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How can I remove "Welcome to the Frontpage" in joomla PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mandville   
Sunday, 13 December 2009 17:21

In Joomla! it is possible to show an article's title by default - sometimes you would want this, for example, if you want the page title to be something other than the article name, however it can be most annoying at times!  By default, the "home" page in Joomla! has the title of "Welcome to the Frontpage" so this is what most people google search for when trying to remove page titles! There are two places that you need to turn off "show page title", which are described below:

1. Go to Article Manager, then on the right hand side at the top you'll see a button called "Parameters".  Here you set your "Global Parameters" - i.e. the options you want to apply for all articles, by default.  Note this can be over-ridden on a per-article basis by editing the parameters of each article.  Turn off "Show Title".

2. Go to your DEFAULT MENU. On your default menu (usually Main Menu), the "star" appears by default item on your homepage .  If this is an article, you need to click on the article name to edit the properties, then on the parameters on the right hand side, turn off Show Page Title (or select a more appropriate title than "Welcome to the Frontpage"!

Last Updated on Sunday, 13 December 2009 17:27
 
How to redirect "You need to Log In" to a content article PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mandville   
Sunday, 13 December 2009 17:18

Sometimes you might have the situation where you would rather have an informational piece of text to advise the user that they need to register to view the content article or so forth, rather than have them dumped to the "You need to log in to view this" page.  Here's how!

You need to edit a couple of files to do this:

 
My Windows computer boots up slow. PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mandville   
Thursday, 19 November 2009 00:35

A slow Microsoft Windows boot up can be caused by a wide variety of issues. Below are various suggestions and tips that can help improve the overall speed of your computers startup.

Disable startup programs

Programs that are loading up as the computer starts up to remain active in memory, are often one of the main causes of a slow boot in Windows. Disabling programs you don't often use from automatically starting up each time the computer boots can increase the boot time.

A program that makes managing your Windows startup programs easily is Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel. Using this program, you can disable any program in any of the locations programs use to start themselves automatically.

 

Scandisk / Defrag

Running Microsoft ScanDisk and Defrag or similar disk utilities on the computer can help verify the hard disk drive has no errors, as well as make sure the data on the hard disk drive is organized in the most efficient method. We suggest running both of these utilities at least once every few months.

Hard disk drive space

If your computer does not have at least 250MB of free available hard disk drive space this can cause an overall slowdown with your computer as well as decrease the boot time. Make sure your computer hard disk drive has 250MB or more of available disk space.

Add memory

Adding additional memory (RAM) to the computer will help increase the overall speed of the computer and in some cases can also increase the load times of your computer. Today, we suggest all computers be running a minimum of 1GB of memory in their computer. If your computer is running less than this it may be time to upgrade.

Update drivers and Windows

Corrupt, incorrect, and/or out-of-date drivers can cause a number of different issues. Make sure your computer has the latest drivers as well as any available Microsoft Windows updates.

 

 

Registry cleaner

Although we don't often recommend registry cleaners in some rare situations running cleaners can help improve the overall performance of Windows including the Windows startup. If you've run through all of the above recommendations you may want to clean your system registry.

 

Format and reinstall

If after following all the above steps your computer still seems to be slow you may want to erase everything from the computer and re-install Windows. This will clean your computer and make it like new.

Alternative solutions:

In addition to those steps recommended above, if you use your computer frequently you may also want to consider either not turning off the computer or having your computer go into a hibernation mode when shutting it down or pressing the power button.

 
What should I do when a computer freezes? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mandville   
Thursday, 19 November 2009 00:32

This document contains recommendations on what to do if the computer frequently freezes or completely halts. An easy way to determine if your computer is in this situation is by pressing the Num Lock button on the keyboard and watching the Num Lock led (light) to see if it turns off and/or on.

If you're able to get the light to turn off and on and are running Microsoft Windows, press CTRL + ALT + DEL and attempt to end task the program.

Make sure the computer is really frozen

Although the above Num Lock trick is a good indication on whether or not the computer is really frozen, it's still always a good recommendation to give the computer at least a minute before turning it off.

Reboot the computer

After waiting a minute, reboot the computer; it's completely locked and will not recover. Keep in mind that all work being worked on is going to be lost and cannot be recovered if the information has not been saved or automatically saved.

 

 
Adding JavaScript and CSS to the page PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mandville   
Saturday, 31 October 2009 01:18

To have a well-formed XHTML document, you must put all references to Javascript and CSS files within the <head> portion. Since Joomla! generates all of the HTML that makes up a page before output, it is possible to add these references to the <head> tag from your extension. The simplest way to do this is to make use of the functionality built in to Joomla!:

// Add a reference to a javascript file
// The default path is 'media/system/js/'
JHTML::script($filename, $path, $mootools);
 
// Add a reference to a CSS file

// The default path is 'media/system/css/'
JHTML::stylesheet($filename, $path);

Using these functions, Joomla! will take care of any additional requirements. For example, if your javascript requires Mootools, setting $mootools = true will automatically ensure that Mootools is loaded, if it has not already been done.


However, the above functions will not be flexible enough for every scenario, and so it is possible to tap into the underlying functionality instead. (Of course, this means that you will also need to manually code some of the steps that would be done automatically using the functions above!)

Firstly, you will need to get a reference to the current document object:

$document =& JFactory::getDocument();

To add a javascript file, use this code:

$document->addScript($url);

Note that this will not automatically include Mootools. If your script requires Mootools, you should also include the line:

JHTML::_("behavior.mootools");

For a stylesheet, use this code:

$document->addStyleSheet($url);

However, your javascript or CSS might not be located in a separate file - you might want to generate them using PHP. In this case you can write the script/stylesheet directly into the head of your document:

// Add javascript
$document->addScriptDeclaration($javascript, $type);
 
// Add styles

$document->addStyleDeclaration($styles, $type);

For example, the following code is used to define a custom tool tip that takes advantage of mootools.

function getToolTipJS($toolTipVarName, $toolTipClassName){

    $javascript = 'window.addEvent(\"domready\", function(){' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t"  .'var $toolTipVarName = new Tips($$("' . $toolTipVarName .'"), {' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'className: "' .$toolTipClassName .'",' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'initialize: function(){' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t\t"    .'this.fx = new Fx.Style(this.toolTip, "opacity", {duration: 500, wait: false}).set(0);' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'},' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'onShow: function(toolTip){' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t\t"    .'this.fx.start(1);' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'},' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'onHide: function(toolTip) {' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t\t"    .'this.fx.start(0);' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t\t"   .'}' ."\n";
    $javascript .= "\t"  .'});' ."\n";
    $javascript .= '});' ."\n\n";
    return $javascript;

}
 
$document =& JFactory::getDocument();
$document->addStyleSheet("/joomla/components/com_mycustomcomponent/css/mytooltip.css",'text/css',"screen");

$document->addScriptDeclaration(getToolTipJS("mytool","MyToolTip"));

(Note that, in order for this javascript to be functionally useful, it would be necessary to include the appropriate class name in the HTML, as well as providing the mytooltip.css file. Both are outside the scope of this article.)


There will be some occasions where even these functions are not flexible enough, as they are limited to writing the contents of <script /> or <style /> tags, and cannot add anything outside those tags. One example would be the inclusion of a stylesheet link within conditional comments, so that it is picked up only by Internet Explorer 6 and earlier. To do this, we can use $document->addCustomTag:

$stylelink = '<!--[if lte IE 6]>' ."\n";

$stylelink .= '<link rel="stylesheet" href="/../css/IEonly.css" />' ."\n";
$stylelink .= '<![endif]-->' ."\n";
 

$document =& JFactory::getDocument();
$document->addCustomTag($stylelink);
 
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