PHP Mag - Joomla 1.5

8/3/2019 PHP Mag - Joomla 1.5

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6.06International

PHPPHPMagazine

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HP

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HPMagazine

Cutting-Edge Technologies for Web Professionals

Knocking at Your Doo

Getting a Grip on the Next Releas

Joomla! 1.5Joomla! 1.5


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Joomla! 1.5 Knocking At Your Door Cover Story

I n t e r n a t i o n a l P H P M a g a z i n e 0 6 . 2 0 0 6 2

Introduction

Last time I wrote or the International PHP Magazine (IPM),

we (IPM) were still in print, and we (Joomla!) were still called

Mambo. How things have changed! Even more change is aoot,

with the impending release o Joomla! 1.5, and several new

and exciting initiatives set to come rom the IPM stable. This

article will outline and demonstrate some o the most important

improvements in Joomla!, rom a developer perspective.

First, an Update

Back in August there were some events that triggered the

split, which o course we like to reer to as the rebranding

o Mambo to Joomla!. It is beyond the scope o this article to

outline the events that lead to this happening, but it is important

or everyone to know who Joomla! is, and what happened to

Mambo.

The entire Mambo teams developers, documentation writers,

orum moderators, system administrators, PR and advocacy

teams, and language translators decided in unison that this

switch was required to protect the relationship between the

developers and the community, and ensure that there would

be no more commercial attempts to manipulate the project. So

most olks are not aware o the totality o that agreement, or

that it was in complete unanimity that we decided to rebrand.

It was the most peaceul option or us, and the entire crew agreed

with the plan. So when you look at the low version numbers o

Joomla!, please remember that this is the same award winning

team that made Mambo so special. Joomla! 1.0.0 was essentially

the next maintenance release o the Mambo 4.5.2 series, with

some goodies added or measure.

I am not amiliar with the team that presently works on Mambo,

and do not track their progress. But it is sae to say that you

have two completely independent projects, run by completely

independent teams, and with decidedly dierent roadmaps and

philosophies. With the 1.5 release, all compatibility attempts

with Joomla! and Mambo come to an end, as not only have we

made signifcant changes in our evolution, but the new Mambo

team has also progressed on their own path.

I you were wondering when it was no longer possible to mix

and match components written or Mambo/Joomla!, wonder no

more now is that time.

The International Community Speaks

Back at the Joomla! Core Developer Summit in October, it

was brought to our attention, in a rather painul ashion, that

international support in Joomla! was a critical shortcoming;

and i we wanted our sotware to be internationally viable

we needed to ocus all our eorts to supporting a more multi-

lingual audience. We shelved our grand plans (more on that later)

or the next release, and ocused instead on meeting the

communitys needs.

The frst step was to implement UTF-8 characterset support

throughout the core. UTF-8 is also known as unicode, and

Joomla! 1.5 Knocking At Your Door

by Mitchell Pirtle

Let Joomla! core developer Mitch Pirtle take you through a quick

tour of the advancements in the latest update to the award winning

content management system. You will see the new front end editing

interface, as well as the much-needed changes to the back end

administrator interface.

Getting a Grip on the Next Release


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Cover Story Joomla! 1.5 Knocking At Your Door

3 I n t e r n a t i o n a l P H P M a g a z i n e 0 6 . 2 0 0 6

supports multibyte charactersets, right-to-let languages, and

others. With an aggressive schedule, we set out to implement

UTF-8 support as quickly as possible. Our expected delivery

date was within a ew weeks, in November.

This eort was rustrating when we learned that not only was

the UTF-8 support going to require a lot o reactoring o the

existing core, but that there were two major issues: supporting

both PHP4 and PHP5 required totally dierent approaches, and

the reliance on third-party libraries that Joomla! depended on

were also unable to support UTF-8. Some libraries had to be

completely removed, and we recreated them rom scratch, just

so we could support this requirement; and other libraries were

replaced with still other libraries as well.

Once the groundwork or this eort was underway, there was

a period where the localization teams were winding throughthe dierent translations to make sure that new API calls were

supported with their language fles. While this was happening,

the developers decided to reactor some areas that badly needed

it as the UTF-8 requirement orced them to reactor the

core anyway, it was logical to take care o some architectural

shortcomings o the existing core.

The Tipping Point

It was at this moment that some very important decisions were

made that ultimately aected the delivery o 1.5 which back then

was just called 1.1, as it was not considered a major eort. The frst

big decision was to reactor the colossal and bloated joomla.php.

This bloated fle was one monolithic pile o procedural PHP that

was parsed or each and every single page that was delivered to the

browser. This exercise started out innocently enough, with signifcant

time spent just breaking out the code into separate classes, and using

many OO patterns to simpliy the rendering process o content. The

intent was to make it easier on developers, but the added bonus was

perormance enhancements. The eect was due to Joomla! no longer

parsing all that code or each request, and only loading classes that

were needed or that particular view.

The second big decision was to rationalize the API, as there were clear

issues with the existing one that had evolved over time. By comingup with a solid, common philosophy we were able to reactor the

API with a much more logical approach, urther simpliying eorts

or developers.

The third, and most signifcant decision was to approach Joomla!

as more than a content management system, and ocus on bringing

a more ramework-oriented approach to the architecture. This had

a really proound impact on Joomla! in general, and also urther

necessitated core reactoring to break out the classes so that

developers had the exibility to do just what they wanted, instead

o banging on a bunch o procedural code to make one site behave

the way they wanted, in a very manual and error-prone ashion that

made upgrades nearly impossible.

It is completely true that you could say the Joomla! content

management system was created with the Joomla! Framework. But

enough history lessons already! Lets get to the new Joomla!

First Impressions

The new template is called rhuk_milkyway, and is brought to you

by the same developer that produced the deault or the 1.0.x series

as well as the 4.5.x series when we were Mambo, Andy Miller. See

Figure 1.

Fig 1: Screenshot of Default Front End Interface

Gone is the venerable SolarFlare II template, replaced with a much

more manageable layout that has more exibility with module

positions. There are other changes, but the most interesting I will

save or the last.

Life on the Backside

So how does the administrator interace look? This is one o the

most visible changes to the end user, as the entire administrator

interace has been completely revamped. Immediately apparent is

the new template colorscheme, as evidenced by the login screen.

See Figure 2.

The new look is driven rom a totally new admin template, which

also showcases the ability o Joomla! to allow or distinctly

dierent looks on the administrator interace, not just the ront end.

Perhaps most telling is the main page, also called the Control Panel.

See Figure 3.


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Fig 2: Screenshot of the Login Screen

Fig 3: Screenshot of the Login Screen

We have brought out an entirely new set o icons as well, which

is a welcome change o pace ater looking at the previous icons

or several years. We have also consolidated both the Control Panelchoices, as well as the menu items. Gone are the multiple-nested

menus, replaced with simple, logical menus that are typically only

one level deep. The lone exception is or components, which is

necessary or complex components otherwise you would have a

simple menu that required many clicks to get where you needed or

more sophisticated applications.

We consolidated Content Items and Static Content Items to

just one, which in this article are reerred to as Articles. This is a

test or now, however the fnal release may include this change in

terminology. At the time o writing the debate was still in ull swing,

but or clarity I will continue to reer to them as Content Items in

this article, until the change is made permanent. See Figure 4.

The biggest change to the content editor is the consolidation o the

content areas, also known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What

You Get) areas. In 1.0.x there were two, one or the introductory

text and another or the main body.

As this was quite conusing or a lot o newcomers to Joomla!, we

decided to simpliy the whole content creation process by havingone editor area and providing a button to create the Read More...

link that signifes a separate page or lengthy text.

You can see in the screenshot the text {readmore} that tells Joomla!

you want to make that separation between introductory text and

main text. For aggregate listings such as blog lists, this inserts a

Read More... link at the end o the introductory text.

We have also changed the code or insertion o images, rom

{mosimage} to just {image} or clarity, as well as getting away

rom the deprecated mos terminology which originally stood or

Mambo Open Source.

Also o note is the new styling o the images tab and related tabs,

which are not layered anymore as tabs but rendered much more

cleanly with expanding divs. This is a lot easier on slower machines

and also is more cross platorm to support a wider array o browsers

and browser versions. See Figure 5.

Fig 4: Screenshot of the Content Manager Fig 5: Screenshot of the Content Detail Page


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Fig 6: Screenshot of the Global Configuration

Fig 7: Screenshot of the Media Manager

Fig 8: Screenshot of Front End Editor

The Global Confguration screen also gets some revamping, with the

dierent confguration directives consolidated to just our tabs. This

makes things a lot easier as well as quicker as we learned that having

a confguration screen with ten or more tabs was just unmanageable.

Also the top-level tabs are much more logical and intuitive,

making it more likely or the newcomers to Joomla! to jump to the

intended screen to make the changes that they desire. See Figure 6.

The new Media Manager interace is a much-needed

improvement over the old one; and is also a source o pride and

joy o the happy parent (that would be developer Louis Landry).

The tree on the let makes it so much more convenient

to jump rom older to older, which was a common

interace complaint rom the 1.0.x userbase. See Figure 7.

And now, or something completely dierent. Lets go back to the

ront end interace, login, and try to edit a content item. See Figure 8.

Finally, some AJAX magic makes its way to the Joomla!

Interace. Perhaps this is just a frst step, but also paves the way

or the ront end content editor interace to be a lot more useul.

Here is some dirty laundry rom the old days: back in the Mambo

universe, we were constantly hearing about how much everyone

hated the ront-end content editor interace. The problem is, none o

us ever used it. The pain we elt to fx that just wasnt there. We never

understood why it was such a big deal, or why everyone wanted us

to spend so much time on the ront-end when you had so much

more power and capability available rom the back end interace.

Well, quite a ew o us started taking jobs developing and

customizing sites that used Mambo. For every single one

o us, the very frst project we worked on was an absolute

horror rom the ront end content editor perspective, that is

and we all vowed that the interace needed some serious work.

The 1.5 development team put that need into action, and provided

a antastic interace to the ront end that provides virtually the

same power and capability as the one provided by the back end,

but without giving back end access to your content writers. This

is signifcant, as it takes an early, critical step in the process ous really rethinking how the ront end interace should be used.

Finally, olks that are restricted to the ront end can rejoice!

Developer Resources Everywhere

Speaking o developers, you can get a ull reerence o the new

API at http://api.joomla.org/, and there is a developer portal at

http://dev.joomla.org/. The portal is a great resource, as you can
http://api.joomla.org/http://api.joomla.org/http://api.joomla.org/http://dev.joomla.org/http://dev.joomla.org/http://dev.joomla.org/http://api.joomla.org/


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read developer blogs, articles about the technology rom a developer

perspective, and fnd links to other resources to help you be as

productive as you can be.

Additionally, you can have ree hosting o your open source Joomla!

extension atorge.joomla.org, where you have access to a tracker,

subversion repository, fle release system, and more. This topic

deserves some more detail, which I hope explains how antastic a

resource this is to you.

The JoomlaForge happens to be the biggest instance o SourceForge

Enterprise Edition (SFEE), in the world. We have over 25,000

registered developers working on more than 1,000 projects, spanning

a huge variety o applications including document management,

discussion orums, photo galleries, additional WYSIWYG editors,

you name it! Not only is there a veritable cornucopia o applications

to choose rom, you can also set up your own project or ree.

I you are itching to develop a Joomla! extension and release it

under an open source license, you can use all the ormidable eatures

provided by SFEE. As well you will have your project hosted in

a Joomla!-centric environment, where you will always have the

communitys interest.

However, SFEE is not targeted at the non-technical end user

that is looking or a photo gallery, it is targeted squarely at the

developer who needs tools to collaborate with other developers

working on a sotware project. So what can the non-developers do?

We created our new sotware directory athttp://extensions.joomla.org, where you can fnd a categorized list o available applications

complete with reviews, links to the sotwares home page, and

more. This is where we like to send the users o the sotware

to fnd additional unctionality, in a non-techie presentation.

This means that the SFEE interace remains ocused solely on

the needs o the developer, which is what SFEE is so good at.

Unlike the old orge (which I was the sole maintainer o or over a

year), the new JoomlaForge is a eature rich, robust environment

that really acilitates collaborative development.

But Wait, Theres More

There is one more screenshot that needs to be shown, which is the

administrator interace or managing plugins, ormerly known as

mambots. See Figure 9.

Plugins have had a complete and dramatic redesign that

provides a real wealth o capabilities. You will see in this list o

deault plugins a new type o plugin or authentication. We have

provided three authentication plugins or reerence: the standard

Joomla! authentication plugin that uses the stock Joomla! tables,

a native LDAP plugin to authenticate rom remote directory

sources such as OpenLDAP, Netware or Microsots Active

Directory, and a little proo o concept authentication plugin

that lets you login with your Google Mail accounts credentials.

We have also included a stub or use with the XStandard WYSIWYG

editor, which has an interesting implementation. Basically you

install the editor locally on your machine (sorry, Windows is

required at this point, were working on it); and when you wish

to edit content, you dont have to wait or all that JavaScript to

download to your browser locally beore rendering the editor

area. This makes editing content eel much more responsible, like

a desktop application instead o a web-based content editor. Nice!

Also you will see another new class o plugins, ocused on

unctionality provided by XML-RPC capabilities. There isone plugin that lets you use a at client blogging application (in

this case, w.bloggar) to post content to your Joomla! web site.

Not to leave it at that, we have also provided our own Joomla!

XML-RPC interace, which will provide the means or at client

applications to interact with your web site like a web service. There

is already a Java-based client called J!Explorer that is more than

just a working prototype, to be ound at www.joomlatools.org .

The plugin installer has really gone through the upgrade

process, where you no longer have to use a component

installer, module installer and so on you can now just use

the installer. Another much-needed addition is the capabilityto install rom a URL, instead o constantly downloading to

your client machine, and then uploading to the web server.

Speaking the International Language

One important topic not covered yet is the concept o language

packs. This allows third-party developers to provide dierent

language packs or their applications, not just at the Joomla! level

but also at an application level.Fig 9: Screenshot of Plugin Manager Interface
http://www.forge.joomla.org/http://www.forge.joomla.org/http://www.forge.joomla.org/http://extensions.joomla.org/http://extensions.joomla.org/http://extensions.joomla.org/http://extensions.joomla.org/http://server/d/Editorial/Projects/Int_PHP%20Magazine/IPM_Magazine/IPM_06.06/Blues/Free%20copy/www.joomlatools.orghttp://server/d/Editorial/Projects/Int_PHP%20Magazine/IPM_Magazine/IPM_06.06/Blues/Free%20copy/www.joomlatools.orghttp://server/d/Editorial/Projects/Int_PHP%20Magazine/IPM_Magazine/IPM_06.06/Blues/Free%20copy/www.joomlatools.orghttp://server/d/Editorial/Projects/Int_PHP%20Magazine/IPM_Magazine/IPM_06.06/Blues/Free%20copy/www.joomlatools.orghttp://extensions.joomla.org/http://extensions.joomla.org/http://www.forge.joomla.org/


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Listing 1

Template Conditional Example 1

This code tells Joomla! to check and see i the language in use is a

right-to-let language; and i so, to load an additional stylesheet or

the template.

There are also ways to test to see i there are modules published in a

particular position. So or example i you wanted to render HTML

or the let module position, but only i there are published modules

there, you can use the code shown in Listing 2.

Listing 2

Template Conditional Example 2

Most importantly, there are tutorials on templates on the developer

portal and o course the deault template provided with the 1.5

distribution has all o these examples and more. By studying this

template and how it is done, you can easily get started with the new

syntax.

Its All in the Packaging

Another important point about the reactoring o Joomla! is that

this has resulted in a much more ramework-oriented package. It is

actually correct to say that the Joomla! CMS was created with the

Joomla! Framework.

For example, the JApplication class allows you to create a

standalone script that does not require the CMS, but has access to

all the acilities as i the script was being rendered, and as i it was

being delivered by the CMS.

I you look in the distribution, you will see the libraries older. This

is actually the ramework, and what we used to create the CMS.

We are investigating what it would take to release the ramework

as a standalone package, and hopeully under the LGPL license to

promote inclusion in other applications.

Planning for the Future

I saved my avorite part or last. In the libraries older, you will

see the joomla older containing the database older. Here you see

the oundation or making Joomla! capable o using a variety o

dierent database platorms, allowing you to use not only MySQL

but PostgreSQL, but some commercial database platorms as well.

The frst step is already done, and you can create your own database

driver by using the existing mysql and mysqli ones as a reerence

point. But what about all that SQL littering the codebase?

For example, say you wrote a component that provided a calendar

or events, like GigCalendar atwww.gigcalendar.net. What happens

i someone downloads your application and they are speaking

Spanish? Your component is still rendering the language you

provided, which (in the case o GigCalendar) is English.

By being able to provide a language pack or your component, it

is now possible or someone using Joomla! in Spanish to also have

GigCalendar, also in Spanish. It sounds much easier than it really is,

and it is a wonderul capability or the international, multilingual

community.

Sometimes Looks ARE Everything

So what happens to templates, you ask? We have changed the way

templates are done, with a strict ocus on making the template

fles as easy to edit as possible. One change is the move rom PHP

snippets in the HTML which rustrated and conounded many

editors and proved a common source o syntax errors with a more

XML-riendly ormat.

For example, to include a module position in your template or the

1.0.x series, you would use:

With 1.5 you would instead use:

The frst ormat makes great sense to a PHP developer, but isproblematic or HTML editors, to say the least. First o, your

document will not validate and o course it is very difcult to

know while you are working on your template i it validates or not,

without actually viewing (and validating) your output as rendered

by Joomla! There are many reasons that this is undesirable.

Another template eature is conditional logic, without the need or

PHP. See the example in Listing 1.
http://www.gigcalendar.net/http://www.gigcalendar.net/http://www.gigcalendar.net/http://www.gigcalendar.net/http://www.gigcalendar.net/


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I n t e r n a t i o n a l P H P M a g a z i n e 0 6 2 0 0 6 9

That is the next step. We are participating in the Google Summer o

Code program, and hope that one o the projects will be researching

and implementing a layer or Joomla! to generate SQL based on

the driver, as opposed to hardcoding SQL statements everywhere

in your code.

There are already existing implementations or us to look at like

ADOdb and Propel, and there is also plenty to learn rom other

languages such as java and python. It is my hopes that this layer is

implemented in the next point release o Joomla!, so that you can

choose the database platorm that is right or you.

We All Could Use A Little Change

And now a little bit or those o you that have already written

applications to the 1.0.x API, and are worrying about the time youare going to spend moving to the 1.5 API.

This was a very hot topic, and the lead developer on the 1.5 eort,

Johan Janssens, has made a blog post [1] about migrating a very

popular application called FacileForms that makes it easy to create

orms and process the posted results.

In a nutshell, Johan spent about an hour playing around with

FacileForms to get what he wanted working in 1.5. That doesnt

mean that it was ully ported, nor does it mean that all applications

will be as easy, but it should be a great reerence to those o you that

are preparing or the migration o existing applications.

Mitch Pirtle is a core developer on the

Joomla! content management team and focuses

on database technologies and evangelism of the

platform for application development, as well

as being a champion of open source software.

He is also a founder ofJamboWorks, providing

business and enterprise services and products

based on the Joomla! application platform. There he works on training

and client relationships, as well as business development. Mitch is

also an active member of New York PHP, vocal booster of PHP and

PostgreSQL. He can be found with his wife and children loitering

somewhere in the parks of Manhattan with his PowerBook and a cigar.

Questions & Comments PHP Magazine Forum

Conclusion

The 1.5 release o Joomla! includes some signifcant changes, as well

as some welcome additions to unctionality to ease the lives o thirdparty developers or product development and custom work. Not

only has the interace been simplifed or the end user, the API has

been rationalized or the developer.

More importantly, this version is a lot more suited or complex

applications and sophisticated requirements. This is an excellent

platorm or integrating systems, or example, and taking on other

enterprise-scale challenges.

With Joomla! 1.5 available, lie as a web developer couldnt be any

better!

Dive into the World of PHPDive into the World of PHP

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