLC Player. This format isn't very compatible with Mac or Linux computer users. .mov files are a QuickTime video platform extension that also plays back on the Windows operating system. The Apple QuickTime movie player software can be easily downloaded from Apple at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/. While not many browsers have the QuickTime media player installed, this format does provide very high quality video. You can always provide a link to the URL to download the software in order to play the video. .avi files are often the format of videos with smaller dimensions, played back through a website. They are a container for audio and video files (hence the name!). They can sometimes be quite large in file size, depending on the codec used to compress the video footage. They are a mainstream format. .swf and .flv videos are excellent for web video streaming and can also include interactive features. Most Mac and PCs have the Flash Shockwave Player installed; however, it can be downloaded from http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. Take note of the requirements for your individual operating system and browser preferences. Keep the following in mind when considering a video for your website: Ensure the video is succinct and the file size as small as possible. Even with a high speed download, time is still required to fully download the complete file. Keeping the video between one to three minutes long and the file size under five megabytes The more the movement in a video, the larger the file size. Consider whether the video really enhances the message. Viewers are only interested in material that is useful to them and will resent consuming their download resources on a video that holds no value for them. The larger the file size, the longer it takes to upload. Consider your audience's data rate. Do they have high speed downloads or are there some with dial-up connections? Video files are generally large due to the amount of content they contain. They stream (streaming is the way the Internet transfers multimedia information) through the data so the video will begin playing before it has fully downloaded itself into the browser, allowing it to be played back as quickly as possible. Audio files work in a similar way, but are not usually big files. There are various video file formats available and most website users have a player to see them already contained within the browser. Many users have QuickTime, a player created by Apple (that also runs on PCs) and Real Player, developed by Real Networks. Videos require a special plugin to play them through an article on your site, once you have uploaded it. Alternatively, you can embed a link from the popular YouTube site (http://www.youtube.com/). We'll look at how to do both in relation to the Party People website. Uploading a video We'll upload a new video, much the same way we would upload an image, to a new subfolder called videos within the Party People website. The steps are as follows: Navigate to the Media Manager. Select the stories folder and type videos into the Files input box. Click Create Folder. Select the new videos folder icon; then click the Browse button to choose the video from our desktop computer. Click Start Upload. Now we have a video file ready to be inserted into an article. The Party People website has the popular AllVideos plugin installed to do this. Updating videos—AllVideos plugin This is another neat plugin that works in much the same way as the Simple Image Gallery, a stablemate from this team of developers. If you don't have it installed and you would like to present videos on your site, ask your developer to install it for you or refer to the developers website http://www.joomlaworks.gr/content/view/35/41/ for instructions. Our Party People website has a .mov video on the Products and Services page, which we will update. To update the video display: Navigate to the Article Manager through the top menu and open theOur Services Include... article. Change the name of the video file between the { } and {/} tags within the text editor to the new filename. Depending on the format of the video being presented, the code should look like this: {mov}promoVideo{/mov} This code displays a QuickTime movie within the article. Save the changes. The following screenshot shows us how the video will look in context. Note that you do not need to include the format extension at the end of the filename, as the tag surrounding the name addresses this. Changing to a different video file and format The AllVideos plugin supports a number of video file formats and the developer's website lists them all at http://www.joomlaworks.gr/content/view/35/41/. We'll change the video we just linked to a different one which is in the .wmv format. The steps are as follows: Navigate to the Article containing the video presentation. Change the tag between the { } braces to reflect the new file type, taking care not to delete any of the symbols. For example: {wmv}updatedServicesVideo{/wmv} Save the changes to your article. You should take care to avoid rearranging any of the formatting within the code, as this will prevent the movie from playing. That is, don't add any extra spaces, colons, commas, and so on.  

Deleting events After creating, moving, and editing events, we might come across a case where the edit form is different from the create form. There is no reason why you would want to delete an event that has not yet been created, so there is no reason to add a delete button to the "Create Event" form. We have a choice—add the delete button to the section at the bottom of the modal dialog, next to Save and Cancel, or add it to the body of the form itself. I always try to add delete buttons and links where I think they cannot be hit by accident. Therefore in this case, I chose not to add it to the row of buttons at the bottom. Instead, I placed it in the form itself where there's little chance it will be clicked by accident while saving or closing the form. And even then, if the link is clicked, there is always a secondary "Are you sure?" confirmation box. Client-side code In the calendar_edit_entry function in calender.js, change the beginning of the $.getJSON call to this: $.getJSON('./calendar.php?action=get_event&id='+calEvent.id, function(eventdata){ var controls='<a href="javascript:calendar_delete_entry' +'('+eventdata.id+');">[delete]</a>'; $('<div id="calendar_edit_entry_form" title="Edit Calendar Entry">' +'<div style="float:right;text-align:right">'+controls+'</div>' +'event name<br />' +'<input id="calendar_edit_entry_form_title" value="'+eventdata.title+'" /><br />' +'body text<br />' +'<textarea style="width:400px;height:200px" id="calendar_edit_entry_form_body">' '+eventdata.body+'</textarea></div>' ).appendTo($('body')); $("#calendar_edit_entry_form").dialog({ The only real change is to add the controls variable, which lets us create more buttons if necessary, and add that variable's contained HTML to the form. The only control there at the moment is a delete link, which calls the calendar_delete_entry function when clicked. Add this function now: function calendar_delete_entry(id){ if(confirm('are you sure you want to delete this entry?')){ $('#calendar_edit_entry_form').remove(); $.getJSON('./calendar.php?action=delete_event&id='+id, function(ret){ $('#calendar_wrapper').weekCalendar('refresh'); } ); } } Server-side code On the server side, we add a case to handle deletes: case 'delete_event': // { $id=(int)$_REQUEST['id']; unset($_SESSION['calendar'][$id]); echo 1; exit; // } All it needs to do is to unset the session variable. With that completed, you now have the finished basics of a calendar, where you can create events, move them around, edit them, and delete them. Walk-through of the calendar so far We've built the basics of a weekly calendar, and before we go on to discuss recurring events, let's take the time to walk through the calendar so far with a simple example. Let's say you have an appointment on Tuesday at 2 pm with a business partner. You add that by clicking on that time, as follows: You think that the meeting will go on for about two hours, so you resize it: Now Bob calls up early on Tuesday to say that he's not going to be able to make it, and suggests moving it to Wednesday at 1 pm. You drag the event over: He also says that he won't be able to make it, but Sally would be there. So, you click on the event and edit the form accordingly: Wednesday comes, and of course, something has come up on your end. You call Sally and explain that you won't be able to make it, and delete the event by clicking on the event, and then clicking on the delete link. Simple and quick. What more would you want? Let's do some recurring events. Recurring events Sometimes you will want to have the same event automatically populated in the calendar on a recurrent basis. For example, you go to lunch every day at 1 pm, or there might be a weekly office meeting every Monday morning. In this case, we need to come up with a way of having events recur. This can be simple or very complex. The simplest method is what we'll demonstrate in this article. The simple method involves entering a frequency (daily, monthly, and so on) and a final date, where the events stop recurring. On the server side, when it is asked to create that recurring event, the server actually iterates over the entire requested period and adds each individual event. This is not extremely efficient, but it's simple to write, and it's not likely that anyone would be placing years-long recurrent events on a very regular basis, so it's justifiable. The more complex method is to only create events that are actually visible in the week you are viewing, and whenever you change the week, you check to see if there are any events that are supposed to recur that week but are not visible. This is arguably even less efficient than the simple method, but it would allow us to be a little more flexible—for example, to leave out the final date so that the events just keep recurring. Anyway, given that there are no major drawbacks to either method, we will choose the simpler method. Client-side code On the client side, recurrences are created at the same time as the recurrence of the first event. So, we edit the "Create Event" form. In calendar.js , adapt the calendar_new_entry function by replacing the form-creation line with this: var recurbox='<select id="calendar_new_entry_form_recurring">' +'<option value="0">non-recurring</option>' +'<option value="1">Daily</option>' +'<option value="7">Weekly</option>' +'</select>';$('<div id="calendar_new_entry_form" title="New Calendar Entry">event name<br />' +'<input value="new event" id="calendar_new_entry_form_title" /><br />' +'body text<br />' +'<textarea style="width:400px;height:200px" id="calendar_new_entry_form_body">' event description</textarea>' +recurbox+'</div>') .appendTo($('body')); $('#calendar_new_entry_form_recurring') .change(calendar_new_get_recurring_end); This adds a select box below the body text area, requesting the user to choose a recurring frequency (defaulting to non-recurring). When the select box is changed, the function calendar_new_get_recurring_end is called. This function is used to request the final recurring date. We could use a plain old text field, but jQuery UI includes a really cool date widget, which allows us to request the date and have it stored in our own choice of format. I've chosen yyyy-mm-dd format, as it is easy to manipulate. Add this to calendar.js: function calendar_new_get_recurring_end(){ if(document.getElementById('calendar_new_recurring_end')) return; var year = new Date().getFullYear(); var month = new Date().getMonth(); var day = new Date().getDate(); $('<span> until <input id="calendar_new_recurring_end" value="'+year+'-'+(month+1)+'-'+day+'" style="font-size:14px" class="date" />' +' </span>' ).insertAfter('#calendar_new_entry_form_recurring'); $('.date').datepicker({ 'dateFormat':'yy-mm-dd', 'yearRange':'-10:+50', 'changeYear':true }); } That creates an input field after the dropdown box, and when it is clicked, a calendar pops up: Whoops! What's happened here is that the date pop up's z-index is lower than the modal dialog. That can be corrected by adding this CSS line to the  < head > section of calendar.html: <style type="text/css"> #ui-datepicker-div{ z-index: 2000; }</style> When reloaded, the calendar now looks correct: Great! Now, we just need to send the data to the server. To do that, change the Save button's $.getJSON parameters in the calendar_new_entry function in calendar.js to these (new parameters are highlighted): 'body':$('#calendar_new_entry_form_body').val(), 'title':$('#calendar_new_entry_form_title').val(), 'recurring':$('#calendar_new_entry_form_recurring').val(), 'recurring_end':$('#calendar_new_recurring_end').val() And we're done on the client side. Server-side code On the server side, the save switch case is going to change considerably, so I'll provide the entire section: case 'save': // { $start_date=(int)$_REQUEST['start']; $data=array( 'title'=>$_REQUEST['title'], 'body' =>$_REQUEST['body'], 'start'=>date('c',$start_date), 'end' =>date('c',(int)$_REQUEST['end']) ); $id=(int)$_REQUEST['id']; if($id && isset($_SESSION['calendar'][$id])){ if(isset($_SESSION['calendar'][$id]['recurring'])) $data['recurring']=$_SESSION['calendar'][$id]['recurring']; $_SESSION['calendar'][$id]=$data; } else{ $id=++$_SESSION['calendar']['ids']; $rec=(int)$_REQUEST['recurring']; if($rec) $data['recurring']=$id; $_SESSION['calendar'][$id]=$data; if($rec && $rec==1 || $rec==7){ list($y,$m,$d)=explode('-',$_REQUEST['recurring_end']); $length=(int)$_REQUEST['end']-$start_date; $end_date=mktime(23,59,59,$m,$d,$y); $step=3600*24*$rec; for($j=1,$i=$start_date+$step;$i<$end_date;$j++,$i+=$step){ $data['start']=date('c',$i); $data['end']=date('c',$i+$length); $nextid=++$_SESSION['calendar']['ids']; $_SESSION['calendar'][$nextid]=$data; } } } echo 1; exit; // } OK. From the data point of view, we've added a single field, recurring, which records the first event in the series. This is needed when deleting recurring events that are not needed anymore. When editing an existing event, all that's changed is that the recurring field (if it exists) is copied from the original before the event is overwritten with fresh data (shown highlighted). The real action happens when creating a new event. If a recurring period is required, then the event is copied and pasted at the requested frequency from the event's first creation until the expiry date. This is figured out by counting the seconds, and incrementing as needed. We can immediately see that recurring events work. Here's an example of a week's lunch hours created from the new recurring method: You can shift individual events around, and even delete them, without affecting the rest.

There are many reasons why you would want to display a calendar. You can use it to display upcoming events, to keep a diary, or to show a timetable. Recently, for example, I combined a calendar with an online store for a client to book meetings and receive payments more intuitively. Google calendar is probably what springs to mind when people think of calendars online. There is a very good plugin called jquery-week-calendar that shows a week with events in a fashion similar to Google's calendar. Its homepage is at http://www.redredred.com.au/projects/jquery-week-calendar/. To get the latest copy of the plugin, go to http://code.google.com/p/jquery-week-calendar/downloads/list and get the highest-numbered file. The examples in this article are done with version 1.2.0. Download the library and extract it so that there is a directory named jquery-weekcalendar-1.2.0 in the root of your demo directory. Displaying the calendar As usual, the HTML for the simplest configuration is very simple. Save this as calendar.html: <html> <head> <script src="../jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="../jquery-ui.min.js"></script> <script src="../jquery-weekcalendar-1.2.0/jquery.weekcalendar.js"> </script> <script src="calendar.js"></script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../jquery-ui.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../jquery-weekcalendar-1.2.0/jquery.weekcalendar.css"/> </head> <body> <div id="calendar_wrapper" style="height:500px"></div> </body> </html> We will keep all of our JavaScript in an external file called calendar.js, which will initially contain just this: $(document).ready(function() { $('#calendar_wrapper').weekCalendar({ 'height':function($calendar){ return $('#calendar_wrapper')[0].offsetHeight; } }); }); This is fairly straightforward. The script will apply the widget to the #calendar_wrapper element, and the widget's height will be set to that of the wrapper element. Even with this tiny bit of code, we already have a good-looking calendar, and when you drag your mouse cursor around it, you'll see that events are created as you lift the mouse up: It looks good, but it doesn't do anything yet. The events are temporary, and will vanish as soon as you change the week or reload the page. In order to make them permanent, we need to send details of the events to the server and save them there. Creating an event What we need to do is to have the client save the event on the server when it is created. In this article, we'll use PHP sessions to save the data for the sake of simplicity. Sessions are chunks of data, which are kept on the server side and are related to the cookie or PHPSESSID parameter that the client uses to access that session. We will use sessions in these examples because they do not need as much setup as databases. For your own projects, you should adapt the PHP side in order to connect to a database instead. If you are using this article to create a full application, you will obviously want to use something more permanent than sessions, in which case the PHP code should be adapted such that all references to sessions are replaced with database references instead. This is beyond the scope of this book, but as you are a PHP developer, you probably do this everyday anyway! When the event has been created, we want a modal dialog to appear and ask for more details. In this test case, we'll add a text area for further details, which allows for more data than would appear in the small visible area in the calendar itself. A modal dialog is a "pop up" that appears and blocks all other actions on the page until it has been taken care of. It's useful in cases where the answer to a question must be known before a script can carry on with its work. Now, let's create an event and add it to our calendar. Client-side code In the calendar.js file, add an eventNew event to the weekCalendar call: $(document).ready(function() { $('#calendar_wrapper').weekCalendar({ 'height':function($calendar){ return $('#calendar_wrapper')[0].offsetHeight; }, 'eventNew':function(calEvent, $event) { calendar_new_entry(calEvent,$event); } }); }); When an event is created, the calendar_new_entry function will be called with details of the new event in the calEvent parameter. Now, add the function calendar_new_entry: function calendar_new_entry(calEvent,$event){ var ds=calEvent.start, df=calEvent.end; $('<div id="calendar_new_entry_form" title="New Calendar Entry"> event name<br /> <input value="new event" id="calendar_new_entry_form_title" /> <br /> body text<br /> <textarea style="width:400px;height:200px" id="calendar_new_entry_form_body">event description </textarea> </div>').appendTo($('body')); $("#calendar_new_entry_form").dialog({ bgiframe: true, autoOpen: false, height: 440, width: 450, modal: true, buttons: { 'Save': function() { var $this=$(this); $.getJSON('./calendar.php?action=save&id=0&start=' +ds.getTime()/1000+'&end='+df.getTime()/1000, { 'body':$('#calendar_new_entry_form_body').val(), 'title':$('#calendar_new_entry_form_title').val() }, function(ret){ $this.dialog('close'); $('#calendar_wrapper').weekCalendar('refresh'); $("#calendar_new_entry_form").remove(); } ); }, Cancel: function() { $event.remove(); $(this).dialog('close'); $("#calendar_new_entry_form").remove(); } }, close: function() { $('#calendar').weekCalendar('removeUnsavedEvents'); $("#calendar_new_entry_form").remove(); } }); $("#calendar_new_entry_form").dialog('open'); } What's happening here is that a form is created and added to the body (the second line of the function), then the third line of the function creates a modal window from that form and adds some buttons to it. Our modal dialog should look like this: The Save button, when pressed, calls the server-side file calendar.php with the parameters needed to save the event, including the start and end, and the title and body. When the result returns, the calendar is refreshed with the new event's data included. When any of the buttons are clicked, we close the dialog and remove it from the page completely. Note how we are sending time information to the server (shown highlighted in the code we just saw). JavaScript time functions usually measure in milliseconds, but we want to send it to PHP, which generally measures time in seconds. So, we convert the value on the client so that the PHP can use the received data as it is, without needing to do anything to it. Every little helps! Server-side code On the server side, we want to take the new event and save it. Remember that we're doing it in sessions in this example, but you should feel free to adapt this to any other model that you wish. Create a file called calendar.php and save it with this source in it: <?php session_start(); if(!isset($_SESSION['calendar'])){ $_SESSION['calendar']=array( 'ids'=>0, ); } if(isset($_REQUEST['action'])){ switch($_REQUEST['action']){ case 'save': // { $start_date=(int)$_REQUEST['start']; $data=array( 'title'=>(isset($_REQUEST['title'])?$_REQUEST['title']:''), 'body' =>(isset($_REQUEST['body'])?$_REQUEST['body']:''), 'start'=>date('c',$start_date), 'end' =>date('c',(int)$_REQUEST['end']) ); $id=(int)$_REQUEST['id']; if($id && isset($_SESSION['calendar'][$id])){ $_SESSION['calendar'][$id]=$data; } else{ $id= ++$_SESSION['calendar']['ids']; $_SESSION['calendar'][$id]=$data; } echo 1; exit; // } } } ?> In the server-side code of this project, all the requested actions are handled by a switch statement. This is done for demonstration purposes—whenever we add a new action, we simply add a new switch case. If you are using this for your own purposes, you may wish to rewrite it using functions instead of large switch cases. The date function is used to convert the start and end parameters into ISO 8601 date format. That's the format jquery-week-calendar prefers, so we'll try to keep everything in that format. Visually, nothing appears to happen, but the data is actually being saved. To see what's being saved, create a new file named test.php, and use the var_dump function in it to examine the session data (view it in your browser): <?php session_start(); var_dump($_SESSION); ?> Here's an example from my test machine:

Activity 3: Investigating texts using Quiz Aim: Using quiz to investigate texts Moodle modules: Quiz Extra programs: None Ease of setup: *** As noted elsewhere, Quiz can be a useful module for practicing different language skills. This is primarily because we can build in helpful feedback and because we can allow students to spend as much time as they want practicing. There are various ways that Quiz can help students listen. Here are some examples: Listening and matching: students listen for gist information and match answers to general questions about the text. Ordering task for arranging events in a sequence. Multiple-choice for information transfer, identifying speakers' attitudes, and identifying numbers. Gap-fill tasks: Students listen to a song, poem, or other text, and fill in the missing words. It's worth thinking carefully about what sorts of words you want to blank out. Do you want to focus on grammar words (prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions, etc.), words that are difficult to spell, or keywords (words that convey the main meaning of the text)? To exemplify each of these examples, we'll make one quiz with four different question types. You could choose to have quizzes with any number of different question types. We'll take as our listening text a story which we recorded ourselves. We could record it in a recording program like Audacity. The story is about a rather special trip to the zoo. Here is a possible transcript abridged from http://www.onlyfunnystories.com/ZooJob.asp: One day an out of work mime artist is visiting the zoo and attempts to earn some money as a street performer monkey. As soon as he starts to draw a crowd, a zoo keeper grabs him and drags him into his office. The zoo keeper explains to the mime artist that the zoo's most popular attraction, a gorilla, has died suddenly and the keeper fears that attendance at the zoo will fall off. He offers the mime artist a job to dress up as the gorilla until they can get another one. The mime artist accepts. So the next morning the mime artist puts on the gorilla suit and enters the cage before the crowd comes. He discovers that it's a great job. He can sleep all he wants, play and make fun of people and he draws bigger crowds than he ever did as a mime. However, eventually the crowds tire of him and he tires of just swinging on trees. He begins to notice that the people are paying more attention to the lion in the cage next to his. Not wanting to lose the attention of his audience, he climbs to the top of his cage, crawls across a partition, and dangles from the top to the lion's cage. Of course, this makes the lion furious, but the crowd loves it. At the end of the day the zoo keeper comes and gives the mime artist a raise for being such a good attraction. Well, this goes on for some time, the mime keeps taunting the lion, the crowds grow larger, and his salary keeps going up. Then one terrible day when he is dangling over the furious lion he slips and falls. The mime artist is terrified. The lion gathers itself and prepares to pounce. The mime artist is so scared that he begins to run round and round the cage with the lion close behind. Finally, the mime artist starts screaming and yelling, "Help me, help me!", but the lion is quick and pounces. The mime artist soon finds himself flat on his back looking up at the angry lion and the lion says, "Shut up you idiot! Do you want to get us both fired?" The questions start with general gist questions (matching). Then comes an ordering question, which requires slightly more attention to detail. The last two are multiple-choice and gap-fill questions, which get students to focus on detailed aspects of the listening text. Here's how to do it The following sections refer you to the activities and point out any major differences. Setting up the quiz Listening and matching question Use NanoGong to create sound clips which replace pictures and texts. Here are some examples of the matching questions you could set up. These are general questions which help students get the gist of the story. Question Answer How many animals are there in the story?. Three Where does this take place? The zoo Where does the zoo keeper find the mime artist? On the street How many animals are there in the cages? Two This is what your matching question might look like: Here are a few more matching questions you could consider: Match recordings to pictures. Students could hear a description of an image (painting, photo) and identify the description. The easiest way to do this would be to take some photos of similar scenes. Match individual words to sounds. Students hear the recording and decide which words they are hearing. Recording Choice A. "I hear you're coming"   B."It's over here" hear/here   hear/here Ordering question In this variation students listen to a story and then order events in sequence. We need to make sure that the sequence is not guessable without hearing the story. Here are the stages from our story that you could include in the question: The zookeeper grabs the mime artist. The zookeeper offers the mime artist a job. The gorilla lies on top of the neighboring cage. The lion tries to attack the gorilla. The lion tells the gorilla off. This is what the ordering question would look like: Multiple-choice question Multiple-choice questions are a good way of getting students to investigate texts in more detail. Here are some possible questions we could include in this activity. Question 1 According to the story, why does the mime artist accept a job as a gorilla? Answer 1 His work on the street isn't going well. Answer 2 The zookeeper has an urgent need for a gorilla. Answer 3 He always wanted to work as a gorilla in a zoo. Answer 4 The last gorilla quit the job.

In this article by Kae Verens, we will look at: How to install and use the DataTables plugin How to load data pages on request from the server Searching and ordering the data From time to time, you will want to show data in your website and allow the data to be sorted and searched. It always impresses me that whenever I need to do anything with jQuery, there are usually plugins available, which are exactly or close to what I need. The DataTables plugin allows sorting, filtering, and pagination on your data. Here's an example screen from the project we will build in this article. The data is from a database of cities of the world, filtered to find out if there is any place called nowhere in the world: Get your copy of DataTables from http://www.datatables.net/, and extract it into the directory datatables, which is in the same directory as the jquery.min.js file. What the DataTables plugin does is take a large table, paginate it, and allow the columns to be ordered, and the cells to be filtered. Setting up DataTables Setting up DataTables involves setting up a table so that it has distinct < thead > and < tbody > sections, and then simply running dataTable() on it. As a reminder, tables in HTML have a header and a body. The HTML elements < thead > and < tbody > are optional according to the specifications, but the DataTables plugin requires that you put them in, so that it knows what to work with. These elements may not be familiar to you, as they are usually not necessary when you are writing your web pages and most people leave them out, but DataTables needs to know what area of the table to turn into a navigation bar, and which area will contain the data, so you need to include them. Client-side code The first example in this article is purely a client-side one. We will provide the data in the same page that is demonstrating the table. Copy the following code into a file in a new demo directory and name it tables.html: <html> <head> <script src="../jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="../datatables/media/js/jquery.dataTables.js"> </script> <style type="text/css"> @import "../datatables/media/css/demo_table.css";</style> <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $('#the_table').dataTable(); }); </script> </head> <body> <div style="width:500px"> <table id="the_table"> <thead> <tr> <th>Artist / Band</th><th>Album</th><th>Song</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr><td>Muse</td> <td>Absolution</td> <td>Sing for Absolution</td> </tr> <tr><td>Primus</td> <td>Sailing The Seas Of Cheese</td> <td>Tommy the Cat</td> </tr> <tr><td>Nine Inch Nails</td> <td>Pretty Hate Machine</td> <td>Something I Can Never Have</td> </tr> <tr><td>Horslips</td> <td>The Táin</td> <td>Dearg Doom</td> </tr> <tr><td>Muse</td> <td>Absolution</td> <td>Hysteria</td> </tr> <tr><td>Alice In Chains</td> <td>Dirt</td> <td>Rain When I Die</td> </tr> <!-- PLACE MORE SONGS HERE --> </tbody> </table> </div> </body> </html> When this is viewed in the browser, we immediately have a working data table: Note that the rows are in alphabetical order according to Artist/Band. DataTables automatically sorts your data initially based on the first column. The HTML provided has a < div > wrapper around the table, set to a fixed width. The reason for this is that the Search box at the top and the pagination buttons at the bottom are floated to the right, outside the HTML table. The < div > wrapper is provided to try to keep them at the same width as the table. There are 14 entries in the HTML, but only 10 of them are shown here. Clicking the arrow on the right side at the bottom-right pagination area loads up the next page: And finally, we also have the ability to sort by column and search all data: In this screenshot, we have the data filtered by the word horslips, and have ordered Song in descending order by clicking the header twice. With just this example, you can probably manage quite a few of your lower-bandwidth information tables. By this, I mean that you could run the DataTables plugin on complete tables of a few hundred rows. Beyond that, the bandwidth and memory usage would start affecting your reader's experience. In that case, it's time to go on to the next section and learn how to serve the data on demand using jQuery and Ajax. As an example of usage, a user list might reasonably be printed entirely to the page and then converted using the DataTable plugin because, for smaller sites, the user list might only be a few tens of rows and thus, serving it over Ajax may be overkill. It is more likely, though, that the kind of information that you would really want this applied to is part of a much larger data set, which is where the rest of the article comes in! Getting data from the server The rest of the article will build up a sample application, which is a search application for cities of the world. This example will need a database, and a large data set. I chose a list of city names and their spelling variants as my data set. You can get a list of this type online by searching. The exact point at which you decide a data set is large enough to require it to be converted to serve over Ajax, instead of being printed fully to the HTML source, depends on a few factors, which are mostly subjective. A quick test is: if you only ever need to read a few pages of the data, yet there are many pages in the source and the HTML is slow to load, then it's time to convert. The database I'm using in the example is MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/). It is trivial to convert the example to use any other database, such as PostgreSQL or SQLite. For your use, here is a short list of large data sets: http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/—Links to collections of words. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Offline_Catalogs—A list of books placed online by Project Gutenburg. http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?men=stdl—A list of all the cities in the world, including populations. The reason I chose a city name list is that I wanted to provide a realistic large example of when you would use this. In your own applications, you might also use the DataTables plugin to manage large lists of products, objects such as pages or images, and anything else that can be listed in tabular form and might be very large. The city list I found has over two million variants in it, so it is an extreme example of how to set up a searchable table. It's also a perfect example of why the Ajax capabilities of the DataTables project are important. Just to see the result, I exported all the entries into an HTML table, and the file size was 179 MB. Obviously, too large for a web page. So, let's find out how to break the information into chunks and load it only as needed. Client-side code On the client side, we do not need to provide placeholder data. Simply print out the table, leaving the < tbody > section blank, and let DataTables retrieve the data from the server. We're starting a new project here, so create a new directory in your demos section and save the following into it as tables.html: <html> <head> <script src="../jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="../datatables/media/js/jquery.dataTables.js"> </script> <style type="text/css"> @import "../datatables/media/css/demo_table.css"; table{width:100%} </style> <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $('#the_table').dataTable({ 'sAjaxSource':'get_data.php' }); }); </script> </head> <body> <div style="width:500px"> <table id="the_table"> <thead> <tr> <th>Country</th> <th>City</th> <th>Latitude</th> <th>Longitude</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> </tbody> </table> </div> </body> </html> In this example, we've added a parameter to the .dataTable call, sAjaxSource, which is the URL of the script that will provide the data (the file will be named get_data.php). Server-side code On the server side, we will start off by providing the first ten rows from the database. DataTables expects the data to be returned as a two-dimensional array named aaData. In my own database, I've created a table like this: CREATE TABLE `cities` ( `ccode` char(2) DEFAULT NULL, `city` varchar(87) DEFAULT NULL, `longitude` float DEFAULT NULL, `latitude` float DEFAULT NULL, KEY `city` (`city`(5)) ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 Most of the searching will be done on city names, so I've indexed city. Initially, let's just extract the first page of information. Create a file called get_data.php and save it in the same directory as tables.html: <?php // { initialise variables $amt=10; $start=0; // } // { connect to database function dbRow($sql){ $q=mysql_query($sql); $r=mysql_fetch_array($q); return $r; } function dbAll($sql){ $q=mysql_query($sql); while($r=mysql_fetch_array($q))$rs[]=$r; return $rs; } mysql_connect('localhost','username','password'); mysql_select_db('phpandjquery'); // } // { count existing records $r=dbRow('select count(ccode) as c from cities'); $total_records=$r['c']; // } // { start displaying records echo '{"iTotalRecords":'.$total_records.', "iTotalDisplayRecords":'.$total_records.', "aaData":['; $rs=dbAll("select ccode,city,longitude,latitude from cities order by ccode,city limit $start,$amt"); $f=0; foreach($rs as $r){ if($f++) echo ','; echo '["',$r['ccode'],'", "',addslashes($r['city']),'", "',$r['longitude'],'", "',$r['latitude'],'"]'; } echo ']}'; // } In a nutshell, what happens is that the script counts how many cities are there in total, and then returns that count along with the first ten entries to the client browser using JSON as the transport.

eZ Webin For this article it is assumed that the eZ Webin package is installed as a frontend for our site. This package is very flexible and is usually used as a starting point for developing a new site. By default, it includes: A flexible layout Some useful custom content classes (blog, event, forum, article, and so on) Web 2.0 features, such as a tag cloud and comment functions Custom template operators In our project, we will extend and override the eZ Webin template in order to create the Packtmedia Magazine site and add some features needed for the project. We will see this step-by-step as we understand better how eZ Publish works. Overriding the standard page layout The page layout is the main template and defines the style of the entire site. To create a page layout template, we need to create a file named pagelayout.tpl and place it inside the templates folder of our design extension. As we said, we will work with eZ Webin. This extension doesn't use the standard page layout but overrides the standard page layout with its own custom behavior. We need to do the same overriding from the eZ Webin pagelayout.tpl. To override the template, we have to copy it in our design's extension folder placed in extension/packtmedia/design/magazine/templates/. Now open a shell and execute this: # cd /var/www/packtmediaproject/extension# cp /ezwebin/design/ezwebin/templates/pagelayout.tpl /packtmedia/design/magazine/templates/ We will use this new pagelayout.tpl file to implement the wireframe that we developed in the previous sections. Section for our project eZ Publish includes features for creating a particular view in order to add content objects inside specified sections. For example, if we take a look at our wireframe, we need to assign a different layout for rendering the Issue archive folder and its subfolders. To do this, we have to create a new section in the administration panel and associate it to the entire Issue archive subtree. After that, we can use the fetch functions to select the correct view for that section. Creating a new section To create a new section, we have to open our browser and from the site's backend, select the Setup tab from the top menu. We then need to navigate to the Sections link in the left-hand menu, and then click on the New section button. Next, we will create a new section called Archive and select the default Content structure value in the select menu. Now, a new Archive link will appear in the Sections list. We have to click on the + button to the left of the Archive link, and then select the Issue archive node, by selecting the relevant checkbox. After we have saved, click on the Select button. All of the Issue archive subfolders will be placed inside the Archive section. We have to remember the ID of this section, which we'll use to create the override rules. In this case, the section ID number is 6, as seen in the first screenshot in the Creating a new section section. Setting up the section permission access By default, eZ Publish creates private sections that only an administrator can access. To make a section public, we need to give read permission to anonymous users. To set up the rules, we have to go back to Setup tab on the top menu, and then click on the Role and policies link on the left-hand menu. Here, we have to click on the Edit button on the right-hand side of the Anonymous link, and then click on the New policy button. Next, select the content option in the Module field, and then click on the Grant access to one function button. Select the read option in the Function field, and then click on the Grant limited access button. Next, select the Anonymous option for the Section field. Click on the OK button, and then click on the OK button on the Edit <Anonymous> Role page. Now, the anonymous user can access the Archive section. In the next paragraph, we will use this section to create custom override rules. Customizing the page layout After we copy the pagelayout.tpl template into the new path, we have to work on it in order to create the three columns inside the content layout of the eZ Webin template. To do this, first of all, we have to remove the leftmost sidebar, along with the secondary navigation menu, inside the Archive section that we have created. Open the pagelayout.tpl file that you have copied into your favorite IDE, and take a look at the code. At line 62 we will find the following code: {if and( is_set( $content_info.class_identifier ), ezini('MenuSettings', 'HideLeftMenuClasses', 'menu.ini' )|contains($content_info.class_identifier ) )}{set $pagestyle = 'nosidemenu noextrainfo'} Here, eZ Webin hides the side menu if the content class belongs to the array returned by the ezini operator. We now need to extend the IF sentence and add a control to the section ID, by using the following code: {if or(and( is_set( $content_info.class_identifier ), ezini('MenuSettings', 'HideLeftMenuClasses', 'menu.ini' )|contains($content_info.class_identifier ) ), $module_result.section_id|eq(6))}{set $pagestyle = 'nosidemenu noextrainfo'} As we can see, this code will now check to see if the browsed section has an ID equal to 6 (that is, the archive section ID that we previously created) and if it has, will hide the unnecessary sidebar. CSS editing Luckily, the entire template code of eZ Webin is strongly semantic and all of the elements have their own IDs and classes. Thanks to this, we can change a lot of things by simply working on the CSS. By default, the CMS uses six CSSes. These are: core.css: this is the global stylesheet where all of the standard tag styles for eZ Publish are defined; usually, this file is overridden by all of the others webstyletoolbar.css: this stylesheet is imported for the frontend web toolbar that is used for editing the content pagelayout.css: this is where all of the default styles of the global pagelayout are defined content.css: this is where all the default styles of the content classes are defined site-colors.css: this file is used to override the pagelayout.css to skin a site differently classes-colors.css: this file is used to override the default styles defined by the content.css file To edit the CSS, we have to copy the original eZ Webin stylesheet from the /var/www/packtmediaproject/extension/ezwebin/design/ezwebin/stylesheets folder to our design directory and then to execute the following commands: # cd /var/www/packtmediaproject/extension/# cp -rf ezwebin/design/ezwebin/stylesheets/* packtmedia/design/magazine/stylesheets/ Now, every time that we want to change the stylesheet, we have to remember to edit the CSS files in the design/magazine/stylesheets/ directory of our extension. Creating a new style package In eZ Publish, as we did for extension, it's possible to create a portable style package, so we can share and reuse our custom style in other sites. We can do this by navigating to the backend admin site and uploading the new stylesheet that we want to use. First, we have to create our CSS files by using our favorite CSS editor; we have to remember that they will override the default styles, so we only need to add the lines that we want to change. After we create the new stylesheet files, we have to open the browser, click on the Setup tab, and then click on the Package link in the left-hand sidebar. The system will ask us where we want to create our new package. We will select the local repository and click on the Create new package button. eZ Publish will then ask us which kind of package we want to create. We have to select the Site style wizard, and then click on the Create new package button. We can now choose a thumbnail for the style that we are uploading, or continue without it. After selecting the thumbnail, the wizard will ask us to choose the CSS file that we previously created. Select it, and then click on the Next button. With the wizard, we will also upload one or more images, for example a new logo file, or other images related to the CSS. To not upload files, we simply have to click on the Next button without selecting a file in the form. We have to remember that all of the images that we upload will be saved in a subfolder named images, which will be placed in the same directory as the stylesheet. This will be useful when we need to set the relative path of the images used inside the CSS. We can now add the package information and export it to our PC (if required). The new style package will automatically be installed in the eZ Publish package folder. It will be accessible from the Design tab, via the sidebar's Look and Feel link. If we select the package and clear the cache automatically, it will be applied to the frontend. Summary In this article, we learned the basics of the templating system of eZ Publish. We worked on template's function and operator, and also learned how to extend the default WYSIWYG editor of eZ Publish. Moreover, we created the site wireframe and learned how the design overriding feature works. We also created a new stylesheet package, and applied it to our extension.

What is the siteaccess system? To override eZ Publish's default configuration, we need to create a collection of configuration settings called siteaccess. The role of a siteaccess is to indicate to eZ which database, design, and var directory should be used for a particular context. With siteaccess it is possible to use the same content and different designs (for example, when creating a mobile version of our site) or do the opposite (for example, managing a multilingual site where the template doesn't change but the content does). It's also possible to create an administration siteaccess, where we can manage any kind of content, such as users, media files and, of course, the articles, or a frontend siteaccess that is the website, where we can only view the public published content. A typical eZ publish site consists of two siteaccesses: a public interface for visitors and a restricted interface for editors. In this case, both siteaccesses use the same content, but different designs. Whereas the administration siteaccess would most likely use the built-in administration design, the public siteaccess would probably use a custom design. The following illustration, taken from the official eZ Publish documentation, shows this scenario: Usually, in big projects it is also useful to have two additional siteaccesses: a staging siteaccess and a developing siteaccess. The first is used in a staging environment to make frequent deployments of modifications that can be tested by the customer (in this case, the siteaccess uses a different database but the same design as for the public and admin siteaccesses). The second one, instead, is used by developers on their local machine (this siteaccess uses a local database, but once again uses the same design as for the public and admin siteaccesses). A single eZ publish installation can host a virtually unlimited number of sites by simply adding new siteaccesses, designs, and databases. Siteaccess folder structure The configuration settings for siteaccesses are located inside a dedicated subfolder within the /settings/siteaccess folder. The name of the subfolder is the actual name of the siteaccess. It is very important to remember that a siteaccess name can only contain letters, numbers, and underscores. The following illustration shows a setup with two siteaccesses: admin and public. When a siteaccess is in use, eZ publish reads the configuration file in the following sequence: Default configuration settings: /settings/*.ini Siteaccess settings: /settings/siteaccess/[name_of_siteaccess]/*.ini.append.php Global overrides: /settings/override/*.ini.append.php eZ Publish will first read the default configuration settings. Then, it will determine which siteaccess to use based on the rules that are defined in the global override for site.ini /settings/override/site.ini.append.php. When it knows which siteaccess has to be used, it will go into the correct siteaccess folder and read the configuration files that belong to that siteaccess. The settings of the siteaccess will override the default configuration settings. For example, if a siteaccess uses a database called packtmediaproject_test, the system will find this and automatically use the specified database when an incoming request is processed. Finally, eZ Publish reads the configuration files in the global override directory. The settings in the global override directory will override all other settings. So, if a database called packtmediaproject is specified in the global override directory for site.ini, then eZ publish will attempt to use that database regardless of what is specified in the siteaccess settings. If a setting is not overridden either by the siteaccess, or from within a global override, then the default setting will be used. The default settings are set by the .ini files located in the /settings directory. The following figure illustrates how the system reads the configuration files, using the site.ini file as an example:                                                                                             Creating a siteaccess for dev, staging, and production environments Once we have finished installing eZ Publish, we'll find a folder called setting/siteaccess, with the default siteaccess automatically configured. In our case we'll find these folders: admin: This folder usually isn't used as siteaccess, but it contains a standard configuration file that can be used to set up the administration panel setup: This folder contains all of the configuration files that are used during the installation process ezwebin_site: This is where the main design is imported directly from the eZ.no site for the package eZ Webin ita, eng, fre: Last but not least, the ita, eng, and fre folders have the configuration files used by the site to enable internationalization and localization The ezwebin_site_admin is created by the webmin site package, and contains all of the configuration files for the administration panel. Enterprise siteaccess schema In an enterprise development process, it is very important to have four more siteaccesses: dev dev_panel staging staging_panel The siteaccesses dev and dev_panel will be used as a development playground installation, which can be used by the development team members, with their own configuration parameters, such as database connection, path, and debug file. This will help them to test different configuration parameters or extensions without impacting the production site. The siteaccesses staging and staging_panel will be used as a staging arena that can be used by a customer to evaluate new functionality before it is released to production. Usually, the staging installation is installed on a clone of the production server, to make sure that everything works in the same way. In our case, we will work on the same server to better understand how to create the different siteaccesses. All siteacccesses will have some configuration files in common, and sometimes these have to assign the same value to the parameters specified inside them. For example, if you need to create a new language siteacccess, you'll need to copy the same module configuration files to be sure that they will work in the same way for all of the languages. In this case, it will be useful to create a symbolic link from one siteaccess to another. If you don't know what a Linux symbolic link is, you can think of it as a virtual pointer to a real file, like a Windows XP shortcut.

eZ Publish templating In the first part of this article, we will introduce the basics of the eZ Publish templating system, which will help us to better understand the rest of the article Templating eZ Publish has its own templating system based on the decoupling of layout and content. This will help us to assign a custom layout to any content object in different sections. Moreover, just as other templating platforms, such as Smarty (http://www.smarty.net), eZ Publish has its own markup to help developers with control structure operations, subtemplating, and on-the-fly content editing. It also exposes a particular function to fetch and filter content from a database. The official eZ Publish website has a constant, up-to-date reference with the entire templating markup. We suggest you to use the following link every time that you need to know more details about the available arguments:http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/4_0/templates/ The templating markup All of the eZ Publish templating code should be placed between curly brackets. When the CMS will parse our template file and find the curly brackets, it will start executing the related code. Escaping the curly bracketsIf we need to use curly brackets, for example to write a javascript function inside our template, we need to use the {literal} operator. {literal}<script type="text/javascript">function alertMe() { window.alert('Harkonen approaching!');}</script>{/literal} Control structure operators We can divide these function into two main families: Conditional (IF-THEN-ELSE) Looping (FOR-FOREACH-WHILE) Whereas the first one should be used to change the template behavior according to some predefined condition, the other one will help us to seek and manage array and content structures. Conditional control Conditional control is sometimes useful for changing the output when some data is received by the system. For example, we would need a different CSS class for a particular value, or to change the <div> class, if the current month is the same as the one displayed, as shown below: {def $current_month=currentdate()|datetime(custom, '%F')}{if $node.name|eq($current_month) }<span class="this-month">{else}<span class="default-month">{/if}{undef $current_month} In the first line, we define a $current_month variable that has a value of the name of the month (for example, October), retrieved by the datetime() operator. Then we use the IF conditional control to choose the correct class. In the last line, we delete the variable previously created, by releasing it from system memory. Loop control As stated above, the loop control structure can be used to iterate through an array. We can, for example, create an unordered list (<ul>) from an array of items. <ul>{foreach $items as $item} <li>{node_view_gui content_node=$item view=line}</li>{/foreach}</ul> This will be rendered as: <ul> <li>1st item</li> <li>2nd item</li> <li>3rd item</li> ...</ul> As you can see, the FOREACH structure is similar to the PHP structure. In this example, the most interesting line is the definition of the list object. This we can literally read as: render the content node (node_view_gui) from a specific node (content_node=$issue) using the line view template (view=line). Fetch functions With the fetch functions, we can retrieve all of the information about a content object for a module. The fetch functions can also be used to create custom queries to retrieve only the information we need, and not everything. eZ Publish exposes many fetch functions, which can be read about on the documentation site at http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/4_0/reference/template_fetch_functions The most important, and most used, fetch functions are those regarding the content, sections, and user modules. For example, we can fetch the root content object by using the following code in our template: {$object = fetch('content', 'object', hash('id', '1'))} We can then use the $object variable to display the object inside the HTML code. Generic template functions and operators The CMS gives us a lot of functions and operators, all of them described in the reference manual of the eZ System documentation site. As a thumb rule, we should remember that to execute a particular function, we have to use the following syntax: {function_name parameter1=value1 ... parameterN=valueN } All parameters are separated by spaces and can be specified in no particular order. If we want to manage the operators, we have to remember that they accept the parameters passed in a specific order, separated by a comma. Moreover, an operator should handle a parameter passed to it with a pipe (|). {$piped_parameter|my_operator( parameter1, ..., parameterN ) } Every time we see a pipe after a variable, we have to remember that we are passing a value to an operator. We used the datetime() operator in the previous example for the conditional control functionality. As a reference to API functions and operators, you can use the official variable documentation that is constantly updated on the eZ System site:http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/4_0/reference/template_operatorshttp://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/4_0/reference/template_functions Layout variables By default, the page layout template can access some of the variables passed by the CMS. These variables, named Layout variables, can be used to render system and user information, or to change the output. These variables are automatically configured by eZ Publish when it analyzes and executes the code related to a view. One of the most important variables is $module_result, which contains the results generated by the module and the view that is being executed. A module is an HTTP interface that interacts with eZ Publish. A module consists of a set of views that contain the code to be executed. For example, if we call the following URL, the system executes the login view code of the user module:http://www.example.com/index.php/user/login. As an API reference, you can use the official variable documentation that is constantly updated on the eZ System site:http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/4_0/templates/the_pagelayout/variables_in_pagelayout Overriding a template eZ Publish offers a set of standard templates that are useful, but they cannot cover all the possible design needs. To solve this issue, the CMF provides a fallback system that allows us to load different templates based on specific rules. This system is usually referred to as overriding, and allows us to change the template for each module's view by overriding the default template when the user is in a particular context. Embedding HTML inside the WYSIWYG XML editor, pt.2 We have to override a standard behavior of eZ Publish to create a generic HTML block inside the WYSIWYG XML editor. We use a content style named html for the online editor and we will work on it for the frontend to render it correctly. First, we have to create a file named literal.tpl and place it in the design folder of our extension. The following code will do exactly what we need: # mkdir -p /var/www/packtmediaproject/extension/packtmedia/design/magazine/templates/datatype/view/ezxmltags/# cd /var/www/packtmediaproject/extension/packtmedia/design/magazine/templates/datatype/view/ezxmltags/# touch literal.tpl Next, we will open the literal.tpl file in our preferred IDE. Now we will add the code that will, by default, render everything surrounded by a <pre> tag and the raw HTML code, if the class is html: {if ne( $classification, 'html' )} <pre {if ne( $classification|trim, '' )} class="{$classification|wash}"{/if}>{$content|wash( xhtml )}</pre>{else} {$content}{/if} This code will check to see if the $classification variable is different from the "html" string in order to add the <pre> tag and then, again, it will add a class attribute to the <pre> tag if the $classification variable is not null. To use it, we only need to reset the cache from the shell prompt by using the following command: cd /var/www/packmediaproject/php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-all --purge The ezcache.php file is a PHP shell script that can be used to clear and manage the eZ Publish cache. This file has many parameters, which can be viewed by using the --help parameter. Creating a new design Before starting work on the eZ Webin template code, we need to create a wireframe in order to decide on the layout structure. We will use this structure to override the standard layout files. A wireframe is a basic visual guide that is used in web design to suggest the structure of a website and the relationships between its pages. Wireframe editorsThere are a lot of commercial and free wireframe editors. To create our site's wireframes, we will use the Firefox plugin called Pencil(http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/).We have chosen Pencil because it is open source and works on every platform that runs the Firefox browser.If you need something more complete, you should take a look at Balsamiq (http://www.balsamiq.com/) or at OmniGraffle (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/) if you have an Apple computer. Our site will have at least six different page layouts: The homepage The issue page, where we will display the cover and the articles list The issue archive page, by month and by years The staff profile page, where we will display the latest articles that the editor has written, along with his profile The article and the forum pages, with the default layout based on the eZ Webin design Now we will illustrate the first four layouts because we will work on them, overriding their standard eZ Webin layout. The homepage Starting from the homepage, we can see that the site will have, in the top-left corner, a logo for the magazine and a place-holder for a banner. Under these, we will have the main navigation menu and the main content area. We have chosen a three-column layout in order to easily manage the content that we want to show. In the homepage, the first column will show the latest news and the middle column will show the information and cover of the latest issue. The last column will have two boxes—one with the most important article from the latest issue and the other with the forum thread. Issue page The issue page will show some information of a specific magazine issue. In this page, the middle box of the homepage will shift towards the left, and in the right column there will be the highlighted article for the issue. At the bottom of the page, we will find all of the other articles. The issue archive We have to remember that our magazine is released monthly, so we need an archive page where we can collect all of the past issues. The issue archive page, which can be reached by clicking on the main navigation menu, will again show some information from the latest issue. (We need to sell our articles!) The rightmost column of the template will show all of the covers for the current or selected year. At the bottom of the page, we will create a box with links to the past issues grouped by years and months. The staff profile page The staff profile page will display information from a staff profile, such as his avatar, biography, and the latest articles that he has written. The staff profile page will have three columns. The first column will show information regarding the editor's profile, the middle column will show all of the articles the editor has written (paged five by five) and the third will be used for banners or other images. >> Continue Reading: Creating a Design with eZ Publish 4 Templating System: Part 2

These instructions are Windows based but Linux users should have no difficulty adjusting them for their environment. Checking your installation If you already have SOA Suite and JDeveloper installed, confirm that you have the correct version and configuration by following the steps in the section below called Testing your installation. In addition, you may want to complete the items in the section called Additional actions. Finally, you must complete the section called Configuration to run a tutorial. What you will need and where to get it This installation requires 3 GB or more available memory. If you have less memory, try separating the installation of the database, the servers, and JDeveloper onto different machines. Memory and Disk Space requirements This installation requires 3 GB or more available memory. If you have less memory, try separating the installation of the database, the servers, and JDeveloper onto different machines. The installation process requires about 12 GB of disk space. After installation, you can delete the files used by installation to save about 4 GB. As you can see, you are installing a lot of software with a large memory and disk footprint. Running your disk defragmentation program now, before you start downloading and installing, can significantly improve install time as well as performance and disk space usage later on. Downloading files Download all the software to get started. In the following steps, save all downloaded files to c:stageSOA. This document assumes that path. If you save them somewhere else then make sure there are no spaces in your path and adjust accordingly when c:stageSOA is referenced in this document. Go to: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/soa/soasuite/index.html, and download the following from SOA Suite 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.1.0) to c:stageSOA: WebLogic Server:wls1031_win32.exe Repository Creation Utility:ofm_rcu_win32_11.1.1.1.0_disk1_1of1.zip SOA Suite:ofm_soa_generic_11.1.1.1.0_disk1_1of1.zip JDeveloper Studio, base install:jdevstudio11111install.jar Unzip the SOA Suite ZIP file to c:stageSOA. Unzip the RCU ZIP file to c:stageSOA. Additional Files needed: Tutorial Files: In Chapter 3, you were directed to download the files needed for this tutorial. Do that now as some are used during installation. You can download the files from here:http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/soa/soasuite/11gthebook.html. Unzip the tutorial ZIP file to c:stageSOA. SOA Extension for JDeveloper: You will get this later using the JDeveloper update option. Oracle Service Bus: When you are ready to do the Oracle Service Bus (OSB) lab, you will download the install file to install OSB. Checking your database Having your database up and running is the most important pre-requisite for installing SOA Suite. Read the following bulleted requirements carefully to be sure you are ready to begin the SOA Suite installation: You need one of: Oracle XE Universal database version 10.2.0.1 Oracle 10g database version 10.2.0.4+ Oracle 11g database version 11.1.0.7+ You cannot use any other database version in 11gR1 (certification of additional databases is on the roadmap). Specifically, you cannot use XE Standard, it must be Universal. We have seen problems with installing XE when a full 10g database is already installed in the environment. The Windows registry sometimes gets the database file location confused. It is recommended to pick one or the other to avoid such issues. If you need to uninstall XE, make sure that you follow the instructions in Oracle Database Express Edition Installation Guide 10g  Release 2 (10.2) for Microsoft Windows Part Number B25143-03, Section 7, Deinstalling Oracle Database XE (http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B25329_01/doc/install.102/b25143/toc.htm). If you need to uninstall 10.2, be sure to follow the instructions in Oracle Database Installation Guide 10g Release 2 (10.2) for Microsoft Windows (32-Bit) Part Number B14316-04, Section 6, Removing Oracle Database Software(http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/install.102/b14316/ deinstall.htm). Optional: Install OracleXEUniv.exe—recommended for a small footprint database. Make sure that you read step 1 above before installing. You can get XE from here: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/ xe/index.html. When you are using XE, you will see a warning when you install the database schema that this database version is too old. You can safely ignore this warning as it applies only to production environments. If needed, configure Oracle XE Universal. When you are using Oracle XE, you must update database parameters if you have never done this for your database installation. You only have to do this once after installing. Set the processes parameter to >=200 using the following instructions. C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1user_projectsdomains domain1binsetSOADomainEnv.cmdCODE 1sqlplus sys/welcome1@XE as sysdbaSQL> show parameter sessionSQL> show parameter processesSQL> alter system reset sessions scope=spfile sid='*';SQL> alter system set processes=200 scope=spfile;SQL> shutdown immediateSQL> startupSQL> show parameter sessionSQL> show parameter processes The shutdown command can take a few minutes and sometimes the shutdown/startup command fails. In that case, simply restart the XE service in the Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services dialog after setting up your parameters. Checking your browser Oracle SOA Suite 11gR1 has specific browser version requirements. Enterprise Manager requires Firefox 3 or IE 7. Firefox 3—get a portable version, such as the one available from http://portableapps.com, if you want it to co-exist peacefully with your Firefox 2 installation. Firefox 2 and IE 6 are not supported and will not work. BAM requires IE 7. Beware of certain IE 7 plugins that can create conflicts (a few search plugins have proved to be incompatible with BAM). IE 8 is not supported with 11gR1 (but is on the roadmap). IE 6 has a few issues and Firefox will not work with BAM Studio. Checking your JDK If you are going to install WebLogic server and JDeveloper on the same machine, you will use the JDK from WebLogic for JDeveloper too. However, if you are going to install on two machines, you need Java 1.6 update 11 JDK for JDeveloper. JDK 1.6 update 11—from the Sun downloads page: http://java.sun.com/products/archive/ You must use Java 1.6 update 11. Update 12 does not work.

Additional actions In the following section, you will be performing additional configuration that is optional but will greatly improve performance and usability in the context of the development work you are about to start. Setting memory limits Review the memory settings. This value is dependent on your machine resources and may need to be adjusted for your machine. Allocating less memory for startup will give you better performance on a machine with less memory available. This value is appropriate for a 3 GB memory machine or less. Edit the SOA domain environment file found here (make sure you have the SOA Domain environment file): C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1user_projectsdomains domain1binsetSOADomainEnv.cmd Set memory values: set DEFAULT_MEM_ARGS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m Starting and stopping Now it's time to start your servers. You can start them using the provided script or you can start them separately. Instructions for both methods are included. Starting First set boot.properties and then start the servers. Before you start, set the boot properties so you are not prompted to log in during server startup. Copy C:pobinboot.properties to C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1user_projectsdomainsdomain1. Edit the copied file to reflect the password for your configuration (entered during domain configuration). The first time the server is started this file is encrypted and copied to the server locations.You can start the servers one at a time or you can use the start_all script to start the admin and SOA managed servers (not BAM). To start them one at a time instead, skip to step 6. Copy the startup script to the Oracle directory: C:pobinstart_all.cmd toC:OracleMiddleware Edit the copied file to reflect your environment. Open a command window and start your servers as shown. You must specify how many seconds to wait after starting the admin server before starting the managed server. The admin server must be in the RUNNING state before the managed server starts (see the following screenshot). Try 180 seconds and adjust as necessary. You will need more time the first time you start after a machine reboot than for subsequent restarts: cd C:OracleMiddlewarestart_all.cmd 180 Your servers are now starting automatically so you can skip steps 6-10. Jump to step 12 to continue. To start the servers manually, continue with the following steps. Open three command windows, one for the WebLogic admin server, one for the SOA managed server, and one for the BAM managed server (only start BAM when you need it for a BAM lab). Start the Admin Server first: cd C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1user_projectsdomainsdomain1startWebLogic.cmd Wait for the Admin Server to finish starting up. It takes a few minutes—watch for status RUNNING in the log console window: Start the SOA managed server in the second command window. This start script is in the bin directory. You can also run it directly from the bin directory: cd C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1user_projectsdomainsdomain1binstartManagedWebLogic.cmd soa_server1 When prompted, enter the username weblogic and password welcome1. If you did step 1 and set boot.properties, you will not be prompted. The server is started when you see the message, INFO: FabricProviderServlet.stateChanged SOA Platform is running and accepting requests. Start the BAM managed server in the third command window—do this only when needed for the BAM lab: cd C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1user_projectsdomainsdomain1binstartManagedWebLogic.cmd bam_server1 When prompted, enter the user name weblogic and password welcome1. If you did step 1 and set boot.properties, you will not be prompted. Watch for the RUNNING status. Console URLs Log in with weblogic/welcome1 for all consoles: Weblogic console: http://localhost:7001/console Enterprise Manager console: http://localhost:7001/em SOA worklist: http://localhost:8001/integration/worklistapp B2B console: http://localhost:8001/b2b BAM (must use IE browser): http://localhost:9001/OracleBAM Stopping servers Whenever you need to stop the servers complete the following: Stop the managed servers first by entering Ctrl+C in the command window. Wait until stopped. Stop the admin server by entering Ctrl+C in the command window. WebLogic Server console settings There are two suggested changes to make in the WebLogic Server console. First, you will be viewing application deployments often using the WebLogic server console. This is a lot more convenient if you change the settings not to show libraries as this makes the list a lot shorter and you can find what you need more quickly. Start the WebLogic Admin Server (WLS) if it is not already running. Log in to the WLS console http://localhost:7001/console. Click on Deployments in the left navigation bar. Click on Customize this table at the top of the Deployments table. Change the number of rows per page to 100 (there are only about 30). Select the checkbox to exclude libraries and click on Apply. Second, when the server is started, internal applications like the WLS console are not deployed completely and you see a slight delay when you first access the console. You saw this delay just now when you first accessed the console URL. You can change this behavior to deploy internal applications at startup instead and then you don't get the delay when you access the console. This is convenient for demos (if you want to show the console) and also if you tend to use the console each time you start up the server. Click on domain1 in the left navigation bar in the WLS console. Click on Configuration | General tab. Deselect Enable on-demand deployment of internal applications checkbox. Click on the Save button. EM settings for development The Enterprise Manager can provide different levels of information about composite runtime instances based on a property setting. During development, it is helpful to have a higher setting. These settings are not used on production machines except when specifically needed for debugging purposes as there is a performance cost. Start your servers if they are not already running. Log in to the EM console at http://localhost:7001/em. Right-click on the soa-infra (soa_server1) in the left navigation bar to open the SOA menu and select SOA Administration | Common Properties. Select Audit Level: Development and select the checkbox for Capture Composite Instance State. Click on Apply and click on Yes. If you need to uninstall JDeveloper and servers If you need to uninstall everything, complete the following: First save anything from C:OracleMiddlewarejdev_11gR1jdevelopermywork that you want to keep as this directory will be deleted. Run Uninstall from the program menu to completion for both JDeveloper and WLS. Delete C:OracleMiddlewarejdev_11gR1 and C:OracleMiddlewarehome_11gR1. If you get an error message about not being able to delete because a name or path is too long, change the names of the composite directories within home_ 11gR1user_projectsdomainsdomain1deployed-composites to abcd and try deleting again. Delete program groups from C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuPrograms: Oracle Fusion Middleware 11.1.1.1.0 Oracle SOA 11g - Home1 Oracle WebLogic Complete the Dropping existing schema section earlier in this article to clean up the database.

Managing your users: The User Manager The User Manager within the administration interface gives you an overview of all the registered users of your website and the ability to manage them as needed. Only users registered as Administrator or Super Administrator can make changes here. Creating a new user The Party People website has only one administration user and we want to add a new user who has backend manager access. As the administrator, you can do this by accessing the User Manager from within the administration. Click Site | User Manager in the top menu or click the User Manager icon on the front page of the administration page. To add a new user, click the New icon on the top right toolbar. Type in a name, a username, an e-mail address, and a password into the Name, Username, and New Password input boxes, as shown in the following screenshot. Verify the password to be sure you have entered the correct string. Click on the user group that you want to allocate them to from the selection in the Group window. Your choice will obviously depend upon the content and access level you want them to have. We'll select Manager for our site. Click No for Block User, as we are setting up a new one. Select Yes or No for Receive System E-mails. Save your new user. Adding a new user as a site contact Before you add your new user to your contact list, consider whether they fit into the established contact categories. If they don't, you can add a new Category. Do this before you add the new contact. Adding a new contact Category Create contact Categories based on what role the user is to take within your site. It is described in the following steps: Select Components from the top menu, then Contacts and Manage Contacts to see the Contact Manager. To add a new contact Category, select that link. In the new Category screen, give the category a name and complete the details as shown in the following screenshot. Add a brief description if you need to. Save your new category.

The big picture: Who are users? Users are people who have registered their details with you and are allocated access to certain resources and information, depending on their role within the scope of your website. They can be administrators and content editors/contributors or customers who purchase goods and services from you. This is different to a casual visitor who lands up at the frontend of your site because he/she has your website address or hopefully has found you through a search engine. You may be able to turn these casual visitors into registered users if you have something to offer them. Say you want to provide special content to only those who are genuinely interested in your services or products. Encouraging them to register allows you to collect contact information (it's best to ask only for the most relevant details, as people generally don't want to give out more than they need to) and keep in touch. Hopefully, you can convert it into an ongoing relationship with sales and benefits for your business. Generating interest in your products and services is important here and suggesting some level of exclusivity can make your customers feel privileged in terms of being privy to information not readily available to just anyone. Put simply though, users are your website visitors, content contributors, and administrators. Depending on their role, they are essentially divided into two broad groups with smaller sub-categories within them. Frontend users Frontend users do not have access to the administration interface and can only access material and information through the frontend. They can be: Registered users, authors, editors, and publishers who have privileges to edit and update information. Guests or casual visitors to your site. These visitors come to your site anonymously and unregistered. People who register their details in order to transact with you. Frontend user definitions When a user is registered with you, they are allocated to a group, as per the settings applied within the Global Configuration. They can be any one of the following: Registered Users are visitors to your site who have registered themselves in order to view certain content or transact with you. Authors can submit new content articles to the site with approval, but can't edit existing articles. A publisher or someone higher must approve these submissions. Editors can submit and edit new content articles. A publisher or someone higher must also approve these entries. Publishers  can submit new content articles, edit existing articles, and publish the articles. None of these user groups have access to the administration interface, and can only edit or add material from the frontend. Administration users Administration users can edit and update the content of your site by logging into the administration control panel and are those who: Have Administrator Manager or Super Administrator access. Each of these roles has specific access. For example, the Manager profile does not have access to the User Manager section. Have various levels of access within the administration control panel, the highest level being Super Administrator. Editing the frontend Login Form From the frontend of your website, the Login Form allows users to access content that is potentially specialized and only visible to them, or to transact with you if you're running an e-commerce site. You can also customize your Login Form by adding text and a link to create new accounts. Lost usernames and passwords The Forgot your password and Forgot your username links are important not only for users to fi nd their password or username again, but also to help you to manage users. Rather than unnecessarily creating a new account if they have lost their login details, having an e-mail prompt sent to reset their details is a more efficient approach. Clicking the link for either will generate a request to enter an e-mail address. A confi rmation e-mail will be sent with a verification token or string of characters which allows the user to enter and reset their password. Alternatively, their username will be emailed to them.      

Community features—gravatars Gravatars are Globally Recognized Avatars. They allow people to carry the same avatar from site to site without having to register at each site and take the time to upload an image. Gravatars are supported by IntenseDebate by default. If a user has a gravatar and gives the email address that the gravatar is tied to when they make a comments, then the gravatar will be displayed beside that comment. Since version 2.5, WordPress MU has had gravatar support built in. Let's add gravatars to our post pages. Time for action – gravatars in WordPress MU Open your theme's index.php file. In our case we are editng the Blue Zinfandel theme. Find the secton that begins with < div class="contentdate" > . Remove all markup up to the closing tag and insert the following code: <?php $email = $authordata->user_email; $hash = md5($email); $uri = 'http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/' . $hash . '?d=identicon&r =any&size=80'; $headers = wp_get_http_headers($uri); if (!is_array($headers)) : echo "<h3>"; echo the_time('M'); echo "</h3><h4>"; echo the_time('j'); echo "</h4>";Stcky Features for your Blog Network[ 142 ] elseif (isset($headers["content-disposition"]) ) : echo get_avatar( $authordata->user_email, $size = '50') ; else : echo "<h3>"; echo the_time('M'); echo "</h3><h4>"; echo the_time('j'); echo "</h4>"; endif; ?> Save and upload the file. If you wish to use gravatars on user blogs, you will also need to edit the user's version of the theme file. Now, if a post author has a gravatar, it will be displayed in the title secton of their posts. If not, the default Date of Post box will appear instead. What just happened? We have used the built-in WordPress MU gravatars function to display a member's gravatar in the title section of any posts they make. As the default No Gravatar Set image is rather boring, our code checks to see if the author in question has a gravatar. If the author does not, or if the Gravatars web site is not accessible for any reason, then we display the normal post date icon instead. Gravatars provide a way for people to carry their identity from site to site. Showing a recognizable face for your site's authors builds recognition among readers and helps readers and blog authors to build a relationship with each other. You might be wondering why the output in the previous code is broken into several echo statements. I have chosen that method purely because I find it more readable. You could save yourself some typing if you built an echo statement similar to this one: echo "<h3>". the_time('M')."</h3>" Have a go hero – gravatars and themes The code used to edit the SlayerCafe blog theme was very simplistic. The theme you are using for your site may be structured differently. In the theme for the SlayerCafe, the calendar icon that shows the date of the latest post is coded into the CSS file. The change I have made to the index.php file does not prevent the calendar icon from being loaded. The gravatar image simply loads over the top of it. Try reworking the theme file to correct this. One way to do so would be to create a copy of the contentdate class in the styles.css file, which does not load the calendar image. Call the new class contentgravatar and then create different < div > tags to be displayed depending on whether you wish to show the calendar or the gravatar. Encouraging sign-ups with downloads for members only If you offer file downloads, restricting some of them to only members is a good way to encourage people to sign up. It is a good idea to offer some file downloads to visitors who are just passing through so that you can build up their trust, as some people are uncomfortable giving out their email address to an unknown web site. Also, some people do not want to take the time to register to download a file, especially if they don't know if it is going to be a worthwhile download. A good compromise is to offer some files to everyone and other files for members only, or to offer some content on your blog and then a download in a more convenient form. As an example, some of the Watchers on SlayerCafe could run tutorials about demon identification and slaying techniques. They may offer text and image versions as blog posts, with an MP3 version of the lesson that registered Slayers could download to listen to while they are on patrol. This is likely to have a high conversion rate in terms of registrations; the visiting Slayers will hopefully be impressed by the quality of the information in the tutorials and want to download the audio version. One useful plugin that restricts downloads to registered users only is the User Only Downloads plugin available at http://wpmudev.org/project/user-only-downloads. This plugin is very easy to use. For some reason the author uploaded the plugin to WPMU Dev as a text file, so you will need to rename it to a .php file before you can use it. Just upload the renamed file to your mu-plugins folder and tell your users that they can restrict file downloads to members only by using the following tag in their posts: [user_download URL] Logged in users will see a download link, while everyone else will see a bold message telling them that they need to be logged in to download files.  

What do people mean by "sticky"? If you have ever ran a blog or web site before, you may have noticed that it's fairly easy to get a spike in traffic by submitting a good story to a few social bookmarking sites or by being lucky enough to get a link to one of your posts from a much larger site. The problem is that after a day or so, when the submissions fall off the front page, it's likely your traffic will die down to its usual levels again. Some site owners fall into the trap of chasing after the next traffic spike, using "linkbait" articles with intentionally controversial titles and content, when they should really be focusing on quality content, improving the site, and working towards sustained growth. Many bloggers submit their site to StumbleUpon.com. StumbleUpon is a web service where users can enter their interests, and be sent to a random site that will match those interests. Those users can then either give a "thumbs up" to the site they are sent to indicating that they like the site or a "thumbs down" if they don't like it. Those votes are used to improve future suggestions and increase the chances of the next site that they "Stumble Upon" being one that they are interested in. Other popular sites for increasing traffic include Technorati (a site that measures the "authority" of a blog based on how many other bloggers are linking to it), and the news/story-related sites Reddit (a general interest site with everything from politics to gadgets-related news), and Digg (a site with a focus on tech and gaming news). A sticky blog is one that doesn't just attract new visitors, it keeps them. Instead of having a visitor click through from a link on Technorati or visit by using the Stumble! feature of StumbleUpon, skim the page they land on and then leave, a sticky blog would make that visitor stay around a little longer. Ideally, visitors would read the article they were interested in and then find themselves intrigued enough to read more articles. They may comment on some articles and then keep returning to read answers to their comments. Or, they may decide to subscribe to the blog so that they can read future posts. A sticky site encourages readers to become engaged with the community, resulting in long-term increases in traffic. When new readers arrive at the site for the first time, they get involved themselves and keep coming back. They may also tell their friends or link to the site from their own sites, giving you free promotion. Letting readers and authors communicate Interesting content is vital, but one of the best ways to get people coming back to your blog network is to give them a chance to interact with the site's authors and with each other. This not only makes the readers feel valued, it also opens up a dialogue that encourages repeat visitors. Contact forms Providing visitors with a way to contact you privately is useful for several reasons. The visitor may want to discuss advertising opportunities, submit some news you may be interested in, or ask for help with a problem they have accessing part of the site. You could post your email address on the site, but this makes you vulnerable to spam attacks. A contact form is a safer way to allow your visitors to contact you. Time for action – setting up contact forms Let's set up a contact form: Download Contact Form 7 from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/. To install, upload the contents of the archive file to /wp-content/plugins. Activate the plugin and go to the settings page (Tools | Contact Form 7). You can also access the page by clicking Settings under the plugin name, which appears on the Manage Plugins page. You can add new fields using the Generate Tag drop-down menu. Further down the admin page you will see options to set error messages (such as the message users will see if they miss out a required field, or if they try to upload a file that is too big). Once you have created the form, make a note of the tag at the top of the screen (in our case this was [contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"] ). Create a new page (Pages | Add New) called Contact Us, add a short message to the page, and then paste the contact form tag into the page. Depending on the theme you are using, you may need to add the Pages widget to your sidebar so that visitors can find the new page. Your page should look something like this: What just happened? Contact Form 7 is a powerful contact form tool that supports CAPTCHAs (via the Really Simple CAPTCHA  plugin), file uploads, drop-down menus, and more. You can define multiple contact forms and have each one submit to a different email address. This could be useful if you wish to have different people contacted for, say, advertising queries, news submissions, and tech support. You can also have a contact form submit to multiple email addresses. So, as well as having the relevant person receive a copy of each message, the site administrator could ensure they receive a copy of all messages too. You can set a prefix for each message, in addition to the subject line the visitor sets. For example, if you set the prefix to [Slayer-Form1], all emails from that contact form will have a subject line that begins with that text. You can use this to set up filters in your email application, making it easy to prioritize emails from different contact forms. Improved comments The basic WordPress MU comment feature allows readers to post their thoughts about a blog post, but it is not very good for encouraging discussion. One useful service for bloggers is IntenseDebate. This service allows for threaded discussion in comments, subscription to comments by RSS and email, and the ability to tie blog commenting in with other social networking sites and follow comments made by other blog readers. Time for action – IntenseDebate Comments Download the IntenseDebate Comments plugin from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/intensedebate/. You will need to sign up for an account at http://intensedebate.com/. Activate the plugin. Go to Settings | IntenseDebate. You will be presented with a login screen. Enter the account details for the account you created in step 2. Once you have logged in, click Start Importing Comments. The import process can take a very long time, even if you don't have many comments to import. Once the import process is complete, you can tweak the settings to suit your blog—although I found the default ones were a good starting point. The IntenseDebate Comments plugin has its own Comments caption, so you may want to remove the Comments header from the index.php file in your theme folder. The new comment box should look something like this: You can moderate comments using the already familiar WordPress MU interface or the dashboard on the IntenseDebate site. What just happened? IntenseDebate is a commenting system that sits on top of WordPress and WordPress MU. It is ideal for all blogs, whether they are part of a blog network, or a standalone blog. It does not replace the existing WordPress comment system; it only complements it. This means you can use IntenseDebate in conjunction with other plugins that rely on the WordPress MU comment system. Readers can comment on your blog using the IntenseDebate comment system. If they have JavaScript turned off, they will be presented with the normal WordPress comment system instead. IntenseDebate has lots of useful features that will make your users feel a greater sense of engagement with your site's authors. Those features are described below: Threaded discussions: IntenseDebate supports threaded comments. This makes it easy for readers to follow the discussions going on in the comments section. Readers can reply to the blog post itself, or reply to a specific comment, and IntenseDebate will break related comments into threads so that the discussion is easy to keep track of. Track comments or comment anonymously: Readers can comment anonymously, or, if they have an IntenseDebate profile they can log in to it and comment using it. Any comments made will be stored in the WordPress comments database and also be sent to IntenseDebate. Subscribe to comments: Readers can subscribe to comments on a particular post by email or through their favorite RSS reader. If they have an IntenseDebate account, they also have the option to send a Twitter message or "Tweet" to alert their friends that they have commented on a particular post. Reputation and voting: Another useful feature is the reputation system. Visitors can vote on comments, and comments that get a lot of negative votes will be hidden from view unless a user requests to see them. This is a handy form of "self moderation" for the community. The reputation system applies to only logged in users and gives each user an overall rating based on the quality of their comments on sites all over the Internet. Activating IntenseDebate on your users' blogs One important thing to remember is that even if you set IntenseDebate to automatically activate for your users, it won't do anything unless they set it up. Your users will still have the original WordPress MU comment system. They will be alerted to the fact that the plugin is not working for them by a message that will appear at the top of every page in their admin panel. Have a go hero – tweaking IntenseDebate IntenseDebate has so many features that there is not enough room to cover them all here. Take a look at the Extras (http://intensedebate.com/extras) page for some widgets that you may want to add to your blog. Also, check the Settings page for your blog in IntenseDebate. You can edit the moderation settings on that page. The default settings include a list of spam words that will cause comments to be flagged for moderation. Comments will also be flagged for moderation if they contain more than two URLs. You can tweak the commenting system's settings to filter by IP address, email address, key words, and profanity. You can also alter how the comments are displayed, the text displayed when people report comments, the layout, and the location of the blog's RSS feed. You may want to change that to use the FeedBurner version of the RSS feed. >> continue Reading: Sticky Features for your Blog Network with WordPress MU 2.8: Part 2

Showing maps using YOS amMap Adding a map to your site may be a necessity in some cases. For example, you want to show the population of countries, or you want to show a world map to your students for teaching geography. Flash maps are always interesting as you can interact with them and can view them as you like. amMap provides tools for showing Flash maps. The amMap tool is ported as a Joomla! component by yOpensource, and the component is released with the name YOS amMap. This component has two versions—free and commercial. The commercial or pro version has some advanced features that are not available in the free version. The YOS amMap component, together with its module, allows you to display a map of the world, a region, or a country. You can choose the map to be displayed, which areas or countries are to be highlighted, and the way in which the viewers can control the map. Generally, maps displayed through the YOS amMap component can be zoomed, centered, or scrolled to left, right, top, or bottom. You can also specify a color in which a region or a country should be displayed. Installing and configuring YOS amMap To use YOS amMap with your Joomla! website, you must first download it from http://yopensource.com/en/component/remository/?func=fileinfo&id=3. After downloading and extracting the compressed package, you get the component and module packages. Install the component and module from the Extensions | Install/Uninstall screen. Once installed, you can administer the YOS amMap component from Components | YOS amMap. This shows the YOS amMap Control Panel, as shown in the following screenshot: YOS amMap Control Panel displays several icons through which you can configure and publish maps. The first thing you should do is to configure the global settings for amMap. In order to do this, click on the Parameters icon in the toolbar. Doing so brings up the dialog box, as shown in the following screenshot: In the Global Configuration section, you can enter a license key if you have purchased the commercial or the pro version of this component. For the free version, this is not needed. In this section, you can also configure the legal extensions of files that can be uploaded through this component, the maximum file size for uploads, the legal image extensions, and the allowed MIME types of all uploads. You can also specify whether the Flash uploader will be used or not. Once you have configured these fields, click on the Save button and return to YOS amMap Control Panel. Adding map files You can see the list of available maps by clicking on the Maps icon on the YOS amMap Control Panel screen or by clicking on Components | amMap | Maps. This shows the Maps Manager screen, as shown in the next screenshot. As you can see, the Maps Manager screen displays the list of available maps. By default, you find the world.swf, continents.swf, and world_with_antartica.swf map files. You will find some extra maps with the amMap bundle. You can also download the original amMap package from http://www.ammap.com/download. After downloading the ZIP package, extract it, and you will find many maps in the maps subfolder. Any map from this folder can be uploaded to the Joomla! site from the Maps Manager screen. Creating a map There are several steps for creating a map using YOS amMap. First we need to upload the package for the map. For example, if we want to display the map of the United States of America, then we need to upload the map template, the map data file, and the map settings file for the United States of America. To do this first upload the map template from the Maps Manager screen. You will find the map template for USA in the ammap/maps folder. Then we need to upload the data and the settings files. For doing so, click on the Upload link on the YOS amMap Control Panel screen. Then, in the Upload amMap screen, which is shown in the next screenshot, type the map's title (United States) in the Title field. Before clicking on the Browse button besides the Package File field, you first add the ammap_data.xml and the ammap_settings.xml files to a single ZIP file, unitedstates.zip. Now, click on the Browse button, and select this unitedstates.zip file. Then click on the Upload File & Install button. Once uploaded successfully, you see this map listed in the YOS amMap Manager screen, as shown in the next screenshot. You get this screen by clicking on the amMaps link on the toolbar. As you can see, the map that we have added is now listed in the YOS amMap Manager screen. However, the map is yet in an unpublished state, and we need to configure the map before publishing it. We need to configure its data and settings files, which are discussed in the following sections. Map data file The different regions of a map are identified by the map data file. This is an XML file and it defines the areas to be displayed on the map. The typical structure of a map data file can be understood by examining ammap_data.xml. The file has many comments that explain its structure. This file looks like as follows: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><map map_file="maps/world.swf" tl_long="-168.49" tl_lat="83.63" br_long="190.3" br_lat="-55.58" zoom_x="0%" zoom_y="0%" zoom="100%"><areas> <area title="AFGHANISTAN" mc_name="AF"></area> <area title="ALAND ISLANDS" mc_name="AX"></area> <area title="BANGLADESH" mc_name="BD"></area> <area title="BHUTAN" mc_name="BT"></area> <area title="CANADA" mc_name="CA"></area> <area title="UNITED ARAB EMIRATES" mc_name="AE"></area> <area title="UNITED KINGDOM" mc_name="GB"></area> <area title="UNITED STATES" mc_name="US"></area> <area title="borders" mc_name="borders" color="#FFFFFF" balloon="false"></area></areas><movies> <movie lat="51.3025" long="-0.0739" file="target" width="10" height="10" color="#CC0000" fixed_size="true" title="build-in movie usage example"></movie> <movie x="59.6667%" y="77.5%" file="icons/pin.swf" title="loaded movie usage example" text_box_width="250" text_box_height="140"> <description> <![CDATA[You can add description text here. This text will appear the user clicks on the movie. this description text can be html-formatted (for a list which html tags are supported, visit <u><a href="http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/8/main/00001459.html">this page</a></u>. You can add descriptions to areas and labels too.]]> </description> </movie></movies><labels> <label x="0" y="50" width="100%" align="center" text_size="16" color="#FFFFFF"> <text><![CDATA[<b>World Map]]></text> <description><![CDATA[]]></description></label></labels><lines> <line long="-0.0739, -74" lat="51.3025, 40.43" arrow="end" width="1" alpha="40"></line> </lines></map> This code is a stripped-down version of the default ammap_data.xml file. Let us examine its structure and try to understand the meaning of each markup: <map> </map>: You define the map's structure using this markup. First, by using the map_file attribute, we declare the map file that should be used to display this map. This markup has some other attributes through which we declare the top and the left offset in longitude and latitude. We can also specify the zooming level using the zoom_x, zoom_y, and zoom attributes. <areas> </areas>: Areas are the regions or countries on a map. These are defined in the map. We only need to define the areas that we want to display. For example, in the sample, we have defined eight countries to be displayed and one straight line. Each area element has several attributes, among which you need to mention mc_name and title. You specify the area's name in mc_name, which is predefined in the map template. The title element will be displayed as the title of that map area. For example, <area mc_name="BD" title="Bangladesh"></area> means the areas marked as BD in the map template will be displayed with the title Bangladesh. In order to specify the mc_name element, you need to follow the map template designer's instructions. <movies> </movies>: Movies are some extra clips that can be displayed as a separate layer on the map. For example, to display the capital of each country, a movie clip could be displayed in the specified latitude and longitude. You can also display some other animations or text using a movie definition. <labels> </labels>: The <labels> markup contains the text to be displayed on the map. You can add any text on a map by defining a label element. To view and edit the map data file, ammap_data.xml, click on the map name on the YOS amMap Manager screen. This opens-up the amMap: [Edit] screen, as shown in the following screenshot: The amMap: [Edit] screen displays several configurations for the map. From the Details section you can change the map name, publish the map, and enable security. From the Design section you can view and edit the data and the settings files. Clicking on Data will show the data file. You can edit the data file from the online editor. As we want to display the map of USA, we will make the following changes on this screen: Select usa.swf in the Maps list. Change the data file as follows: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><map map_file="maps/usa.swf" zoom="100%" zoom_x="7.8%"zoom_y="0.18%"><areas> <area mc_name="AL" title="Alabama"/> <area mc_name="AK" title="Alaska"/> <area mc_name="AZ" title="Arizona"/> <area mc_name="AR" title="Arkansas"/> <area mc_name="CA" title="California"/> <area mc_name="CO" title="Colorado"/> <area mc_name="CT" title="Connecticut"/> <area mc_name="DE" title="Delaware"/> <area mc_name="DC" title="District of Columbia"/> <area mc_name="FL" title="Florida"/> <area mc_name="GA" title="Georgia"/> <area mc_name="HI" title="Hawaii"/> <area mc_name="ID" title="Idaho"/> <area mc_name="IL" title="Illinois"/> <area mc_name="IN" title="Indiana"/> <area mc_name="IA" title="Iowa"/> <area mc_name="KS" title="Kansas"/> <area mc_name="KY" title="Kentucky"/> <area mc_name="LA" title="Louisiana"/> <area mc_name="ME" title="Maine"/> <area mc_name="MD" title="Maryland"/> <area mc_name="MA" title="Massachusetts"/> <area mc_name="MI" title="Michigan"/> <area mc_name="MN" title="Minnesota"/> <area mc_name="MS" title="Mississippi"/> <area mc_name="MO" title="Missouri"/> <area mc_name="MT" title="Montana"/> <area mc_name="NE" title="Nebraska"/> <area mc_name="NV" title="Nevada"/> <area mc_name="NH" title="New Hampshire"/> <area mc_name="NJ" title="New Jersey"/> <area mc_name="NM" title="New Mexico"/> <area mc_name="NY" title="New York"/> <area mc_name="NC" title="North Carolina"/> <area mc_name="ND" title="North Dakota"/> <area mc_name="OH" title="Ohio"/> <area mc_name="OK" title="Oklahoma"/> <area mc_name="OR" title="Oregon"/> <area mc_name="PA" title="Pennsylvania"/> <area mc_name="RI" title="Rhode Island"/> <area mc_name="SC" title="South Carolina"/> <area mc_name="SD" title="South Dakota"/> <area mc_name="TN" title="Tennessee"/> <area mc_name="TX" title="Texas"/> <area mc_name="UT" title="Utah"/> <area mc_name="VT" title="Vermont"/> <area mc_name="VA" title="Virginia"/> <area mc_name="WA" title="Washington"/> <area mc_name="WV" title="West Virginia"/> <area mc_name="WI" title="Wisconsin"/><area mc_name="WY" title="Wyoming"/></areas><labels> <label x="0" y="60" width="100%" color="#FFFFFF" text_size="18"> <text>Map of the United States of America</text> </label></labels></map> As you can see, we have defined regions (states) on the map of USA, and towards the end of the file, we have added a label for the map. Select Yes for the Published field in the Details section. When you are done making these changes click on the Save button to save these changes. Now we will look into the map settings file. Map data files for countries are available with the amMap package. Thus, if you download amMap 2.5.1, you will get the map settings files for different countries. For example, the map data file for USA will be in the amMap_2.5.1/examples/_countries/usa folder.