Joomla

Joomla! is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) for publishing web content. It is built on a model-view-controller (MVC) web application framework that can be used independently of the CMS that allows you to build powerful online applications.

How to Access Joomla Menu Parameters for Component

When you create a menu item for any view of the component, there are many options in the menu you can configure. These values can be accessed in Joomla! code.

How to Create Router for Joomla Component

Joomla! has capability of creating and parsing URLs as SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URLs. The SEF URLs follow a certain fixed pattern. User can define a short descriptive text (known as alias) for each segment of the URL.

Joomla MVC Component Class

Joomla! 4 has a new class for dispatching components. The class is called MVCComponent which extends Component class.

Add Alias Field to Joomla Component

An alias field is required for SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URLs for accessing items on the website. SEF URLs are helpful for to both humans and search engines.

How to Add Configuration Options in Joomla Component

The Joomla allows the use of parameters stored in each component. The fields for the configuration options are stored in the XML file located at admin/config.xml.

How to Link Joomla Categories Component

You can link Joomla! Categories functionality in your custom component where you can define a set of categories to use. This way, you don't need separate categories table for your component.

User State Variables in Joomla

Joomla has a built in functionality to make it easy for developers to store and retrieve variables that are stored with the session. There are two ways to set user state variables.

Frontend List of Items

The concept of displaying the list of items at the front-end is very similar to displaying the list at the back-end. The view file gets the items from the model and then the layout file displays the list of items. You can display in tabular layout or blog layout or any other layout.

How to Get List of Items in Joomla

While developing extensions, you need to query the database and display list of items. Joomla! provides an easy way to achieve this. The view file gets the items from the model and then the layout file displays the list of items in tabular format.

Get Single Item in Front End

The view asks the model for the item. In the model, you need the id of the item for querying the database. You can get this id from the URL.

Add a Variable Request in Joomla Menu Type

You can add request parameters to the menu. This is done in the default.xml file in the tmpl folder. The request parameters are added to the URL as query string.

Add a Menu Type to Joomla Site Part

After the component is installed, you can create a menu Item to access it. This allows to access the component through a menu rather than having to remember what to type into the address bar. Each view and layout can have its own menu item.

Add a Model to Joomla Site Part

The HtmlView class asks the model for data using the get method. For example, this get method converts the get('Msg') call into a getMsg() call on the model, which is the function which you have to provide in the model.

Main Joomla Controller File

The DisplayController is main controller for Joomla! component. At present, the component specific controller doesn't do anything more than the parent class already does, which is why the controller class is empty.

Add a View to Joomla Site Part

When no task is given in the request variables, the default task is. The default task is display. The BaseController class has such a task. When the display is used, the 'view' variable decides what is displayed on the page.

Adding Custom Back-end Actions

The task for the custom action is defined as compound tasks - the first part is the controller and the second part is the name of the method.

Adding Back-end Actions: New and Edit

Add and Edit actions both redirect to the same form. You can display the Edit by clicking the title. If the id is 0, it indicates Add action. If the id is greater than 0, it indicates Edit action.

Adding Back-end Actions: Delete

From the list of records layouts, you can add a toolbar button to delete records. The task for the Delete action is: planets.delete

Add Pagination

When you have many records, you can use pagination to divide the records into multiple pages. Joomla! provides a simple way to include pagination to the list view and layouts.

Joomla XML Form

The Joomla! XML forms are used to define form fields, field sets and field groups.

Automatic Handling of Fields

Values of some fields in the form can be automatically handled. There is no need to fill in the values. For example, alias can be generated from the title, dates can be set to the current date, user id can be obtained from current logged in user.

How to Get Form in Joomla Component

The Form class of Joomla is used to create complex forms with flexible layouts and dynamic properties. First, the form fields are defined in the XML file. Then, the view file gets the form from the model and layout file displays the form.

How to Add Sorting & Ordering of Columns in Joomla Component

The state variables list.ordering and list.direction are used to store the ordering column and ordering direction (ascending or descending). The filter form is used for the ordering and sorting field. In the model, you have to allowable columns in the $config array.

How to Add Search & Filtering in Joomla Component

Searching and Filtering is implemented through a form that is displayed above the list of items in the backend. Site administrators can search or filter the data as per the fields defined in the form.

Joomla Backend List Layout File

The layout file, default.php, displays the list of items in tabular format. The list is obtained by the view file from the model as array of objects.

Creating and Managing Joomla Database Tables

In Joomla!, components usually manage content using the database. During the install, update or uninstall phase of a component, you can execute SQL queries through the use of SQL text files.

Add Backend Toolbar and Actions in Joomla

In Joomla!, the administrator interacts with components through a toolbar. Toolbar is a collection of action buttons (New, Save, Close, Publish and so on). It also creates a title for the component.

SQL Queries During Component Install, Uninstall and Update

During the install, uninstall or update phase of a component, you can execute SQL queries through the use of SQL text files.

Add a Model to Joomla Admin Part

The HtmlView class asks the model for the data using the get method of the BaseHtmlView class.

Nested Set Model in Joomla

Joomla includes support for storing and retrieving hierarchical information in the form of nested sets in database tables. This is used in the implementation of menus and categories in the core Joomla CMS from version 1.6 onwards.

How To Create Joomla Component

Component is a type of Joomla extension (like Modules and Plugins). Unlike modules and plugins, components have two main parts - site and administrator. The site part is visible to visitors (front-end access). The administrator part is interface for managing extension from the back-end.

Joomla Manifest Files for Extensions

All Joomla extensions have XML manifest files (<extension_name>.xml). This file is located in the root directory of the installation package. It include general installation information and parameters for the extension.

How to Create Joomla Task Scheduler Plugin

Joomla! included Task Scheduler from the version Joomla! 4.1. It helps to automate repetitive and routine tasks for for a wide variety of maintenance and reporting tasks.

Different Types of Models in Joomla

There are six types of models that can be used in a component. To create a model in your component, extend your model class with one of the models provided by Joomla.

Joomla Plugin Events

Joomla has a variety of core events, organised into groups.

How to Create Joomla 4.x Plugin

Plugins are easily installed as a .zip file but a correctly formatted XML file must be included. The object-oriented way of writing plugins involves writing a subclass of CMSPlugin.

Joomla accesslevel Form Field Type

It provides a drop down list of access level options with the current option selected.

Joomla calendar Form Field Type

The calendar form field type provides a text box for entry of a date. An icon next to the text box provides a link to a pop-up calendar, which can also be used to enter the date value. If the field has a saved value this is shown in the text box. Otherwise the default value, if any, is displayed.

How to Get URI in Joomla

The Uri Class is used to get information about the current Joomla URL and parts of the URL.

Joomla list Form Field Type

The list form field type provides a drop down list or a list box of custom-defined entries. If the field has a saved value this is selected when the page is first loaded. If not, the default value (if any) is selected.

Joomla radio Form Field Type

The radio form field type provides radio buttons to select different options. If the field has a saved value this is selected when the page is first loaded. If not, the default value (if any) is selected.

Joomla textarea Form Field Type

The textarea form field type provides a text area for entry of multi-line text.

Joomla text Form Field Type

The text form field type provides a text box for data entry. If the field has a value saved, this value is displayed when the page is first loaded. If not, the default value (if any) is selected.

How to Display Messages and Notices in Joomla

Messages, errors, warnings and notices can be displayed from any component, module, plugin or template. The messages use the standard bootstrap CSS styles for alerts.

How to Get Menu in Joomla

In Joomla a Menu is the set of navigation links you can have as a main menu (at the top of site) or side menu or footer menu. Each of the individual navigation link is a Menu item. You can easily get menu items in Joomla.

Joomla HTMLHelper::_ Class Loader Method

The HTMLHelper is utility class for all HTML drawing classes. The _() method of HTMLHelper is a static function that grants quick access to a number of other static methods. The return value of this function depends on the return value of the method resolved by parsing the first parameter.

Retrieving Request Data Using Input

The Joomla Input class allows you to retrieve the parameters which were sent in the HTTP request. It doesn't matter whether the parameters are GET parameters or POST parameters, both can be accessible with the help of the Input Class.

Accessing Global Configuration Information in Joomla

Like user information, accessing global configuration of Joomla (like site name, from name) is a very simple process. You can use getConfig() method of Factory class in any part of the Joomla extension or template.

How to Handle Files in Joomla

The base for file handling is the File class. It is part of Filesystem library which includes File, Folder and Path.

Sending Email From Joomla Platform Using Mailer

Sending an email from any Joomla extension is very simple process. You can put this code into your component's controller file or module's helper file.

Joomla Document Class

It provides an easy interface to parse and display a document.

Working with Joomla Database

To query data source, you can call a number of DatabaseQuery methods like select, from, join, insert, update, delete, where and order. By using these methods, you can create almost any query.

Joomla Application Object

The main applications are Administrator, Site, and Installation. With the CMSApplication, you can access many things in Joomla. For example, you can access configuration, input variables, menu or enqueue messages which are shown to the user.

How To Use Dates in Joomla

Joomla has a helper class Date, which extends from PHP's DateTime class. It allows developers to handle date formatting more efficiently.

Joomla menuitem Form Field Type

The menuitem form field type provides a drop down grouped list of the available menu items from Joomla site.

Joomla Table Class for CRUD Operations

The Joomla Table class provides a framework which enables you to do CRUD operations and more on database tables. This class can be used for single record only and it doesn't support SQL operations on multiple records.

Working with Tags in Joomla

Tags are stored in the tags table using a tree hierarchy structure. You can use TagsHelper class which provide access to the tag data.

Create Joomla User Programmatically

You can create a new Joomla user in your extension (module, plugin or component) easily. At minimum, you need an email to create new user.

Accessing User Information in Jooma

Accessing user information (like name, email, username, registered date) is very simple process in Joomla. The getUser() function of the Factory class returns a reference to the global user object.

JoomlArt T4 Template Framework

Building layout is the most important work of template or website development. It is very easy to build from basic to complicated layout with T4 Layout Builder. T4 Framework is a powerful and advanced responsive template framework for Joomla. It is a modern, flexible and highly customizable framework to build beautiful Joomla websites easier.