Almost Done

Whew!

Have I got a hectic week or have I got a hectic week, and all of this painstaking work nearly comes to an end. I am really happy with all the modifications I have done to Joomla! 1.0.15. 

The funny thing is, I am not able to document them all. But, I will be able to document it after. See, I found this link http://www.assembla.com. It made my work easier. It has (1) SVN + Trac (2) Wiki (3) Collaboration [though I don't have to collaborate with anyone].

You should try this site out. 

Renz Out!

Labor day

Wow I'm back. For the past 2 days, I haven't been in front of the computer. I took a holiday from all the work-related things since that's what Labor Day is all about isn't it?

Anyway, back to documenting what I have done so far.

Here is the problem. In Joomla!, I want each page to be unique. I want it to load a different style (if I wanted to, of course).

The solution I came up with is to use the variable pageclass_sfx.

1.) I modified the file content.html.php from the com_content component of Joomla!. I took away all the instances where this variable is being added to some elements of the pages.

2.) Since it is all taken away from the pages, what I did is to put it as global variable. Why would I do this? Because I want to get this variable from the front-end side. and there is no other way of doing so.

3.) Since pageclass_sfx is part of the global scape, what I did was call separate stylesheets for the page for each pageclass_sfx value. I did this to the default template only. It's easier to do this from the default template than the assigned, but it is not impossible.

I don't know if there are other cleaner, more elegant ways to do this. However, for the sake of the site that I am doing now, I need this "modification" to be able to control everything.

Through this hack, I am able to create different "patterns" for the pages that need them and use the default template for the ones that don't need them.

Last week: Printer Drivers

I was able to make 2 out of the 3 non-working printers into working ones. All they needed was update in the printer definitions. It took me about 2 - 3 hours doing them. One was a HP Laser 1600 (Colored LaserJet Printer !!!), the other was a FujiXerox DocumentCenter 550i. (Trademarks for these printers are owned by their owner, not mine)

New Project

I am starting on a new project that computes Water Billing and Rentals. I will be using the CodeIgniter Framework. It will be easier that way. I already created a Library that will make it behave like symfony's view system. Although it's a little bit more complicated since in this view system, I can declare what the output will be (basically, it's glued to XML+XHTML 1.0 Strict). I will be uploading the library in a couple of days, once I tested that it's perfectly working and all that I needed is there.

Another Joomla! wishlist

I am about to create another Joomla! hack. What I would like to have is to create a way to specify a template for each page that I am about to create.

An idea came to me to extend (yet again) joomla com_content component to include (at the backside) a way to "insert" another field, specifically a template field that will load the specific template or the default template if there is none specified.

Good luck for me on this "hack"

Joomla 1.0 :: Hack : styling individiual menu items

Yet again, a Joomla 1.0 Hack:

In file : joomlainstallation/modules/mod_mainmenu.php:

at around line 132, I added these:

$menu_class_add = preg_replace("/[^A-Za-z0-9]+/", "_", strtolower($mitem->name));
$txt = '<a href="'. $mitem->link .'" class="'. $menuclass . "-" . $menu_class_add .'" '. $id .'>'. $mitem->name .'</a>';

This will make your menu items' class be specific to what they contain. For example, your link's display reads: Link To Some Content. what will happen is that the class would read : somclass-link_to_some_content. From thereon, it is easier to specifically target this link as if it has an ID. It is up to you now if you have to modify your css.

Or you could add the $menu_class_add as an ID for the anchor, which, I haven't tried yet.

Joomla 1.0 :: Conditional mosMainBody()

After some research, I have found a way to "properly" call mosMainBody() in Joomla! 1.0.

In this code:

<?php if(!eregi( "no items", $GLOBALS['_MOS_OPTION']['buffer'] )) {mosMainBody();}?>


I am checking if "no items" occurs in the $GLOBALS['_MOS_OPTION']['buffer'] variable where the main body resides. If you check the function declaration for mosMainBody in $joomlainstallation/includes/frontend.php file, you can see that this function echoes the variable above. I could hack this one (yet again) to test before display. But I need a fast way of doing things. This may not be the cleanest way to do it, but hey, it works for me.

!!! I modified the code to reflect other languages as well.... This is the new code:

<?php if(!eregi( _EMPTY_BLOG, $GLOBALS['_MOS_OPTION']['buffer'] ) AND !mb_eregi( _EMPTY_BLOG, $GLOBALS['_MOS_OPTION']['buffer'] ) ) {mosMainBody();}?>

Got new email addresses!

Just got 2 new email addresses.

renz_salmingobreakaway at atheistabreakaway dot netbreakaway - email address says it all. Don't have to expound about it, well not yet at least, except that you have to take out some parts to be able to send email to that address. If you really are a person, then recognizing the pattern would not be that too difficult for you (winking smiley here).

renzsalmingo2008takeaway at gmailtakeaway dot comtakeaway - now why would I want a second gmail account? the first one I created was too formal, too "me" -ish. I guess this one would be not. I still open the old ones that I have though.

Anyway, have to continue working now. It's already wayyyy past your bedtime. Go get some sleep.

Gallery Joomla Component....

I am now creating yet another gallery component for joomla.

Unlike most galleries, this one will have built in scoring system where you can schedule when the voting will begin and then keep track of the votes. I did not use Joomla!'s internal poll system since it has some limitations that I cannot breach (as of now).

I hope to be done by Friday this week so I can upload a copy here.

Milestone...

MEMORY LEAK

I can't believe that I am now married to the most understanding, most caring and most loving woman in the planet. I really am very happy to be with her, and now committing my life to her. I love you be.

Now that I am married, there are a lot of things that I want to change in my life. First would be my attitude towards work. I will be more diligent, more hardworking than ever before. I will be refraining from overuse of tobacco (one stick per day na lang). And the best of all, I will be more patient, more kind and more loving to her. Of all the rest, the latter will be the one thing I would work on as I had promised her when we took our vows last August 28.

I chills me to the bone that now and till I die, there would be one person that will be with me and that is my be - Salvacion Torres.

She is now here with me, and wherever I go, she wants to be there every minute, every hour of my life. WOW!

Maybe I will post her pic here after I finished all the software that I am working on right now.

Good day blog! its 00:08 on my computer's watch.

I am really tired but I cannot sleep until this two modules are through. So, I hope with a cup of coffee and some inspiration, I will finish this two modules today. Ahhhhhh..... then I can go to sleep






Signing out - but just this once...