July 2008
Joomla! Community Magazine
Welcome to the Joomla Community Magazine, a publication powered by the Joomla community.
2008-07 Joomla! Community Magazine
July 2008 was the first monthly issue of the Joomla! Community Magazine and it started things out with a bang. Joomla! Core Team Member and Communications Team Lead, Louis Landry, introduced the magazine and shared promising indicators of Joomla!'s success. Cool, new Joomla! 1.5 Extensions were shared, along with the Forum Member of the Month announcement. In each issue, stories about Joomla!'s international community, events around the globe, and opportunities for involvement make visible our greatest asset, and that is people.
One of the more important goals of the magazine is providing learning material for a broad range of skillsets and interests. As a result, new learners, people looking for migration information for Joomla! 1.5, those interested in localization and translation topics, and even highly technical individuals who want to create an LDAP from scratch will find a good read. Finally, updates from development, spotlights on various working groups, and other project activity help you stay up-to-date on the latest with Joomla!.
Features
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Welcome to the Joomla! Community Magazine
5,000,000...300,000...200,000 ...15,000
by Louis LandryRecently, there have been amazing numbers popping up at Joomla!. The 5,000,000th copy of Joomla! was downloaded from JoomlaCode (which launched March 14, 2007). The 300,000th Joomla! Forum thread was created. We are very close to welcoming our 200,000th forum member. Certainly, these are encouraging signs that Joomla! is useful to people all around the world.
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Joomla! Forum Member of the Month for June 2008
Anthony Ferrara
by Ken CrowderThose heavily involved in the Joomla! community know who Anthony Ferrara (aka ircmaxell) is, but most of you probably have no idea. Besides being the Joomla! Member of the Month for June 2008, Anthony is also the Joomla! Bug Squad Team Lead and on the Development Team. He is one of the fine folks that work on the Core code base that we all love.
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Joomla! 1.5 GPL Extensions for July 2008
Several great ways to empower your Joomla! 1.5 Web site
by Toni MarieThe Joomla! Extensions Directory (other wise known as "The JED"), gets an average of 10 new listings submitted every day. It's easy for good extensions to get lost in the shuffle. This column will attempt to highlight the GPL extensions that are worth a second look.
Community
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Events: A story about Joomla! - around the globe
Joomla! Days
by Alex KempkensIf you look at the Web site of Joomla!, you will find many, many people talking to each other. Most of them have unusual names, such as mastermind, osokin, speedbit or many, many others. Actually there are about 200.000 names registered - but come on, these names are not real, or are they?
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Involvement: Pizza, Bugs and Fun II
Well, IRC and virtual pizza for most of us
by Wilco JansenOn May 30, the second Pizza, Bugs and Fun event was announced. We extended this event over two weekends at the request of community members unable to attend earlier. During the first weekend, there were 15 people, or so, idling in the IRC channel all the time. A lot of great discussion went on and three participants joined the Joomla! Bug Squad. During the second weekend, even more people participated.
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International: Open Source CMS in Thailand
Reflections on the Thai Joomla! community
by Akarawuth TamrareangOpen Source CMS became important part to user group in Thailand just recently. Even it is considered new technology for Thai users, during the part 5 years, the growth rate is very consistent. There are more and more users and enthusiasts, therefore more growth will be expected each year.
Learning
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Introductory: Modify Joomla! 1.5 Milkyway Template
Adapting the template to meet your needs
by Chad WindnagleThe Introductory: Modify Joomla! 1.5 Milkyway Template is the basic changes usually requested by beginners. You will learn to change the Joomla! logo, change the template width, choose from existing color schemes, and remove the footer link that will take site visitors back to Joomla.org. In addition, you will learn how to change the Joomla! Logo to something appropriate for your use and how to create your own favicon, replacing the one that came with Joomla!. Let's begin!
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Site Integrator: Migrating to Joomla! 1.5
Should I stay or should I go?
by Robin MuilwijkJoomla! has recently released a new version, 1.5. With this new version a new task arises for website administrators maintaining Joomla! 1.0.x websites: migrating to the new 1.5 version. But, do they really need to migrate?
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Site Integrator: URL Changes in Joomla! 1.5
Comparing Joomla! 1.0.x and 1.5 URLs
by Steve BurgeJoomla! 1.5 has really taken hold in recent months, overtaking 1.0 to become the more popular system. The aim of this post is to compare the URLs in 1.0 and 1.5 so that you know what to expect in the new version.
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Developer: Localization Advancements in Joomla! 1.5
Preparing your extensions for multilanguage support
by József Tamás HerczegThe localization possibilities in Joomla! 1.5 try to force an open door: not only the components, but the interface of the modules, plugins and templates can have multilanguage support. It is wonderful and important at the same time. Wonderful, because your extension has got the chance to be able to be used by users not speaking English. Important, because it tends to spread Joomla! 1.5 all over the world and provides weighty arguments for those who hesitant in upgrading.
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Developer: LDAP from scratch
Requires: Joomla! 1.5.4, an LDAP server (OpenLDAP) and the LDAP User and Authentication Plugins
by Sam MoffattA lot of people come to Joomla! with an existing LDAP provider in mind, typically Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory, Fedora Directory Services or Apple's OpenDirectory. However, you don't need to have the infrastructure pre-existing to make use of the LDAP extension within Joomla! or with other systems. You can, in fact, build it from scratch.
Project
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Release Update: Joomla! 1.5.2 and 1.5.3 Improvements
Take a look at new capabilities in core
by Andrew EddieAmongst the numerous bugs that have been dealt with, there are a few feature improvements that have been made in the recent Joomla! releases 1.5.2 and 1.5.3.
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Working Group Spotlight: Joomla! Bug Squad
The Bug Squad is a great way to get involved with Joomla!
by Anthony FerraraPeople only need to give the time that they want. If someone wants to help out for 5 minutes per day, all they need to do is login, pick an item, and work on it for those five minutes. Because all necessary conversation is done on the tracker (Joomlacode.org), the need for large time commitments, or complex work flows is gone.
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2008 Google Summer of Code Midterms
We're halfway there. Take time to learn about these projects.
by Ian MacLennanIt has been exciting being involved this year with the 2008 Google Summer of Code program. We’ve had the greatest level of participation yet with fifteen funded student projects as well as one student who is doing it for nothing but recognition and a small amount of Google swag.

