How to display a single category in PyroCMS

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Yesterday, I was having some fun testing PyroCMS, when I stumbled upon something ‘annoying’ with the blog module. The blog module allows you to create categories (in a flat structure) but there’s no option to link to just a specific category.

Or so I thought, until I stumbled upon the documentation, that mentioned the URL structure for the blog module. Unlike Joomla! PyroCMS generates these URL’s regardless of whether you created a menu item or not. This allows you to easily link to a single category from within the menu.

The best part? You don’t need to code anything.

Here is how it’s done.

First off, you will need the ‘slug’ for your category.

  1. Go to Content > Blog
  2. You will see a list of categories. Click “Edit” next to the category you want to link to.
  3. In the next screen, take a note of (or copy) the info in the “Slug” box. You will need this later on.
Copy (or take a note of) the line in the "Slug" box

Copy the info in the “Slug” field

  1. Go to Structure > Navigation
  2. Click on “Add Link” to create a new Menu Item (You can do this in any of the available menu’s)
  3. For the new item, choose “Site Link” as the link type.
  4. In the site Link box, add the following: blog/<Your Category Slug>.  For example, if your category slug was news-and-updates, type “blog/news-and-updates” in this box.

PyroCMS Site Link

  1. Click Save
  2. Now, if you visit your front page you’ll see that you’ve got a menu item which is pointing to a single Category only, without having to change any code.
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Got something you want us to write about?

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Here at Joomla & More we try to keep things fresh, by blogging about interesting problems we encounter regularly. It happens, however, that there’s no problems for us to solve. Then what? We could try redesigning the blog again… Or we could create a Joomla! blog of Joomla & More that we’ll never use.

You know what’s a better idea?

“No” isn’t the right answer, I’m afraid. The proper answer is “crowd sourcing.” We’re opening Joomla & More to suggestions of you, the reader.

Have you got a question you’d like us to answer? Is there a product you want us to review for you? Do you want us to study the influence of the male-female ratio on inter-working-groups politics in Joomla?

Using the form below, you can make a suggestion, for a topic you want us to discuss right here. Except the third one above. That’s a joke. Obviously.

What are you waiting for? Submit your question!

Clean up your tmp folder with Cache Cleaner

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Spring is in the air. Great weather, plants and flowers that are blossoming… and people have the inexplicable need to do a “Spring Clean-up”.

Cleaning up your websites is something you should do, too. And not just for spring. Did you know that your /tmp folder is a haven for megabytes of files that you’ll never use again? This folder is used to temporary store files when installing extensions – and updates of these extensions.

Anything in this folder can be safely deleted – but you can’t delete the folder. There’s two ways to approach this: The wrong way and the right way.

  • The Wrong Way: Delete the content of the folder manually. Possibly the worst method to do this is by FTP.
  • The Right Way: Use “Cache Cleaner” by Nonumber

Don’t let the name “Cache Cleaner” fool you. The free version of Nonumber also cleans up the tmp folder for you. All you have to do is click the button in the top right corner of your site (Up until Joomla! 2.5) or the bottom left corner.

Image

Clearing the tmp folder with Cache Cleaner only takes two clicks.

You can download or buy Cache Cleaner here. The Professional version offers you a bunch of other interesting features, such as: automatically cleaning your cache by interval, emptying folders that you define yourself, or even emptying specific database tables. For only €10 a year, this is a tool you should consider adding to your toolbox.

How to save even more money when buying domain names from Godaddy.

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In this post I’ll share a secret that will save you a lot of money. “A lot of money” being relative towards the amount of money you’d pay, of course.

If, like me, you’ve got some domain names parked at Godaddy you’ll inevitably receive e-mails encouraging you to renew them near the expiration of the domain. By which I mean “They’ll start mailing you about 2 months before expiration and send an e-mail with an offer you can’t refuse every week after that.”

These mails promise you a “Great offer”, and should you click the mail you’ll be taken to their site, where they once again point out how much they’re saving.

When you’ve arrived at this point, use the following trick to save even more money.

1. Navigate to the tab you’ve opened their site in.
2. Click the “X” and close that tab. It’ll be okay, I promise.
3. Open a new tab
4. Navigate to either Name.com or Namecheap.com
5. Transfer your domain names.

That’s right. The secret is to buy your domain names elsewhere.

THeir best price? Not so great!

What makes me give you this advice? Well, today I was domain name renewin’ at Godaddy. Their best offer would save me €10, which sounded great.

Until I did a quick check (my experience told me I had gotten better prices elsewhere), and much to my surprise (not really) two other registrars’ made a way better offer. At either Namecheap.com or Name.com I’d pay $42 instead of €42 (Approximately $55). 

Now, I’m not telling you what to do with this information. I’m just telling you that the “best offer” of Godaddy isn’t that great compared to regular prices of other registrars. But, you say, maybe you’re paying a premium for great add-ons? Well, you’re wrong.

The point of all of this?

The point I’m trying to make, is that if you’re a Godaddy customer, you could save a lot of money by taking your domains elsewhere. I’m sharing this information with you, for free, as a fellow domain name buyer. There’s nothing in it for me whether you use this advice or not. I’m not sponsored by either of them, there’s no affiliate links in this post… Just friendly advice. :)

Can I see the menu, please?

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Now that Spring has finally arrived in the land of chocolate, beer, and waffles,  it is time for a  ”spring clean-up” here at Joomla & More. But instead of throwing things away or sweeping them under a rug (tsk, tsk) we’ve added things you’ll (hopefully) enjoy.

While our statistics prove that we don’t have many regular readers, I thought it was time to make using the site a bit more worthwhile for them. For as long as this site exists – about 4 years or so – the site didn’t have a menu. All pages were shown on the front page. Not very user-friendly for those revisiting the site.

We were also told that our “Website is ugly” in a blog post (which also named Joomla & More a “Blog of interest”, so they are forgiven) and they probably weren’t wrong.

Anyway, to solve those issues we’ve made the following changes:

    • We’ve got a menu! We’ve now got a genuine top menu linking to the most popular categories, for your navigation convenience. (Although “Joomla” is still missing from the list)
    • We are now using a new template. Ten Twelve is simple but stylish with a focus on content. Just the way I like it. It’s also responsive which isn’t just a big “plus”. It was a requirement.
    • Joomla & More now has its own Twitter account, for those that aren’t comfortable with following @torettox84.  Yes, I tweet a lot, I can’t blame you for that. Hopefully the low-pace tweeting of @jandmore is more to your liking.
    • You can now sign up for our newsletter.  Which exists for about a year. But we forgot to link you to the sign-up page. Well, that’s sorted out now, you can find the link under “Contact”.
    • New category: I’ve added a new category, “Reviews”. I guess you can already guess what sort of articles will be posted to this category. (*)
  • Last but not least: People kept pointing out that I’m using WordPress for a site that’s (partially) about Joomla!. I’ve realized that this is silly, and to correct this error I’ve migrated this website to Drupal. You’re welcome. (***)

(*) If you’d like me to review your (Joomla!) product, hit me up at Twitter or send me an e-mail at jandmore@toralkolabs.net

(**) I’m kidding, obviously. I migrated the website to Concrete5.

Overlay problem in Sigpro? Change your popup engine.

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We were in the process of building a website built on K2 when we were confronted with something ‘unusual’. We are using Simple Image Gallery Pro to create photo galleries for players of a volleyball club. You know how it works: you click a thumbnail, you get to see a bigger picture.

When we tried the feature, the result wasn’t quite what we expected:

Image

The problem was located in the ‘popup engine’ we chose in the Simple Gallery Pro plug-in, or rather, didn’t choose as we used the default option.

The default option, Slimbox2, doesn’t quite work as planned. We could now go into details on how to fix this particular problem, but sometimes less is more.

The simple solution

Use one of the many other popup engines available in Sigpro. We decided to pick SimpleBox, ourselves, but you’re free to mix and match.

Here’s how you change the popup engine:

  1. In the top menu, go to Extensions > Plug-in Manager
  2. Find Simple Image Gallery Pro in the list of plug-ins, and open it. Tip: use “Simple” as a search term.
  3. Under Basic Options, look for “Popup engine for image galleries”
  4. Choose an option that isn’t “Slimbox2″
  5. Click ‘Save’.

This should solve the less than aesthetically pleasing mess that Slimbox2 created on your site. Enjoy!

P.S If you’re a tinkerer, you can try to fix the Slimbox issue yourself.

  • Location of CSS files (You’ll have to find out what version you’re using): /plugins/content/jw_sigpro/jw_sigpro/includes/js/mootools/slimbox/ 
  • Changes to be made: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15336690/slimbox-overlay-in-front-of-the-image

Best of luck, you elite hacker you ;-)

Configuring the Prestashop Domain Name for your Localhost

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Backstory: Today, I was ready to deploy a Prestashop store. But before I put it online, I decided to test something locally. (Something, being: check if our cool AkeebaBackup solution for backing up Prestashop worked).

I almost wish I hadn’t, since I’ve lost almost half an hour trying to figure out why Prestashop kept moaning about redirect errors, Redirect loops and other things about redirecting.

The domain name turned out to be the problem. Since I’m used to Joomla! I’m familiar with a straight forward approach: you enter the full path, and you’re done.

But for Prestashop, you’ve got to change your logic a bit when working on your localhost (be it Wamp, Xamp, LAMP or MAMP).  The guide below explains how to setup your domain when you’ve moved your site to your localhost

The Steps

I am going to make two assumptions: You’ve managed to unpack Prestashop, your database is up and running and you can access the backend locally. If that’s the case, do the following:

1. Login to the back-end of your site

MenuGoToSEOURLS

2. Go to Preferences > SEO & URLS

3. Go to the Set Shop URL Section of the screen.

4. Configure the fields in this section like this:

  • ChangeDomainName
  • Shop Domain: http://localhost:<Ports&gt;
    • Replace <Ports> by the port Apache is listening to on your localhost. If you’re using Port 80 just write http://localhost
  • Base URL: the path to your Prestashop installation, relative to your root folder. If, for example, the store is located in a “MyPrestaShop” folder under your root, enter /MyPrestaShop here.

Once you have configured both the fields, click “Save. This should help you get rid of that nasty “Redirect” error!