Deprecated: Joomla\Input\Input implements the Serializable interface, which is deprecated. Implement __serialize() and __unserialize() instead (or in addition, if support for old PHP versions is necessary) in /homepages/13/d380392445/htdocs/Jlive/libraries/vendor/joomla/input/src/Input.php on line 41

Deprecated: Return type of Joomla\Input\Input::count() should either be compatible with Countable::count(): int, or the #[\ReturnTypeWillChange] attribute should be used to temporarily suppress the notice in /homepages/13/d380392445/htdocs/Jlive/libraries/vendor/joomla/input/src/Input.php on line 170

Deprecated: Joomla\CMS\Input\Input implements the Serializable interface, which is deprecated. Implement __serialize() and __unserialize() instead (or in addition, if support for old PHP versions is necessary) in /homepages/13/d380392445/htdocs/Jlive/libraries/src/Input/Input.php on line 31

Deprecated: Joomla\CMS\Input\Cookie implements the Serializable interface, which is deprecated. Implement __serialize() and __unserialize() instead (or in addition, if support for old PHP versions is necessary) in /homepages/13/d380392445/htdocs/Jlive/libraries/src/Input/Cookie.php on line 21

Deprecated: str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /homepages/13/d380392445/htdocs/Jlive/libraries/src/Uri/Uri.php on line 141
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Macrotone Blogs

Macrotone blogs upon Joomla, our products and other matters.

Joomla -€“ Creating a component '€˜Smart Search'€™ Language file

b2ap3 icon joomlaHaving created a custom Finder (Smart search) plugin for our Issue Tracker component, there was one small problem left which was that the supplied language translations were not being picked up by the ‘Smart Search module’.

Having spent time ensuring that the format of the language files were correct and that they were being placed in the correct directory on installation and were named as the documentation suggested. 

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Nested tables, MySQL and Joomla Smart Search.

b2ap3 icon joomlaWe have been looking at refining a finder plugin in Joomla which is accessing a nested MySQL table.  Nothing complex about that one would think.

However the desire was to expand out the different sub record titles into a single ‘title’ comprised of the individual sub record titles linked together offered a few ‘opportunities’ for want of a different word!

To explain further.  We have a classic nested table structure as follows:

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Joomla 2.5 Language overrides

b2ap3 icon joomlaI was recently asked a question about language templates and how custom changes made by a site would be over ridden on a component update. This got me thinking and it seems that Joomla already provides a convenient way to create language overrides.  I am not talking about language overrides just specific strings being used instead of the standard supplied text.

This can all be done in the Joomla administrator.

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CSS Sprites

For those that have been using our Issue Tracker component, they are aware that we have invested a certain amount of time improving the look of the front end screens of the component.   With the emphasis now turning to the changes required for Joomla3.x we recently looked at using CSS sprites.

If you are not familiar with Sprites, they can be thought of as one ‘large’ image containing lots of smaller images.  The theory being that loading one image is a lot quicker than loading a lot of small images and save bandwidth.  The individual images enclosed within the large ‘image’ are accessed by specifying its position within the larger file.

There is a simple article which explains this is slightly more detail, so it is not worth repeating it here. In actual fact there are a lot of articles scattered over the web that go into the use of Sprites, of mixed usage.

One might think that it is a lot of work creating the ‘combined image’ and its references, but there are a number of sites on the web that perform most of the work for you.  We have tried a number of them with varying success.  One of the better ones (in our opinion) is Zero Sprites which creates quite a nice compact combined image and generates the required CSS lines for one to customise and use in ones application.

We have got this all working ourselves, but observe that on a number of web sites we visit that even if we use sprites ourselves the impact on the site as a whole is often minimal since there are so many other ‘components/modules’ etc.  in use that our images are often only a fraction of those in use.  Having said that there is a saying that ‘every little bit helps’ so with that in mind the work involved must be worth it.

Doing more with LESS.

http://lesscss.org/images/logo.pngAs part of our ongoing work on our Joomla components we have been looking at the ‘next’ logical change that we want to implement with the CCS styles.  This is of course making use of the LESS compiler.

What is LESS you might ask.  Well LESS is a dynamic stylesheet language, which extends CSS with dynamic behaviour such as variables, mixins, operations and functions.  It can run upon both the server-side or client-side (modern browsers only) on a site.

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DocBook XML to PDF

The Apache FOP ProjectThe next stage in our documentation changes was the creation of PDF documents from the DocBook XML formats.  [See previous posts for other blogs on our documentation changes.]

There is a need to use a XSLT transform to convert the XML document to a FO (formatted object) which can then be processed to create the PDF output.

The DocBook distribution have available a set of XSL transforms for converting the XML files into a variety of different formats, so the first step was to download these. This is not strictly necessary since it is possible to access the XSL transforms over the web, but having a local copy speeds up the transformation process.

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New Releases Oracle SQL*Developer * SQL*Developer Modeller

Having been busy recently I nearly missed the recent announcement of Oracle SQL*Developer 3.2.0.09.30 and SQL*Developer Data Modeller 3.1.2 (704).

Both available on Oracle Technet.

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