Chapter 10 [ 267 ] 3. As this is a plugin, we'll use the Plugin Manager to enable this extension. Navigate to Extensions | Plugin Manager and locate the Simple Image Gallery plugin. Click on the cross in the Enabled column. The cross turns into a check mark, indicang the plugin is now acve: 4. Click on the Plugin Name (Simple Image Gallery Plugin) to set Image thumbnail width and Image thumbnail height both to 100px. This will reduce the thumbnail size to a maximum 100 pixels, allowing for a good deal of small thumbnails on the page: 5. To actually create a gallery, we need a folder containing all of the pictures we want to show. Let's upload them to a folder /images/stories /paintings. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Geng the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla! [ 268 ] 6. To do this, navigate to Site | Media Manager. Navigate to the stories folder and create a new folder painngs. Open this folder and upload your images to it. 7. You're all set. Now you only have to create a new arcle (or edit an exisng one) that will contain the gallery pictures. Navigate to Content | Arcle Manager and click on New. In the following example, I've created an arcle tled Ugly Painngs Gallery and assigned it to the Ugly Painngs secon and the Facts category. 8. In the arcle enter this code: {gallery}painngs{/gallery}. This will instruct the plugin to display all image les from the images/stories/paintings folder. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 10 [ 269 ] 9. Click on Save. You're done. On the frontend, click on the Ugly Painngs link in the Main Menu to navigate to the new arcle. It will display as follows: What just happened? You've set up a gallery that will impress your visitors. Clicking on any of the thumbnails opens a lightbox with the full-size image, allowing the user to browse through through the available set of images: Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Geng the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla! [ 270 ] The plugin automacally searches images/stories to nd the specied images folder. If the target folder would be images/stories/food/ bagels, then you would enter {gallery}food/bagels{/gallery}. Do you want more from your photo gallery? The Simple Image Gallery plugin is—as you might expect—quite simple. If you're looking for a more sophiscated gallery tool that allows you to manage a large number of images and show them to your visitors in a structured way, you might want to consider using a gallery component. An example is Phoca (www.phoca.cz/phocagallery). Phoca can present large image collecons using categories and subcategories. Visitors can browse the photos using lightbox pop-up screens: Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 10 [ 271 ] Using extensions to enhance your work space Extensions don't just extend the funconality of the frontend of your site. There are also extensions available that enhance and extend the backend. For example, you can replace the backend arcle editor by a more powerful one. Time for action – replace Joomla!'s default text editor The default text editor is allright for entering text, but some of the advanced capabilies (such as adding images or inserng hyperlinks) aren't really easy and intuive. Let's install the Joomla! Content Editor, a popular and freely available replacement for Joomla!'s default editor (which is called TinyMCE). For many Joomla! users, JCE is the rst thing they add aer installing Joomla!: 1. Go to http://www.joomlacontenteditor.net and download the "single installaon package" (containing the two extensions JCE: the Editor Plugin and a Component). The installaon package is a ZIP le. 2. Navigate to Extensions | Install / Uninstall. Click on Browse to locate the ZIP le you just downloaded and click on Upload File & Install. Once both are installed you'll see the message: Install Component Success. 3. Tell Joomla! that you want JCE to be the default editor. Navigate to Site | Global Conguraon. On the Site tab panel set Default WYSIWYG Editor to Editor - JCE. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Geng the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla! [ 272 ] What just happened? You've just installed the JCE editor. What's the big deal? At rst glance, the dierences between JCE and the default editor might be inconspicuous—but they will make a big dierence in day-to-day arcle eding! Here are some examples of the benets: You can now quickly create text links (hyperlinks to other arcles). In Chapter 8 (secon Creang plain text links) you've seen that you can't do this from the default editor screen. In JCE, you just select some text and click on the hyperlink icon (Insert / Edit Hyperlink). JCE now lets you select the target arcle (or another link desnaon) from a drop-down list: In the Aributes secon, add a link Title (the lile pop-up text the visitor sees when hovering the mouse pointer over actual link) and click on Insert. That's it. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 10 [ 273 ] Another improvement you and your colleague content editors will appreciate is the easy way to images with JCE. To add an image to an arcle, you no longer use the Image buon below the editor screen. Instead, click on the Insert / Edit Image icon to open JCE's own Image Manager: To add an image, click on the desired folder, select the image le, check the preview, and click on Insert. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Geng the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla! [ 274 ] If you need to control the image alignment, that's possible too. For example, set the image Alignment to Le and the Margin at the Right and the Boom to 10 pixels to have the text ow nicely around the image: The Image Manager also makes it possible to directly upload more than one image simultaneously from your hard drive to the web server. You can move, remove, or rename images and preview them full-size. In short, JCE makes it possible to do more things with text and pictures, and it makes eding much easier. You can adjust JCE's sengs via Components | JCE Administraon | Control Panel. Among others, JCE has a comprehensive system of Groups that allow you to determine what dierent users (for example, editors or webmasters) may see and do in JCE. This funconality will come in handy if you want to limit what dierent types of users can do, for example if you don't want to allow editors to add images to an arcle. So much more to explore With thousands of extensions available, the best way to nd the perfect addion to your site is by exploring the Joomla! Extensions Database. To whet your appete, here's a lile taste of the dierent types of funconality they oer: Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 10 [ 275 ] AllVideos: Show YouTube (or other) videos inside arcles Plugin Googlemaps: Display Google Maps within arcles, modules, or components Virtuemart: Integrate an e-commerce shop within a Joomla! site Kunena: A component that allows you to deploy a community forum on your site You can nd all the above extensions by searching www.extensions.joomla.org for the extension name. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Geng the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla! [ 276 ] Finding unmissable extensions Every Joomla! user probably has his own parcular favorite extensions—but there sure are some great ones around that almost everybody using Joomla! seems to deploy. A good way to nd great extensions is to do a web search for "best Joomla extensions" or "must-have Joomla extensions". You'll get some great ps on cool extensions, both for enhancing the frontend and backend funconality of your site. Pop quiz – test your knowledge of Joomla! extensions 1. What's the dierence between components and other extensions? a. Components are more powerful and more complex. b. Components are only available to selected users. c. Components are shown in dierent module posions. 2. What's the use of the Newsash module? a. To allow visitors to subscribe to newsfeeds. b. To show just one news item in a module posion. c. To show one or more arcle intro texts in a module posion. 3. What's the use of installing modules? a. Modules can make it easier entering new content. b. Modules can contain any kind of advanced funconality. c. Modules can contain lists of hyperlinks. Summary In this chapter, we've covered the magic of Joomla! extensions: If you need any funconality that's not built into the basic Joomla! core you'll very likely nd it in the Joomla! Extension Directory (JED). The JED lists very many extensions, but there are many more extension portal sites and developer sites. There are three types of extensions: components (the big ones), modules (the medium ones), and plugins (the small ones). Components have their separate menu item in the backend of your site; the other extensions are found through the Extensions menu. The Joomla! core already contains several components, modules, and plugins. You'll nd an overview browsing the Components and Extensions menu of the Joomla! backend. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM . Extending Joomla! [ 276 ] Finding unmissable extensions Every Joomla! user probably has his own parcular favorite extensions—but there sure are some great ones around that almost everybody using Joomla! seems. intuive. Let's install the Joomla! Content Editor, a popular and freely available replacement for Joomla! 's default editor (which is called TinyMCE). For many Joomla! users, JCE is the rst. we've covered the magic of Joomla! extensions: If you need any funconality that's not built into the basic Joomla! core you'll very likely nd it in the Joomla! Extension Directory