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Who said becoming a Registered JUG was easy?

15.08.10

Who said becoming a Registered JUG was easy? WE DID!

New, Easier Application Process for Joomla User Groups

The JUG team is proud to present a new and improved system for JUG applications.  After a short interim period using a temporary relief system,  the entire process was restructured from the ground up to provide a more streamlined approach to all areas of the process. 

The requirements and guidelines have been changed as well to allow more Registered JUGs worldwide.  If you'd like to register a JUG, please visit the FAQ on how to get started.  

Many JUG applications that were previously rejected or held up, have now been approved and listed in the new directory.  Please check your location to ensure your JUG is included.  If not, please reapply through our new application process.

New Directory and Map For All Joomla User Groups

We've created directory and map for all Joomla User Groups. By using Moset's Tree and Moxie Maps the directory listings are now plotted on a worldwide map which allows for easy and powerful searches. Click here to see the new map and directory.

Each approved JUG has a login and is now able to login to their listing and make changes.  Submitted changes will go into the queue and will be approved in a timely manner.  We ask that all JUG Owners please login and update your details as soon as possible.

New Team Members

The JUG team has also grown and now includes Wlima Howell, Cristina Solana, Himanshu Nagpal, Roger Perren as well as Sandra Warren and Javier Gomez.

Your Feedback is Welcome

Thank you for your patience through this process!  We invite you to submit feedback to this new process and system at the People.Joomla.Org group and if you need assistance please email us at jugs@community.joomla.org

Recently I wrote an article that proved to be immensely popular. I then thought it would be good to reach out to a favorite Joomla! blog of mine: Compass Designs. Here is a companion piece to my original post on promoting your Joomla content, Five (more) tips to promoting your content.

Build relationships

Creating working relationships across your industry can only help you. Even if you don't guest blog, reach out to other site owners that focus on the same topic. Some ways youRead More...

Need Joomla training in 2009? You're in business!

Announcing the most complete tour of Joomla trainings ever- 6 sessions in 5 cities across New England.

Most of the sessions are for beginners but we are excited to add 2 intermediate classes in Boston and Manchester (NH).

Get going this spring and summer! More dates will be added, to keep
coming back. It's a great time to invest in yourself and your Joomla
skills

Beginner Joomla Training May 28th Manchester, N [...]

Community Leadership Team Summit - 28th July and August 1st,  2011

Participants: Peter Martin, Wendy Robinson, Sandra Warren, Paul Orwig (Day 1)

Video participants: Matt Lipscomb, Brad Baker

The following is a summary of the topics discussed in the Community Leadership Team (CLT) Summit:

A. All current websites that are under overview of the CLT:

1. Joomla.org now has about 30 internationalized pages that are used to redirect non-English people to local Joomla community resources. However because of the new Joomla 1.7 banner, the localized link is currently unavailable.

• Action item 1: reinsert the link to localized “Joomla Information Pages”.
• Action item 2: get the “info pages” translated in more languages.

2. The community.joomla.org site seems to have a less important role then it used to have. Probably because of the success of the Magazine and People sub-websites.

• Action item 3: we should communicate that *all* working group members should be able to post blog posts regarding joomla.org related matters.

3. The new ticket support system for the Joomla Extension Directory (JED) is working very well. Other teams might use the system for their own process communication as well. The “premium listings” idea is moving forward, but we’ll have to wait on a new design for the JED site before it can be implemented.

• Action item 4: evaluate new design for JED.

Furthermore we’ll have to make a decision about the Joomla version compatibility buttons.

• Action item 5: wait for a decision on the new Joomla version numbering, and create buttons for Long Time Support (LTS) versions.

Finally we’ll need input for the “standards” information: what evaluation items for extensions should be included.

• Action item 6: ask PLT / 3rd party extension developers for feedback on best practices for extensions.

4. There haven’t been any major changes regarding the Joomla Resources Directory (JRD) besides one new featured hosting provider in the hosting provider section. It has been decided to honor Rochen as a featured hosting provider listing (Brad and Wendy were excluded from this discussion).

5. The forum, which is used for technical Joomla support, has been experiencing a great influx of spam the last year. Last May a new forum protection mechanism has been put in place. It decreased the amount of spammers drastically. The downside is that some people with dynamic IP addresses have problems reaching the forum because spammer’s IP addresses get automatically banned for some period. This resulted in three complaints from (non-spamming ;-) people over the last three months.

• Action item 7: create a contact form for issues like these, and link from the forum.

The new Joomla versioning system will increase the maintenance of main boards and international subboards because those have to be created. It has been decided to only create boards for Long Time Support (LTS) versions.

• Action Item 8: To ensure that we have enough forum coverage to support our users, we need to check in with any inactive moderators to see if their interest is still in being members of the Moderator team

6. The People website lacks some moderation features.

• Action item 9: define the needed moderation features and write a Request For Proposals (RFP) to get the features developed.

7. JUGs
* 1st official Joomla book (from Person) was meant to be spread around all JUGs, but this did not work out as planned. There is an idea to try using coupons that people can use to order copies of the books
Sandra + Liam will arrange it for the next books that are released in the series
* be more proactive: identify areas / countries where no JUGs are active (or where they are inactive) and try to reactivate / support people in those areas to organize JUGs.

8. Currently joomla.org does not have a credits page to acknowledge current as well as all previous contributors to the sites and infrastructure areas (software/design/support services donated to the project for use). This is something that can be worked in with the site redesign which is currently in progress *link to people site redesign group.

B. New candidates for CLT:

The current CLT members have selected people from the nominations that were submitted by the community. Invitations have been sent out to these folks and once confirmation has been received from them, we will announce this and welcome them to the CLT publicly.

C. Ways to improve processes to become more proactive

Currently a lot of teams are functioning in a reactive way, in the sense that a lot of actions will be taken when people from the (international) community ask for help. E.g. a community from some country may ask for help regarding organizing a Joomladay. This behavior might result in some countries and areas that are not covered. Action item 10: We should come up with ways to be more proactive. E.g. find uncovered countries and motivate local communities to organize events.

D. Version labeling for JED and Forums

We need to request clarification from the PLT regarding the version numbering as this affects some areas such as the JED compatibility labeling and the categorizing of support forums. (note: discussed by PLT and put forth since for community feedback)

E. Joomla.org and its community are very English orientated.

While English is the common language in the software world, the majority of the world population don't speak English. For Joomla! to be successful in the non Anglo-Saxon world, we must invest more (time) in local foreign language communities. We would like to increase Joomla use as well as recruit more volunteers from the non-Anglo-Saxon world. We realize that there are communication issues and barriers for participation that need to be addressed.

F. Combined Summit Notes Discussed during the CLT meeting Day 2:

During the combined summit the following communication issues have been identified:

1. Language barriers. Sometimes our communication is too difficult (e.g. difficult English words and sentences too long) and too much fragmented over different communication channels. And joomla.org has too much information to translate all to local languages.

2. For some countries the concept of Joomladays is not always clear. Furthermore there’s too little marketing budget for local foreign language communities to promote Joomla.

3. Documentation about processes in local communities is sometimes lacking. Which makes it difficult for people to take over the organisation of local JUGS when current JUG organiser steps down.

4. Official communication from Joomla.org to foreign non-English communities is too sometimes too difficult, and not helpful with solving the actual problem. Official documents (e.g. trademark rules) have often not been translated into foreign non-English languages.

During the combined summit the following participation issues have been identified:

1. Missing overview of all countries/language entities and local communities

2. How to organize responsibilities and autonomy of local communities in relation with Joomla.org?

3. Cultural barriers - in some countries people are not always that outspoken to the international community, only within their own local community.

4. In some cultures/countries the standards of living are not as high as they are in the western world. Which causes that some people have too little time to participate because they need to have multiple jobs to make their living which leaves no time to participate. In that case working as volunteer doesn’t have much incentives / rewards back.

At the combined summit two new problems regarding joomla.org have been found: The International flags in the main menu are confusing visitors, as when they click on a flag they expect to be taken to a page that contains content and/or language packs respective to each flag. This creates an additional problem in that, by looking at those flags, one might assume that certain languages are missing.

• Action item 11: find a better way to represent “internationalism” and create an image/button for the joomla.org website.

Another issue that has been brought forward is that the current joomla.org site is missing a search box.

• Action item 12: find out why the search box has not been placed on the homepage, and put it there if needed.

During the combined summit we’ve decided to compile a spreadsheet to take inventory of countries, languages, regions, local communities, nature of those communities, and in what countries communities are missing. [action item solved]. Secondly we’ve divided the world in regions: North-America, South-America, Europe, Africa, Asia+Pacific. Each region gets assigned one or two regional community coordinators / contact persons who will help with making the inventory. After we have such an overview they will get in touch with the local communities to find our their needs (e.g marketing, translation), get information and opinions, and help with updating the Joomla Info Pages project (to redirect international people to the local community sites). A further update will be provided to the community when it is time to put this idea into action and request volunteer help.

In Closing...

we would like to say that we enjoyed our time at the summit so much. Not only together as the CLT but with our friends and fellow team members on the Open Source Matters board and the Production Leadership Team. It was a very productive and positive event and we thank everyone that we were able to attend the summit with, as well as the incredible Joomla Community, whom without, we would not have been able to take part.

Comments and Discussion are welcome in this thread at the Joomla! People site.

Do you have questions about Joomla? We know you do. Whether it's a question about how to do something, what the Joomla roadmap is, what the project has planned, how to contribute to the project, or anything else, we'd like to hear from you. Jen and Barrie will pick answers to address in the newsletter. Post your question in the comment thread below, and we'll work on getting some answers to you! Some of Joomla 1.6's search engine optimization (SEO) improvements have been lost in the buzz of excitement about ACL (permissions) and nested categories. After all, these are very tiny, incremental improvements -- but for those working with SEO in Joomla, they will make a tremendous difference.

The Joomla Community Leadership Team is proud to announce the addition of two new members.

Wendy Robinson is currently on the OSM board. She will be leaving OSM when her term is up in February.

Ole Ottosen was already on the Production Leadership Team, but found that most of the work he was doing was for the community side of the project. Ole's move from the Production Leadership Team to the Community Leadership Team is effective immediately.

With a new year upon us, we welcome both Wendy and Ole to the team.

Since the release of Mootools 1.2, we have found ourselves facing a rather difficult question - what do you do with the 1.5 core?  Unfortunately, the changes that came in Mootools 1.2 were significant enough that backwards compatibility with Mootools 1.1 was a difficult task.  I like to compare it to the difference between Joomla! 1.0 and Joomla! 1.5.  We did a lot of house cleaning and made our framework much smoother and much cleaner.

Such is the case for Mootools 1.1 and Mootools 1.2.  The new Mootools represents a significant step forward.

As a result, Joomla! developers have found themselves in a difficult position. Do you use the outdated version of Mootools, thereby reducing compatibility issues and making life easier for users, or do you use the new version and attempt one of a variety methods of overriding the core framework.

We hope to change all of that in the near future.

As has been previously mentioned, it is our plan to give Joomla! 1.5 an upgrade to Mootools 1.2.  This will allow developers to take advantage of the improvements that this new version offers and to write code that will endure into the future.

We have set a target release date of July 15, 2010 for Joomla! 1.5 with Mootools 1.2.

The Gory Details

I previously released an upgrade plugin for people to test out which replaced the core JHtmlBehavior class. This plugin implemented the JHtmlBehavior::framework method that has been added in trunk. The Mootools upgrade that will be included with Joomla! 1.5 will follow along in this direction.

After the 1.5 update is uploaded, the plugin will be installed the first time an administrator logs into the administrator panel.  They will also be presented with a message asking them if they would like to enable the plugin. Once the plugin is enabled the site will then be using Mootools 1.2.

When the plugin is enabled whenever the framework Mootools library is loaded Mootools 1.2 will be loaded with the compatibility layer.

The hope is that even with the upgrade activated, there will be no negative impact on sites. However, in the event that the upgrade does cause problems, it will be easy for administrators to disable the plugin and restore their site to the previous state.

We're excited about this development and are grateful to the folks at Mootools who have worked with us to provide a compatibility layer that could make this possible.

The code is a work in progress. If you would like to check it out you are free to check it out from http://joomlacode.org/svn/joomla/development/branches/mt12.

In an effort to maintain the Board's effectiveness during its search for a new Treasurer, the Board of Open Source Matters, Inc. (OSM), on the 10th of August 2010, appointed Steve Burge as Acting Treasurer of the organization, for a period ending no later than November 1, 2010 or until a new Treasurer has been elected, appointed or qualified, whichever comes first.

The Acting Treasurer shall have all the abilities and privileges of the Treasurer, but is only expected to provide his services in a limited role during this interim period.

The OSM board wishes to express thanks to Steve for assisting in this important role.

In October 2009 the new Joomla training course - Joomlashack University opened its door to its first class of 100 students. For the last 4 weeks, these students have been learning how to Joomla with our rich video screencasts and tutorials and asking questions and networking in our forums.

Before launching Shack U, we knew we had a great product to offer. We gave leading Joomla figures a sneak look at the content and, as you can read yourself, they loved it.

As well as teaching insider Joomla tips and tricks to our first students, we have been taking feedback and improving the course. We have streamlined the student path through the learning content and added more courses.

After 4 weeks, we are ready to open our doors again.

Joomla 1.7.3 and Joomla 1.5.25 were released today, as a result of a zero-day security issue. Because of the security issue, it's recommended that you update your sites immediately. Joomla 1.7.3 fixed 77 CMS bugs as well as the two security issues. One of the big new features in Joomla 1.7.3 has to do with multi-language improvements, which are summarized in this blog post. I received a review copy of Joomla! 1.5 Multimedia from Packt Publishers and was expecting to read a lot that I already know about Images and the image manager in Joomla!. But instead it was an eye-opener about the possibilities that Joomla! and some special extensions gives you to create a complete multimedia experience for your visitors. This [...]

You are reading a post from: Joomla SEO Blog by PathosSeoBlog.com

Joomla! Multimedia – A Book Review about Images, Video and More… | Joomla Mulitimedia

IITEmpoweringHaiti.org is a Non-Profit website powered by Joomla that showcases the work of a team of undergraduates from the Illinois Institute of Technology who are working to improve the primary educational situation in Haiti, by helping support the implementation of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Program.

IITEmpoweringHaiti.org chose Simplweb Joomla hosting as a home for their non-profit website.

They have designed a laptop solar power solution for Haiti schools to provide power for the XO laptops, schools and Internet connectivity. Their larger goals are to foster collaboration between partners in the US and in Haiti and to create a sustainable, replicable, open-source energy solution that will enable the children to use their XO laptops freely

Last week the team behind Joomla's most popular social network-building software, Community Builder, released a new version (1.2.3) which fixes a bunch of bugs, includes a couple of functional updates and makes way for a new generation of the extension suite - starting with '2.0' to be released soon.

The new release supposedly installs to replace the old one you may have on your site, so upgrading should be fairly simple. Also noteworthy; the release is rumored to work on the new Joomla 1.6 beta 5 release as well.

You can read more info over on the Joomlapolis forums.

We'll be popping a copy onto a fresh install of Joomla 1.6 and posting a review video later this week.

Yesterday I showed how to Hide Columns When Editing the Front End of Joomla as it often causes overlap issues that make editing difficult. In this post I'll show a quick and easy way to show different content to different users. Being able to show different content to registered and logged in visitors is a very common request for a Joomla site. By default, you can have Joomla show the "intro" copy to guests and they must to log in to see the rest. But what if you want to show some specific content to guest visitors, and then different content to registered users once they have logged in. There are a couple of extensions that give this functionality, but as a rule of thumb, I'll always trying and use the core if I can to get what I want. In this case, I figured out a simple method that worked for my needs.

Seedling's distribution of Joomla is fully supported.

Our distribution of Joomla comes pre-configured with a suite of excellent extensions and a custom theme; its a complete website in a box and comes with peace of mind; we now offer 2 support options! 

 

Basic Support: $49

• Full Seedling package download
• Community support forum access
• No Help-desk access
• No emergency support

Buy it / download now »

Our basic package is best suited for individuals or organisations who are familiar with Joomla and/or don't mind solely relying on our community forums for support.

Professional Support: $349 (1 year)

• Full Seedling package download
• Community support forum access
• 1 year of help-desk access with email and web support tickets
• Emergency support tickets between office hours

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Implement Joomla with confidence; our professional package includes help-desk support tickets so you can get top-notch support from our staff for an entire year.

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