Joomla 1.0

In Joomla! 1.0.x it was possible to determine if the user was viewing the front page by using code like this:

if ($option == 'com_frontpage' || $option == '') {
	echo 'This is the front page';
}

Joomla 1.5

But in Joomla! 1.5.x the com_frontpage component is no longer present. This is how to achieve the same result in Joomla! 1.5.x

$menu = & JSite::getMenu();
if ($menu->getActive() == $menu->getDefault()) {
	echo 'This is the front page';
}

This works by checking to see if the current active menu item is the default one.

Joomla 1.6 and 1.7

The same code that worked in Joomla 1.5 will work in 1.6 onwards. However, since PHP 5 is now a minimum requirement for Joomla 1.6 the ampersand (&) is no longer required on the first line. Use the following code for a site where all content is in the same language:

$menu = JSite::getMenu();
if ($menu->getActive() == $menu->getDefault()) {
	echo 'This is the front page';
}

For multi-lingual sites the front page is dependent on the currently selected language, so you will need to use code like this:

$menu = JSite::getMenu();
if ($menu->getActive() == $menu->getDefault( 'en-GB' )) {
	echo 'This is the front page';
}
elseif ($menu->getActive() == $menu->getDefault( 'fr-FR' )) {
	echo 'Accueil';
}

For multi-lingual sites, it could also be necessary to display a specific code/html for all Default Home pages.

$menu = JSite::getMenu();
$lang = JFactory::getLanguage();
if ($menu->getActive() == $menu->getDefault($lang->getTag())) :
// some code
endif;

Hope this will help others.

Source: Joomla Documentation!

I have received some reviews and comments for this component. And I am trying my best to upgrade/add features as per the request and also fixing the bugs as pointed by the reviewers. Recently there was a request to add a feature for copying updated files to Override folder so that upgrade of Joomla language packs doesn’t overwrite the changes made. Also pointed one bug/issue that it was stripping the HTML tags. Now the issue has been fixed and added the feature to copy the updated language files to Overrides folder.

Updated:

- HTML tags are supported regardless of what tags are used. Since editing is performed in the administrator section, no validations are checked.
- Updated files will be stored in the override directory so that when upgrading the Joomla core will not overwritten the modified texts/language content.

Thanks Janaf for pointing the issues.

The latest and updated files can be downloaded from Joomla Extension Directory. Please do not forget to add a review when you install and use it.

If there is access to the server via SSH, then by running some MySQL commands, we can export and import large databases as well.

Export

Exporting a single database:
mysqldump -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd] [dbname] > dumpfile.sql

Export all the databases in the server (rare case though useful in local systems sometimes):
mysqldump -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd] > dumpfile.sql

Export whole multiple databses:
mysqldump -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd] –databases [dbname] [dbname] > dumpfile.sql

Exporting specific tables:
mysqldump -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd] [dbname] [table1 table2]

Restore

Restoring database is mostly done from a sql dump file. The same filename dumpfile.sql will be used here.

Restore a database:
mysql -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd] [dbname] < dumpfile.sql

Restore a bulk SQL with multiple database:
mysql -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd] < dumpfile.sql

Zipped files to be imported:
gunzip < dumpfile.sql.gz | mysql -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd]

Restore multiple dump files using cat command:
cat dumpfile1.sql dumpfile2.sql | mysql -u [dbuser] -p [dbpwd]

Note: if your database user password has some special characters, do not use the password in the command itself. Just leave -p without password and you will be asked to enter the password when you hit the enter key to execute the command.
Example:
mysqldump -u [username] -p [dbname] > [backupfile.sql]

But this time I could not find VC6 version of PHP download. I browsed a lot and tried to search VC6 compiled PHP because I had already apache installed in my laptop downloaded from apache.org. Today I found there is a line just below that information in the same page as follows:

Do NOT use VC9 version with apache.org binaries, VC9 versions of Apache can be fetched at Apache Lounge. We use their binaries to build the Apache SAPIs.

Then I read the released note at http://windows.php.net/ and find the lines:

Windows users: please mind that we do no longer provide builds created with Visual Studio C++ 6. It is impossible to maintain a high quality and safe build of PHP for Windows using this unmaintained compiler.

For Apache SAPIs (php5_apache2_2.dll), be sure that you use a Visual Studio C++ 9 version of Apache. We recommend the Apache builds as provided by ApacheLounge. For any other SAPI (CLI, FastCGI via mod_fcgi, FastCGI with IIS or other FastCGI capable server), everything works as before. Third party extension providers must rebuild their extensions to make them compatible and loadable with the Visual Studio C++9 builds that we now provide.

All PHP users should note that the PHP 5.2 series is NOT supported anymore. All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to PHP 5.3.6.

So I am now going to download the apache from http://www.apachelounge.com/ and will then use VC9 compiled PHP. I will update in my blog once I did.

मिति: २०६८, आषाढ २८ गते दिउसो ३ बजे तिर
स्थान: कमलपोखरी, हिमाल नर्सिंग होम अगाडी आँगनको गेट !
पात्रहरु :
प्रहरी: काजी उप्रेती (दर्जा – प्र. ज. – ट्राफिक प्रहरी)
चालक: म आफै (राजु गौतम)
महिला: मेरो श्रीमती

Thanks,
The Facebook Team
—————————————————————————–

And I was just wondered why and when I did request for resetting the facebook password. I never did that as far as I remember. And I just tried to login with my existign password and I was able to login. Thank god. This is again an SPAM. The spammers are with new route now. Facebook users are not almost awere of fake links to be clicked in the Facebook itself and they have now tried a new way by sending the links to their email address. As you can see above in the body part, they have asked to click on a link which MUST be a fake link or it MUST do an andesirable thing. I am not sure what exactly it does because I haven’t clicked it yet. But as far as I know the link does not even exists so I don’t think that it will do anything dangerous but to be safe it is good not to click on the links.

Seeing the email’s header part, we can say that it is the fake one:
Mail header:
————————————————–
from Facebook password+ys2yzf6@facebookmail.com
reply-to Facebook to Raju Gautam
date Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 7:56 PM
subject You requested a new Facebook password
mailed-by facebookmail.com
signed-by facebookmail.com
————————————————–

j!LangEditor is the solution of above problem. This is the Joomla back end component which lets the content manager (or any user that can login to Joomla back end) to edit the langauge files of Joomla website (not administrator) without using FTP software. Before this, they have to login using FTP and edit the file and reupload the file to the server. j!LangEditor allows to edit the content of any language files from Joomla back end itself.

Previously, the extension was developed for Joomla 1.5 but now I have developed a separate component for Joomla 1.6 because there are slight changes in the structure and coding in Joomla latest 1.6.

Uses:
- Download the zipped extension.
- Unzip the package and you will have two zip:
– com_jlangeditor-1.0-Joomla-1.5.zip for Joomla 1.5
– com_jlangeditor-1.1-Joomla-1.6.zip another for Joomla 1.6.
- You can now install your desired/required version.

In next release, I will try to manage default website language to be loaded by default or set some parameter.

The extension has been already approved and listed in Joomla Extension Directory under > Languages > Automatic Translations .

Note: It will try to fetch the files of en-GB for the first and if there is no English language then nothing will be listed. You will have to choose the language from the drop down.

Enjoy editing the language files without opening FTP!!!

Front End:
Magento has provided a feature in its configuration section in admin that allows us to enable template path hints. If we enable it, it will shows the file pathand block names.

To enable it:
1. Login to admin.
2. Go to System->Configuration.
3. Select a website from and click Developer tab in left.
4. In the Debug section, select Yes for Template Path Hints & Add Block Names to Hints.
5. Save configuration and refresh the front end page you will have some red blocks to indicate what files files are used in which block along with Block (class names) used.

Magento Template Path Hints Without Changing in Admin:
But enabling and disabling it from back end is boring in time to time. So I thought why not just enable the hints with some values passed via URL like http://www.mymagentosite.com/?template_hint=true or something like this. I searched where actually Magento handles this and found at app/code/core/Mage/Core/Block/Template.php. There is a method called getShowTemplateHints() at around line number 176 which handles it. The function originally looks like this:

public function getShowTemplateHints()
{
	if (is_null(self::$_showTemplateHints)) {
		self::$_showTemplateHints = Mage::getStoreConfig('dev/debug/template_hints')
			&& Mage::helper('core')->isDevAllowed();
		self::$_showTemplateHintsBlocks = Mage::getStoreConfig('dev/debug/template_hints_blocks')
			&& Mage::helper('core')->isDevAllowed();
	}
	return self::$_showTemplateHints;
}

So the two static members (self::$_showTemplateHints & self::$_showTemplateHintsBlocks) of the class are to set to handle them. So I modified it to be something like this:

public function getShowTemplateHints()
{
	if (is_null(self::$_showTemplateHints)) {
		self::$_showTemplateHints = Mage::getStoreConfig('dev/debug/template_hints')
			&& Mage::helper('core')->isDevAllowed();
		self::$_showTemplateHintsBlocks = Mage::getStoreConfig('dev/debug/template_hints_blocks')
			&& Mage::helper('core')->isDevAllowed();
	}

	// overwrite the template hit
	$th 	= Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('th', false);
	$token 	= Mage::app()->getRequest()->getParam('token', false);
	if($th == 1 && $token == 'PHP'){
		self::$_showTemplateHints = true; // for template path
		self::$_showTemplateHintsBlocks = true; // block names
	}

	return self::$_showTemplateHints;
}

I have used two variables for security. Now if ‘th’ and ‘token’ are set with specific values then both of the static members are set to true and hence the templates will be now visible. Now if you hit something like this in your browser http://www.mymagentosite.com/?th=1&token=PHP you can see template hints and added Block Names. I found this quite handy rather than going to admin and enable/disable.

Admin:
For admin, there is no direct feature, so there is a trick direcly modifying the database table and values. This I had found in the internet. You need to add two rows in the table ‘core_config_data’ as follows for the first time:

INSERT INTO core_config_data (scope, scope_id, path, value) VALUES
('default', 0, 'dev/debug/template_hints', 1),
('default', 0, 'dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', 1);

If you have already those rows then you just need to update the ‘value’ field with 1 to enable and 0 to disable.
Disable:

UPDATE core_config_data SET value=0 WHERE scope='default' AND scope_id = 0 AND path ='dev/debug/template_hints'

Enable it again:

UPDATE core_config_data SET value=1 WHERE scope='default' AND scope_id = 0 AND path ='dev/debug/template_hints'

Hope this will help .

After some research, I came to know that it is something about the store view for admin section which is supposed to be in the ‘core_store’ table. When the database was repaired, two rows were inserted (or updated) as follows:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
`store_id`,`code`,`website_id`,`group_id`,`name`,`sort_order`,`is_active`
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
'2', 'admin', '0', '5', 'Admin', '0', '1'
'1', 'default', '0', '5', 'Admin', '0', '1'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just compared with another Magento shop and there was ’0′ as stored_id for admin. And I just edited the row and put it as ’0′ instead of ’2′ and saved it.

Now the Admin section worked like a charm !

Strange problem but easy fix (after a research of 3/4 hours) !!

Just shared it hoping it will help others encountering the same problem

Then I just installed normally all the programs and applications including latest Apache (2.2.17), PHP (5.3.5) and MySQL (Community 5.5.8). The installation went quite good for all. and some of the previous projects done worked successfully. But after a couple of days, I tried to install Joomla 1.5.22 and I found the following error after I submit fourth step “Database Configuration” with database details:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'TYPE=MyISAM CHARACTER SET `utf8`' at line 29 SQL=CREATE TABLE `jos_banner` ( `bid` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment, `cid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `type` varchar(30) NOT NULL default 'banner', `name` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '', `alias` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '', `imptotal` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `impmade` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `clicks` int(11) NOT NULL default '0', `imageurl` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '', `clickurl` varchar(200) NOT NULL default '', `date` datetime default NULL, `showBanner` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0', `checked_out` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0', `checked_out_time` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `editor` varchar(50) default NULL, `custombannercode` text, `catid` INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, `description` TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', `sticky` TINYINT(1) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, `ordering` INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, `publish_up` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `publish_down` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `tags` TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', `params` TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '', PRIMARY KEY (`bid`), KEY `viewbanner` (`showBanner`), INDEX `idx_banner_catid`(`catid`) ) TYPE=MyISAM CHARACTER SET `utf8`

I could not find anything particular solution for the solution with some limited words in the Google but I came to a decision that it must be something because of engine type. Then I created a test table in test database and then saw the structure of that table and noticed there was something:

CREATE TABLE `tbltest` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `title` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  INDEX `mytestindex`(`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM;

I just noticed there ‘ENGINE=MyISAM’ but when I opened the Joomla’s installation sql file (Joomlafolder/installation/sql/mysql/joomla.sql) and noticed that there was TYPE=MyISAM. So I just find and replaced all the occurrences of ‘TYPE=MyISAM’ to ‘ENGINE=MyISAM’ and tried to install Joomla then it worked like a charm.

So I came to the conclusion that TYPE keyword is no more used with MySQL latest (5.5.8) versions. This has been posted as a bug here http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=59288 but they claim that it is not the bug. The keyword ‘TYPE’ was introduced as deprecated since ENGINE was added in MySQL 4.0.18. And it is clearly mentioned in the CREATE TABLE structure manaul page (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/create-table.html) that the TYPE keyword will be removed in future versions.

This is my experience. I was about to share this right in the first week of January when I noticed this but was quite busy and forgot