2BlueSolutions Developer Blog

A quick fix for those of us who have encountered the top admin menu in Joomla becoming unresponsive. You know, you click, but no sub menu appears? If you check your dev tool of choice (ie. Firebug), you'll most likely see something like this: $ES is not defined The issue has to do with mootools.js and how older versions of Joomla handle the rendering of the admin menus.  Recently, I ran into this issue when I installed a newer version of mootools so that I could get a lightbox effect on a Joomla Virtuemart store.  What I didn't realize at the time was this resulted in the admin menu failing. The fix, thankfully, is quite easy. The file is:  /administrator/templates/khepri/js/menu.js The changes are: Find: var elements = $ES('li', el); Replace with:   var adminMenu=el.id; var elements = $(adminMenu).getElements('li'); Find: nested = $E('ul', element); Replace with: nested = element.getElement('ul');

How to adapt Virtuemart's Minimum Amount For Free Shipping so it can handle different amounts for different countries: Now, before we begin, the usual warning:  Backup the files you are going to be working with.  This is a hack of the global.php file to allow different free shipping amounts for different countries. The file you'll be working with:  /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/global.php First, in the Virtuemart administration page, go to the Store -> Edit Store page and set the base amount you want to use for 'free shipping'.  Usually, this should be the value you set for the most commonly used free amount you want to use (ie. your home country). Now, open up global.php , and search for: $vendor_freeshipping = $db->f("vendor_freeshipping"); The example will show how to detect for a country and hard-code in a new value for free-shipping. Ie. The amount set in the VM Admin page will be the base amount for free shipping in Canada. ...

As a follow up to my previous post about installing the DIBS module in Virtuemart , there is a poorly documented error you will run into when trying to use the payment module on a live site. Basically, it will complain about a missing "paytype" which is actually not what is missing.  What is missing is the "test parameter" as the error will tell you.  After spending too much time trying to fix the "missing" paytype, I tried a different method and deduced that it really was missing a test parameter. With the default setup, the DIBS payment processor will only send a "test" variable to DIBS when it is actually in testing mode.  Makes sense, right? if(DIBS_TESTMODE == "YES") { $oid = 'test-' . $db->f("order_id") . '-' . time(); $post_variables["test"] = "YES"; $post_variables["orderid"] = $oid; } else { $oid = $db->f("order_id") . '-' . time(); ...

I recently was contacted to install the DIBS payment module in Joomla's Virtuemart . It is actually a very straightforward procedure that the DIBS developers lay out nicely in their help file. First step is to download the files you need from the DIBS site: http://tech.dibs.dk/toolbox/dibs_standard_shopmodules/ ( direct download ) Scroll down to the VirtueMart plugin or choose the above direct download link. Unzip the files. Inside, you will find the "docs" folder which contains a readme file which is very well laid out. Quickly, the steps are: Upload the contents of the module folder to the root of your Joomla installation. Log in and navigate to your Virtuemart administrative page. Select List Payment Modules (under Store) and choose DIBS Credit Card from the list of available payment modules. Tick the box for " Active " to make it active. Change the payment method name to whatever you want the customer to see when they checkout. Code =...

If you want your checkout page to look like this: First, you can edit the text for you button in: /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/languages/common/english.php Search for: BUTTON_SEND_REG Whatever you put in for that value, will change the value of the button. For example, put in "Next" instead of "Send Registration" (the default value): Now, to remove the empty "Next" box as seen in the above example, it will just require a simple edit from within your Virtuemart administration page. Log into your Joomla administration page. Enter your Virtuemart administration page. Under Admin, select Manage User Fields . Find delimiter_sendregistration : Then click on the green check mark in the Published field to unpublish the field Finally, for a little bit of housekeeping, edit the following file and add some blank space before the BUTTON_SEND_REG button. /admin/components/com_virtuemart/checkout_register_form.php

I was searching for a quick slideshow plugin to use within an article in Joomla and stumbled across one called Simple Picture Slideshow . It is extremely simple to set up.  You download the plugin from their site, install it into your Joomla backend, then find it in your plugins directory.  There are few settings to play with from having the images link to other pages and buttons for controlling the slideshow.  I went with a simple approach for Ryan Gibbons Real Estate and just had a button-less image slideshow that began automatically on page load. The beauty of  Simple Picture Slideshow  is its ease of use.  It's default directory (which you can change in the plugins settings page) is set to /images/stories .  To use it in your article, you use the following syntax: {besp} sampleimages {/besp} Where sampleimages would actually be /images/stories/sampleimages .  It will load all the images in that directory and size them to the dimension...

This post will handle condensing the shipping address and shipping method pages. If you only offer one choice of shipping to your customer, then it is pointless to present your customer with a page that allows them to select, from one option, the type of shipping they want. It’s also just nice to condense these two pages to help reduce the number of clicks between the start and the end of the purchase process. Of course, it is still worthwhile to have your customer review their shipping address and to present them with an option to change the shipping address to something different than the bill to address. Condensing these pages will present your customer with a more streamlined checkout process that will improve your customer’s interaction with your e-commerce site. The first change needs to be applied in the VirtueMart configuration page. Log into your Joomla installation’s administrator page and then go to your VirtueMart component page. From here, click on configuration...

By default, the VirtueMart checkout process will ask for more information from your customer than is actually needed by your store.  To help reduce the form-field overload  that you customer may face when trying to purchase a product from your online store, it can help to actually remove fields that are not necessary to your business.   Do you really need to know the “company", "title", or "fax number” of a customer?  If not, then this tutorial will show you how to remove those fields. Changing the following file will impact the Billing Information and the Shipping Information (Shipping Address) forms that appear during the VirtueMart checkout process. The file you will need to edit can be found here: /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/ps_userfield.php Search for the function getSkipFields() By default, the skipped fields are the username, password, password check, and the check for the terms of service agreement. function getSkipField...

If your store will only be using  PayPal  as a payment handler, the customer experience can be improved by replacing the "Confirm Order" button at the end of the checkout process with an actual PayPal button. The old button doesn't convey to your customer that they will be taken to PayPal  to complete their order. All we're going to do with this post, is show how to change that "Confirm Order" button into this a Paypal button The file you want to edit is found here: \components\com_virtuemart\themes\default\templates\checkout\get_final_confirmation.tpl.php Within this file, search near the bottom for the following code: <div align="center"> <input type="submit" onclick="return( submit_order( this.form ) );" class="button" name="formSubmit" value="<?php echo $VM_LANG->_('PHPSHOP_ORDER_CONFIRM_MNU') ?>" /> </div> The button has a class called input.butto...

One quick solution to a common problem.  When running Virtuemart and using Moneris as your payment processor, you may occassionally run into the following error: A message from the processor:  API Token Mismatch: (N/A) ERROR:  FAILURE IN PROCESSING THE PAYMENT (ps_moneris) The quick and easy way to fix this is to log into http://www.eselectplus.ca with your credentials and make sure that, under “My Account -> Account Settings”, the default transaction ECI is set to SSL .  It normally defaults to another transaction type (non-electronic commerce transaction), so you need to change it to represent the type of transaction you prefer.  Whether that is an SSL transaction or not is dependent on you site.

To edit the “Add To Cart” popup that appears when you add an item to a cart in Virtuemart, there are few files that you need to know about. These are the files to know \components\com_virtuemart\themes\default\theme.js \components\com_virtuemart\js\mootools\   - contains the files for editing the appearance of the popup. To edit the appearance of the box, edit \components\com_virtuemart\js\mootools\mooPrompt.css to change the styles as well as editing the 2 images in the directory to edit how they appear as well (close box and header-background)

VirtueMart is a free piece of Shopping Cart Software made for Joomla .  It works right out of the box with a few minor tweaks, but it also allows for some major customization. There is a lot to learn about VirtueMart to get it fully customized for your needs, but if you want a free e-commerce shopping cart component for Joomla, VirtueMart is the leading candidate. To install VirtueMart is easy.  Download the latest complete package from the VirtueMart website .  Log into your Joomla adminstrative interface and upload the package that you just installed (see Joomla - Installing Components and Plugins ).  You need to unpack the file you just download because you are only going to need to initially upload the file called com_virtuemart_1.1.5.j15.zip (corresponding to the version you downloaded).

Installing JCE Editor into Joomla. http://www.joomlacontenteditor.net/downloads/editor/ Find the download link for the latest version of the JCE Package and save the file somewhere accessible. Enter the backend of your Joomla Adminstration and go to the Install/Uninstall , by clicking on the Extensions menu item. Choose the file that you just downloaded and click "Upload File & Install" Once it is completed, you should be presented with a "successful install" message. Now, go back to the main menu Site -> Global Configuration menu and choose the JCE Editor under the Default WYSIWYG Editor combo box.

Okay, let's begin digging a little deeper into the style code of the Agora Forum .  We're going to begin with editing the horizontal bars to help control the appearance of your forum. First, let's start with making sure you have the Firebug extension installed for Firefox.  The Firebug extension will really help shed a light on how the custom style sheet affects the horizontal bars.  Once installed, you can select the row in Firefox and see what styles are being used to control the row. The one key property you are looking for is height .  It is the height of each class that we will be changing to customize the size of the horizontal bars.  What this blog post will do is show you which classes to edit in your style sheets. Let us begin with the top horizontal bar, the main menu row of Agora Forum.  This one bar is controlled by the one class div.ag_rightend found in common.css ( /joomla/components/com_agora/style ).  Adjusting the height prop...

Most Active Users Section If you wish to remove the "Most Active Users" section of your forum, you'll need to comment out the top section of footer.tpl , which can be found in the templates directory of the Agora Forum component directory:   /components/com_agora/template/ Opening up footer.tpl , you'll find that the top section has the "Most Active Users" section surrounded by a starting and ending comment block.  To remove the "Most Active Users" from your forum, just comment out the code that is between the two comment blocks. Now, on a side note, this area is important, if you choose to keep the "Most Active Users" section, because this is one area you'll need to apply styles, if you are customizing the look of your Agora Forum.  Take note of this location and we'll come back to it in the post I make about customizing the look of your forum.

Making The Entire Cell "Clickable" The default settings for Agora Forum requires a user to click on the text of the forum/topic name to enter that forum/topic.  This isn't necessarily the most user friendly method of accessing your forums.  One way around this is to make the entire row cell click-able and then a user just needs to click anywhere on the cell.  You can see an example of this at the Prosupplements Forum . So, what one needs to do is make the cell a click-able object and the easiest way to accomplish this is to add an "onClick" event to the table cell.  

This will be the first of a few posts describing methods for customizing Agora Forum, a free component for Joomla . Before we begin, you will need to download the Agora Forum component .  After you download you and install it, let's take a look at the files that you'll need to become familiar with.

If you don't already have a backup file to use, install  JoomlaPack  and make a backup of your site and download the .jpa file that is created. These instructions will handle restoring your Joomla site onto a new server (server move) or back onto your own server (disaster recovery).  Take the .jpa file that you downloaded after using JoomlaPack and upload it to the root of the server you want to expand it onto (ie.   /www/)  using an FTP program or your server hosts administration file handling software.  Now, grab Kickstart and upload it alongside your .jpa file.  Kickstart will allow you to log into your server through a web browser and handle the extraction of the jpa file online. Once you have the Kickstart file and the JoomlaPack archive uploaded, browse to the location using a web browser (ie.  www.2bluesolutions.ca/kickstart.php).  If you can't find the file online, then double check where you uploaded it to and put in that ad...

When it comes to backing up your Joomla site, there is really only one choice at the moment and that's the Joomla Extension called JoomlaPack . JoomlaPack installs quickly and integrates quite well with your current Joomla site. After installation, you are presented with a nice big Backup Required button on your Joomla administration home page. Clicking this button automatically begins the automated backup process.  Just sit back and watch as it backs up your whole site. To check on your backup, you can enter the JoomlaPack administration area by clicking on the JoomlaPack menu item under the components menu of your Joomla administration page.  For most users, it's best to keep JoomlaPack running in "Easy Mode", which allows for some quick access to some simple configuration options, a backup now button, and a way to administer the backup files.  By entering the "Administer Backup Files" area, you will be able to select a backup file and download it t...

On the Alexander Furniture Agencies website, I used a Joomla extension call Art Sexy Lightbox to do the photo displays throughout their site as seen below: Art Sexy Lightbox  can be bought for $20 and is one of the first Joomla extensions that I purchased because it was easy to implement and did exactly what it said it would with a decent amount of customization.  There is a great demo site that they have set up to show you what the extension can do.