Joomla GSoC 18 with Alexandra Ciobica

Hello again! A lot of things have been happening lately.
The "Enhance Users Component" project is done and I am looking forward for it to be merged in the main repo. ^^

Now let me tell you what changes I have made.

To start with, I refactored all JClasses in the users_component and I included them using namespaces. The task was not the most interesting one, but I think the code looks much better without JClasses.

Then I added an option to show/hide the user group name in the user list view and also added the correct page title in the browser.

Next, I improved the details view with a contact form that can be activated from the user options or global options, Form tab. The form is very similar to the one from com_contact, as it has all options available in com_contact, for example banned email, subject, text etc.

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Furthermore, I fixed some bugs related to the users component. One of them was related to user notes where the addition of a new user note was not working. Then I repaired the 4.x router to take into consideration the layouts (PR not merged yet - link here). The last one was repairing the 3.x router for users component so that it takes into consideration the edit layout (PR not merged yet - link here).

In the end I want to tell you about the issue that I faced these days when there occured a change in the working environment, maybe one of you has the same issue and my solution will help you. What happened is that I made a pull from 4.0-dev and then nothing seemed to work. I was getting this screen.

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In order to solve this, Puneet Kala suggested that I need npm version 6.2.x. After updating npm version it still didn’t work. With the help of Dimitris Gramattiko I managed to make my project work using the following command in the root of my Joomla folder: node build.js --compile-css

In the end, I have to tell you that I am glad I was chosen as a GSoC student for Joomla and that the overall experience was very interesting and that I would do it again. I learned a lot during the program, from how it is like to work remotely with people that you don’t know, how to set up meetings taking into consideration time zones and how to ask questions when it’s needed. Moreover, I am pleased that I managed to work with a large codebase, understand how things work in a small amount of time, comply to coding standards and also interact with people from the organisation other than the mentors.

I want to thank all people that helped me during my GSoC journey, from my mentors, Benjamin Trankle, Allon Moritz, Nuno Lopes, to the administrators, Puneet Kala, Sandra Decoux, Tobias Zulauf, Yves Hoppe that took care that everything is going well and the other people that directly helped me, like Hannes Papenberg that helped me a lot regarding the router, George Wilson and Dimitris Gramattiko. I really appreciate everyone’s help. :D