Macrotone Blogs

Macrotone blogs upon Joomla, our products and other matters.
Categories
Tags
Archives
Calendar
Categories:   All Categories
Suggested keywords
x
Joomla Hints and Tips

Hints and Tips on Joomla and its usage.

Geoffrey Chapman

PHP version


We have recently changed our PHP version used on the web site (hosted as you may know on 1&1 Internet), from the default 5.2.17 to PHP 5.4.4 which is the latest released version (14th June 2012).

We were waiting upon PHP version 5.3 but that is not available, despite PHP version 5.2 being long out of support since December 2010.

PHP version 5.3 is recommended for Joomla 2.5 and a number of extensions now recommend version 5.3.

Initial testing seems to indicate that things are still working correctly without any unwanted side effects. If you find any please le us know.

The change was easy and is documented here.

[We did notice a transient problem with using the editor to insert hyperlinks and editing an image to reposition it within this blog entry, but it seems to have resolved itself and may well have been a cache issue.]

Small rider to add here is that one has to remove the .htaccess directive when/if one reloads a backup of the site upon another host that does not recognise the AddHandler directive.

Geoffrey Chapman

Joomla mailing templates and images

We have been testing out Joomla newsletter components and in particular looking at newsletter templates.  There are two main contenders a) AcyMailing and b) JNews.   Both seem competent in performed the required tasks, but a decision as to which we will use will not been made, until we have finished our testing.

The main points to date include:  

Loading of new newsletter templates is reasonably simple into AcyMailing.  All that is required is to create a zip file with a file named index.html containing the template html code, an image thumbnail of the newsletter itself, and a directory named images containing any images that are named by reference to the images folder with the index.html file.   Then the file is simply imported into the Joomla newsletter component.  JNews didn't find index.html in the zip file for some reason.

The handling of animated images is a little problematic.  It seems that animated PNG file support is limited and that it is better to stick with animated GIF files if animation is required.  This is complicated by the particular mail client being used as well, since it is suspected that Outlook 2003 cannot itself handle animated png files.

Support on the forums of both contenders seems very good, with AcyMailer being the busiest, which probably reflects the usage levels.

Initial costs are comparable, though it is noted that JNews is a one time payment where as AcyMailing uses an annual support cost.   

No show stoppers found yet, but testing is continuing.

 

PS.  Found this article on coding html templates very useful.

Tags:
Template newsletters joomla
Geoffrey Chapman

Joomla Development hints and tips

Whilst working on some Joomla component developments I encountered a few problems which, whilst I had encountered them, before didn’t stop me wasting time resolving them again.  So I have decided to post them to the blog in case others have the same sort of problems and it might save them some time.

1.  In a component item list view, the message ‘ Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$editor in ~administrator/components/com_xxxxx/views/yyyylist/tmpl/default.php on line zzz’ was encountered.  This message was coming from the template file and related to the check of whether the item was checked out or not.   The item is returned directly from the database table but there was no ‘editor’ field in the table.  

What was required is a simple select over the table with the Joomla users table as follows.

        // Join over the users for the checked out user.
        $query->select('uc.name AS editor');
        $query->join('LEFT', '#__users AS uc ON uc.id=a.checked_out');

Where I was wasting time, was thinking that the ‘editor’ was the actual physical editor being used on the item, rather than the ‘person’ who was the ‘editor’ of the item.

2.  In an item view the JToolBarHelper buttons did not appear to be doing anything other than appending a ‘#’ to the end of the URL.    This one had me a little puzzled since the parameters to JToolBarHelper were perfectly correct.    The problem eventually turned out to be related to some coding in a java script incorporated in the default template.   The error was not generating any messages and it was only by a process of elimination that I tracked it down.

So the moral is to check for Javascript errors before assuming a php coding error !!

3.  The third opportunity was to discover why the use of an Editor (such as JCE) persisted in stripping out HTML code from the input.   I found an article on the JCE web site that explains about changing the text filtering options:

(Joomla! 2.5)

    In the Joomla! Global Configuration, click on the Text Filters tab.
    For the Super Users group, or any other trusted user group, set Filter Type to No Filtering. Make sure that you only set this option for user groups that can be trusted as setting the Filter Type to No Filtering will essentially allow the user to include any html in an article.

However checking my settings showed that I already had them set but I was still getting the HTML codes stripped out.

Investigation into the possible filters that can be applied to the editor field in the XML file for the object revealed a solution.    The possible filters that can be applied (which I discovered from code inspection) are as follows:

 

Filter Type Description
RULES A defined rules array
UNSET Do nothing.
RAW No Filter.
SAFEHTML Filter safe HTML
SERVER_UTC Convert a date to UTC based on the server timezone offset.
USER_UTC Convert a date to UTC based on the user timezone offset.
default Checks for a callback filter using either using the callback method or using the callback function.

 

        
   The solution I wanted was to set the filter to ‘RAW’.         

Tags:
Template joomla PHP components
Geoffrey Chapman

Anti-Spam measures

We received an interesting comment in the site the other day about the anti-spam options that we incorporate into the Issue Tracker component.   The main gist was that Recaptcha was the only anti-spam option that we use.   However we had to reply that there were also other features such as word filtering, IP blocking, checks on the number of links, and the ability to ban specified email addresses and URLs.

We have (and still are) considering other options but do wonder whether it is the best approach to build all of these tools into a specific product such as Issue Tracker.   A typical Joomla site will have a number of components such as a Blog, a forum, a general article commenting system, etc., installed.   Other web sites even if not based on Joomla will have similar constituents.  Is it wise to have all of these parts with their own separate anti-spam measures?  The likelihood is that they will all adopt slightly different approaches with different measures of success, and all requiring updates to keep up with new techniques and methods.

Continue reading
Tags:
SPAM joomla Issue Tracker Blog
Geoffrey Chapman

PECR– Cookies and Joomla Part 4

Several new product announcements to add to my growing list.  The JED now even has a separate section for Cookie Control

8. Cookie Choice is a non-commercial JED entry.  It does not block cookies but informs the user, which is what the current interpretation of the PECR regulations is understood to be required.

9. JE Cookies a commercial JED entry.  Details are a little light but it offers various colour options. 

One I have mentioned earlier 6. Cookie Alert does offer the country determination options, something we have in our own version.  We have tested our own version and it works reasonably well, although the impact on checking the country of origin on each screen refresh is something we are giving serious thought to, and would impact this product offering as well.

Our own home grown version is being tested and is working well.  One thing we have found is a small problem where if a visitor does not accept the cookies, and just leaves the banner displayed, continuing to browse the site, IF a separate modal window is opened, we have observed a situation where the model window is also presented with the cookie banner.  Not every modal window, just some, so we are investigating further. 

Tags:
Privacy PECR joomla Europe cookies cookie
Geoffrey Chapman

sh404SEF graphs, Akeeba Admin Pro and .htaccess

Just tracked down a configuration problem with the .htaccess file generated by Akeeba Admin Tools Pro which was causing the sh404SEF Analytics display to fail to display the generated site view graphics.

The problem was that the .htaccess rule was preventing the sh404SEF component from accessing the graphical data that it has created.  I could see that the graphical png files were being created but they were not being displayed.

Turning off the .htaccess effect by renaming the file, enabled the graphs to be displayed so it was obviously .htaccess that was at fault.

So then it was a case of finding the creation rule in the Akeeba Admin Tools Pro htaccess creator.

The solution was to add the directory to the list of exceptions:

Under 'Server Protection -> Exceptions -> '  add the path to the sh404sef_analytics directory to the list.

This then generates an exception which means that it is not picked up by the rule identified above.

Tags:
Akeeba Analytics joomla sh404sef
Geoffrey Chapman

PECR-Cookies and Joomla Part 3

In my last post where I mentioned System - EU e-Privacy Directive I have carried out some tests and can confirm that it does indeed work very well. Code inspection reveals if is very light weight and tightly coded so should be very efficient on busy sites. Highly recommended. I note a newer version is also available so the author seems to be quite intensive in updating/improving the code and very responsive to reported problems and suggestions. It also supports Joomla 1.5 as well.

I have however decided to roll my own code and will shortly be releasing an update to our ‘Password Control Plugin’. The reasons include being able to store easily the cookie acceptance in the database, which means that even if the browser is configured to clear the cache when it closes (my personal preferred setting) it will still prevent the user being re=prompted every time. I can also add additional IP checks to check for the country of the site visitors, and also disable the banner display for ‘private’ IP addresses, within a company for example.

One discovery that I can confirm is that the basic Joomla front end works successfully without any untoward impact. Of course our site is not making use of compute intensive applications. I would add though that the same cannot be said of the back end which definitely requires cookies to work at all. [Note to self: Must never turn off cookies in the browser!]

New software announced for cookie privacy include the following:

8. PixCoookiesRestrict a commercial offering displaying the banner in the main page display area.

Tags:
PECR joomla cookies
Geoffrey Chapman

Problem remote posting blog entry with htaccess rule - resolved.

I recently implemented the strict htaccess rules generated by the Akeeba Admin Tools utility.   I then discovered that it was not possible to use Windows Live Writer to post entries to the blog anymore.   It was obviously a problem with the htaccess rules since a simple test removing the htaccess file enabled a post to complete successfully.

Looking at the configuration in more detail the most obvious cause appeared to be two rules related to access the xmlrpc directory:

RewriteRule ^xmlrpc/(index\.php)?$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^xmlrpc/ - [F]

But these rules permit access, they do not deny access. so they were obviously not the cause of the problem.

Then the light dawned.  There was a rule to redirect www addresses to non-www addresses:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R,L]

Because the Windows Live Writer (WLW) blog account was set up before the htaccess setting were changed it was set up to use the ‘www.xxxx’ address NOT the ‘xxxx’ address.

For this reason the posting was being disallowed.   The redirection was getting in the way.  Just disabling this one rule enabled the posting to proceed.  It was desirable to have the rule in place, so once I had changed the WLW blog account to use the non-www address posting could resume and complete successfully.

I hope others find this interesting and perhaps do not spend as much time as I have trying to resolve it.

I thoroughly recommend Akeeba Admin Tools Professional as a user since it has stopped SPAM on the site almost completely.  That alone is a triumph.

Tags:
Blog htaccess Akeeba joomla
Geoffrey Chapman

Use of ampersand or not

I have recently been looking at the use of ‘Strict Standards’ and the impact upon any Macrotone written extensions.  One thing that has struck me is the use of the ampersand when making calls to JFactory (and other similar functions).

A lot of the examples on the Joomla documentation site show the call with the ampersand present, but it then generates a warning message if ‘Strict Standards’ reporting is turned on.

i.e.  Is it:

1.   uinfo = JFactory::getUser($user_id);

or

2. uinfo = & JFactory::getUser($user_id);

My understanding is that the ampersand after the equals sign is not required.  It was necessary to let PHP4 know that we wanted to assign a reference of the object to the variable instead of a copy. In PHP4 if the ampersand was not supplied it created another copy of the requested user information.   The default behaviour in PHP 5 is to assign by reference and using the ampersand produces a notice.  Joomla! 2.5  only runs on PHP 5, so the ampersand is not only redundant, it also throws a  strict notice.   I suspect that in PHP5 that if any extra instances are created by the use of the ampersand that they will be closed by the garbage cleaning when the containing function or class is closed, so apart from the Strict Standards warning message it is not really a problem at all.

Tags:
PHP joomla
Geoffrey Chapman

PECR–Cookies and Joomla Part 2

Since my original post there have been several new developments announced, so this is to update my list of software:

1.  Name:  Kookie Grab   Website: JED

Notes:  An updated version announced  on the Joomla Extensions Directory, written by Kevin Griffiths.  Non-commercial it seems to have resolved the initial problems I discovered with it.

3.  Name:  Channel Computing   Website:  Channel Computing

Notes:  A plugin that displays a banner on the page.  A free lite version  and two commercial available.  This is the solution with have chosen to use (at least initially) as it minimises the changes required.   There seem to have been at least 3 updates to this software, some of which introduced problems along the way.  Still a very simple and clean solution.  

5. System - EU e-Privacy Directive

An extension by Michael Richey, which is non-commercial.  I have used some of Michae’s extensions previously and they all work very well.  Definitely worth a look at, especially if it does as claimed.

6.  Cookie Alert

A commercial offering, which I have not tested.

In addition there are several commercial offerings which seem to be appearing.  The Oracle web site used a product from Etrust which is interesting although probably over kill for most Joomla sites.

If you want to roll your own Portent have a free script code example.  Also worth looking at is Wolf Software which has a collection of scripts.  They do however store a cookie themselves even if you request no cookies, which somehow seems to defeat the object, and of course it all relies upon Javascript.



Tags:
PECR joomla cookies
Go To Top

Joomla! Debug Console

Session

Profile Information

Memory Usage

Database Queries