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Viewing Joomla 1.5 Module Position

Dagu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:56:05 +0000

A Joomla page consists of a few modules and a component. These modules have certain positions. To know module position in a Joomla template, we only need to append a query string tp=1. For the example:

http://blog.danigunawan.com/joomla15/index.php?tp=1

Screenshot (Click on the image for full size image):

Joomla module positions

It’s ez, isn’t it?

Load PHP Extension

Dagu — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:19:10 +0000

A few CMSs need PHP library which is not activated as default. For example, in installation an e-commerce named magento (www.magentocommerce.com), needs a few PHP extensions. Usually, a good CMS checks system requirements before installation begins. Image below is an example for system requirements checking on Magento Installation.

System Requirement Checking on Magento Commerce

We could use phpinfo() function to view which extensions have been loaded. The php.ini file is used to configure it. We could find it in PHP installation directory. If you use XAMPP, PHP configuration can be found in [XAMPP's Installation directory]/apache/bin.

To edit it, simply use a text editor (such as notepad). Find which extension will be activated. For example, in magento case, it needs curl and mcrypt extensions to be activated. All we need is finding lines that have words php_curl.dll and php_mcrypt.dll in php.ini. As default, the configuration for those extensions is:

;extension=php_curl.dll
;extension=php_mcrypt.dll

To activate them we need to delete semicolon in the first character of those two lines. If we have done, restart apache and check extensions status using phpinfo().

PHP Info

Question: why does we delete that semicolon?
In PHP configuration file (you will find the same thing in apache configuration), a semicolon is used to mark that the line after that will not be executed. Because of that, the programmers use it to make comments.

Becareful if you need to edit configuration file. If you make a mistake, possibly your PHP won’t work well. Always make a configuration file backup before make changes, in order to make sure it would be easy to restore the configuration file if something wrong happens.

Joomla! 1.5 SEO

Dagu — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:57:04 +0000

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a great way to make our web “read” by the search engine. Many web owners hire SEO professional to optimize their web. But for the Joomla 1.5 users, they should be happy because in this version, Joomla had improved better features for SEO. There are three techniques for SEO in Joomla, they are Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs, mod_rewrite (only for Apache), and suffix. If you want to apply SEO, you should choose at least SEF option. If you wan to use mod_rewrite, SEF option must be choosen. It will much better if we use suffix too. With suffix, in the end of the URL will be added .html. Available combinations for SEO in Joomla are:

SEF
SEF + suffix
SEF + mod_rewrite
SEF + mod_rewrite + suffix (recommended)

The difference among combinations above are the URL produced. If we don’t use SEO, the URL will be:

http://blog.danigunawan.com/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=27

For the SEF option, the URL will be:

http://blog.danigunawan.com/joomla15/index.php/joomla-overview

The URL can be read easily than the URL without SEF. Notice that there is "index.php" in the URL. If we add suffix option, then in the end of the URL will be appended html extension like shown below:

http://blog.danigunawan.com/joomla15/index.php/joomla-overview.html

Compare if we use Apache mod_rewrite, the result is shown below:

http://blog.danigunawan.com/joomla15/joomla-overview

If we use mod_rewrite, URL will look nice and tidy without "index.php". Html extension can be appended by choosing suffix option. The result is shown below:

http://blog.danigunawan.com/joomla15/joomla-overview.html

SEO Implementation in Joomla! 1.5
SEO Implementation in Joomla 1.5 is very very easy.

Login to Joomla back-end as super administrator.
Choose menu Site > Global Configuration.
In Global Configuration there are three tabs that are Site, System dan Server. In tab Site, look at the SEO Settings. Choose the combination as you need.
Click Save or Apply.

Joomla! 1.5 SEO Settings

Remember!

If you want to implement option number two (Use Apache mod_rewrite), the web server should be Apache with mod_rewrite module is active (Read article: Activate mod_rewrite in Apache). After that rename htaccess.txt in the Joomla root directory to be .htaccess (Read article: Rename htaccess.txt to be .htaccess in Windows). If you get error message while implementing SEO option number two, try to edit .htaccess file, find this line:

Options +FollowSymLinks

Add "#" character. So the line will be:

#Options +FollowSymLinks

Restart your Apache web server.