Me and the module, we’re still not dead

Filed under: Joomla — Tags: — Eike @ September 4, 2008 11:31 pm

Usually I think that away messages are kind of silly and that, when I don’t have to say anything, I should keep quiet. However I got a worried e-mail that asked if I still do support for the place here module (after all I haven’t been writing for five days or so).

Yes, I do.

However I’m terribly busy at the moment. Before the 10th of September I won’t do any work on the module, including some necessary bug fixes (but I still will answer questions on the blog and via mail) – I don’t have the time . But the thing works apart from some minor quirks, so this should not be too bad.

if you have feature requests you can add them here: http://diebesteallerzeiten.de/blog/feature-requests/

Or simply put them somewhere in the comments.

    Class suffix, ordering, version number

    Filed under: Joomla, Programming — Tags: — Eike @ August 14, 2008 11:33 pm

    The module came with a bug in its template files, so the Module Class Suffix parameter was applied to the individual content items and not to the module. This is fixed now. So the module will have the class of mod_placehere, plus whatever you enter as a suffix; ‘leading’ items – the articles that span the full width even when the content is sent in columns – will have the class mod_placehere_leading; all others items will have the class of mod_placehere_following.

    I added a new ordering parameter “exact”, which will display articles in the exact order you enter the ids. This can be set only in the primary ordering (since the ordering can not possibly get more exact than the exact order. Or something).

    And finally I added a readme-file that will hold a changelog and a version number. Since this is the first time I use a version number I simply put version 1.0 in there, despite the fact that the module has been around for quite a while. I will stick to the usual scheme of x.x.x – major.minor.bugfix.

      New Parameters for mod_placehere

      Filed under: Joomla, Programming, Uncategorized — Tags: , — Eike @ June 26, 2008 9:11 pm

      I finally had a chance to use the place here module in one of my projects – I think this is actually the first time I used this (or it’s predecessor mod_contentitem) on one if my sites (I wrote this originally as a reply to a request in the Joomla Forum). My customer required a bit of extra functionality for the module which might be of use to somebody else, so it becomes part of the ‘official’ distribution. I will briefly introduce the new parameters, but since the module is by now quite complicated I will start asap with a bit of documentation.

      Trim text

      Like the name says this will trim down the text to the specified number of characters (so this expects a number as input, alphanumeric input will cause errors). This is a simple substring operation, so it might cut the last word in ha

      Not found title, Not found text

      If the id you entered in the id field at the top of the parameters does not return an article this title and text will be displayed instead.

      Use Meta Description

      If this is set to “yes” the module will use the text from the articles’ meta description instead of the intro text (if there is no meta description the intro text will be used as a fallback). The meta description is the short text you enter in the article manager (last entry in the parameter tab) that is supposed to be used by search engines.

      Link to Category

      If this is set to “yes” the readmore-Links in the module will not point to the single article, but to the blog layout page for the category to which the article belongs. This will only work properly if there is a link to the blog layout page somewhere in a menu (set up a hidden menu if necessary).

      Run plugins

      This is not new, but has caused a bit of confusion so I mention it here: Usually all plugins that run on the main content would run on the module content as well. This regularly wreaked havoc on page layouts when comment areas where appended to module contents etc, so I disabled plugins by default for the module. If you need to run plugins you need to set “run plugins” to “run plugins” (could I possibly be any clearer? I think not).

      Like it? Get it from the download page for the place here module for Joomla 1.5.x

        Minor Changes

        Filed under: Joomla — Tags: , — Eike @ March 30, 2008 2:22 pm

        I fixed some small bugs in the place here module that threw notices (not errors, stuff like undefined array indexes etc). And on behalf of two commenters I added some small stuff:

        There is a new template “titles only” which, as you might guess, shows only the titles of the articles; you can enable the “link title”, “show create date” and/or “show modify date” parameters, most of the other formatting settings are ignored.

        I have to say from a performance point of view this is not a good solution, since the module will still pull _all_ of the article information from the database only to disregard most of it in the template, but it might be useful if you have mod_placehere anyway and do want to install yet another module.

        Maybe I should provide a way to build you own templates for the module from within Joomla (in fact I have a pretty good idea how to do it but at the moment I shy away from the effort).

        The other change relates to the “show frontpage item” setting. There is a new setting (directly beneath) called “Flip Frontpage setting”, that applies the Frontpage setting to the non-frontpage Items.

        Yes, I knew you wouldn’t understand this, so here’s how it works: If you set “Show Frontpage Items” to “show” all articles will show. If you set “Show Frontpage Items” to “hide” the articles that have the “show on frontpage” flag (in the article parameters) will not show. if you set “Show Frontpage Items” to “hide” _and_ set “Flip Frontpage Item Setting” to “yes” then only the frontpage items will show.

        Come to think of it this might not be the most intuitive way to do things, but I thought it was a good idea at the time and who am I to contradict a clever lad like me.

        This has been tested with J! 1.5.2 in PHP 5.2/Windows/Apache. For the download page click here or look in the sidebar for “Module for 1.5 (new).

          Please update

          Filed under: Joomla — Tags: , — Eike @ March 29, 2008 9:38 pm

          Adam Wallner pointed out to me a bug in the place here modules HTML output. Since that potentially could wreak havoc on your layout and in any case invalidates your HTML I recommend that you either upgrade, overwrite the helperhtml-File with the corrected file from the most recent version or fix the problem manually.

          The error is in modules/mod_placehere/helperhtml.php in line 32.

          echo ‘<td valign=”top” colspan=”‘ . $num_of_cols . ‘” class=”mod_placehere_leading”>’ . $rows[$i] . ‘</div>’;

          should be:

          echo ‘<td valign=”top” colspan=”‘ . $num_of_cols . ‘” class=”mod_placehere_leading”>’ . $rows[$i] . ‘</td>’;

          (Mind the wraps, this is supposed to be one line). While at it you could remove the “valign-attribute” and set vertical align via your CSS-File.

            mod placehere and Beez

            Filed under: Joomla — Tags: , — Eike @ March 29, 2008 4:59 pm

            Beez is the accessible and tableless template that is bundled with J!1.5. Beez is the brainchild of Angie Radtke and Robert Deutz and is a phantastic piece of work – for those who need to built WAI/508/BITV compliant websites Joomla would be completly useless without Beez ( a problem that has plagued me with previous versions of J!).

            The place here module now offers limited support for Beez. “Limited” in that case means a) the module doesn’t automtically pick up your choice of template, instead you need to set it in the module parameters and b) this hasn’t been widely tested (in fact in has only been tested on my home machine with Apache/PHP 5.2 and J!1.5.2) so there possibly will be bugs.

            -> Download Page

              CMS Advice for Beginners

              Filed under: Joomla, Miscellaneous, Programming — Tags: , , — Eike @ March 26, 2008 5:17 pm

              This comment is just in :

              I have *tried* to move to Joomla 1.5. Unfortunatly there are a number of extensions vital to my website which will not work under 1.5, Until they are updated, I very much doubt that I’ll be able to move to 1.5. Some of this vital software isn’t even supported anymore, so the chances of it being updated for 1.5 is slim to none! I don’t have the time or the knowledge to do it myself just now. Basically all the means is – I’m screwed!

              I can feel his pain… this is why I still do my best to support the content item module despite the fact that I hardly use Joomla anymore, some people depend on it.

              But this is not a problem specifically with Joomla, it’s more a general problem with system that use plugins – you choose a few things you like and suddenly you find you have to depend on the goodwill of strangers to keep you site running. Not so good.

              I have not yet settled for a new system to replace Joomla (I’ve done some fairly elaborate stuff in Wordpress, but that sucks on a annoyingly large number of issues when you use it as CMS) – I’m looking for something with a fairly complete set of features in the ‘core version’. The advantage of core features over plugins is simply that when the core get’s updated everything get’s updated. With plugins you usually need luck, patience, and, more often than not, a Plan B when they are being abandoned.

              To add a little self-criticism, part of the problem is of course with wrong expectations that our clients and we (as in “we web developers”) have in Content Management Systems. A CMS is, after all, complex software and it should come as no surprise that a major update is tedious, expensive and requires to re-write lots of stuff. Plus prices a somewhat spoiled, and if a client sometimes pays only a few hundred bucks for a complete CMS he will probably not understand why he should pay just as much for an update. The ease of install with many CM Systems to some extent obscures the plight of maintenance.

              But still, this sucks incredibly. After all people (in our case the open source ‘community’) keep telling you how easy it is to install and update Joomla (Mambo, WP, whatever), and only after you’ve hit a wall they suddenly says that you should have known from the start that there will be problems.

              So here’s  the advice (not directed a the original commenter who is propably not a beginner, but at the world at large): Even if the system of your choice looks dead easy be prepared for major trouble along the way. And don’t use plugins if you cannot verify that the developement team behind the plugin is as committed as the developers of your CMS (if the developers of your CMS are not committed  then you are screwed anyway).

              Even shorter version: When things look really easy they probably aren’t.

                Place Here Changes

                Filed under: Joomla, PHP, Programming — Tags: , , , — Eike @ March 8, 2008 7:19 pm

                I made a few changes to the module for J!1.5.

                • Display of section/category names should now work. They sit in elements with the class of .section and .category respectively if you want to style them with CSS.
                • I added a few more ordering options.
                • I added an option to disable plugins on the module content

                Since the old download page got a little crowded with comments I moved the download to a new page. You find it in the sidebar under the link Module for 1.5 (new), URL is http://diebesteallerzeiten.de/blog/module-15/. Please leave your comments there.

                09/03/08 Edited to add:  Plugins are now disabled by default, if you want to run plugins on the module content you  must enable them in the  module parameters.

                  How long do you plan to stick with Joomla 1.0.x ?

                  Filed under: Joomla — Tags: — Eike @ March 6, 2008 10:05 am

                  After a support request I’m wondering if it’s worth to go the trouble and write another version of the content item module for Joomla 1.0.x, one that supports tableless output, allows to disable unwanted mambots and makes perhaps another try at solving the itemid-issue (the current fix doesn’t work with SEF-Urls). This makes only sense if 1.0.x will still be used in fresh installs despite the fact that 1.5.1 is available (I’m not sure how many users come back to fetch upgraded versions for existing sites).

                  So, what do you think?  Would you care for an improved version, even if it will take to early April before I could finish it? Please comment.

                    Sifting through the garbage

                    Filed under: Joomla — Tags: , — Eike @ February 25, 2008 10:01 pm

                    A number of people submitted questions to the FAQ-Sections and are waiting (or not waiting anymore) for an answer – unfortunately the FAQ section got completely overrun by spammers. I think by now I have thrown out most of the spam, and quite propably a number of legitimate questions, too. I’ll try and answer the 25 or so questions that are left, but frankly I don’t know some of the answers myself.

                    Also, if you want a problem fixed and I ask for more information  please please do provide a follow up, or else I won’t be able to help.

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