All Blog Posts Tagged 'joomla' - All Together, As A Whole

Comparto un tutorial de grupos de usuarios para Joomla 2.5

2012-01-30T03:10:30.000Z

Hola compañeros!

Comparto u video tutorial de como crear gurpos de usarios para el frontend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv_Q7kaFthk

Un llamado especial de Hugo Baronti. Sobre Juuntos con JOKTE!, Joomla!, el Software Libre y el patrimonio de la humanidad

2012-01-28T23:08:16.000Z

A mis alumnos y ex alumnos de cursos joomla!
A mis compañeros usuarios de Joomla! en Chile y latinoamérica
en especial a los joomleiros de Brasil.
A mis amigos, contactos de Twitter, Facebook, Google+ y linkedIn.
A las redes y comunidades activistas del Software Libre
y otras redes y comunidades de universidades libres, okupas y ciberokupas
A la Free Software Foundation de Latinoamérica
A las redes hacktivistas anillosur.cc y lorea (https://n-1.cc/)
A mis compañeros latinoamericanos en Anonymous
A las redes de hacker originarias de España, Italia y Alemania que alguna vez trabajamos en Hacklabs.org
(aquellos que trascendieron la idea del estado-nación y son ciudadanos del mundo)
A los cibernautas de buen corazón
y a todos quienes quieran construir una sociedad copyleft
y luchar por la libertad del Ciberespacio.

Soy Hugo Baronti. Nací en Santiago de Chile en la década del 60. Los primeros recuerdos que tengo de mi infancia fueron noches largas esquivando las balas que podían atravesar las delgadas paredes de mi casa, en el contexto de una dictadura brutal que se instaló en mi país. Crecí entre "estados de sitio" y el terrorismo de Estado. Y cuando ya era un adolescente, me enrolé en las filas de la lucha contra la dictadura, por la libertad y la democracia. Pasé casi dos décadas en eso, dejando en segundo plano todas las demás esferas de mi vida. Los resultados fueron bastante positivos, pero una idea de fondo que circulaba en mi cabeza - cambiar el mundo - quedó pendiente. Si bien botamos la dictadura y conseguimos la democracia en Chile, las desigualdades sociales y la injusticia se mantuvieron. Y luego de un tiempo manteniendo una consecuencia basada más en principios, y menos en realidades, los caminos para cambiar el mundo se abríeron inesperadamente.

Fue en los primeros años del nuevo siglo que conocí lo que llamaban el "software libre". Y a poco andar, me dí cuenta que la revolución que yo pretendía en realidad no era más que un simple ensayo para lo que realmente venía. Una revolución, no para cambiar las cosas en un pequeño país, o un modelo de gobierno. La revolución que venía era en realidad un cambio civilizatorio, un antes y un después de la humanidad, un hito en la historia que podía implicar a la larga el paso a otro estadio del desarrollo de nuestras sociedades y nuestras culturas.

En efecto, el software libre, el espíritu del Copyleft y las repercusiones que estos traían para la creación, transmisión e intercambio de conocimiento eran radicales. Mucho más radical que cualquier postura política que existiera precedentemente. Imagína que en un mundo donde el conocimiento adquiere un lugar central para la producción de bienes y servicios y con ello el mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida de las personas, ese conocimiento puede ser transmitido con un costo cercano a cero, gracias a Internet y las nuevas tecnologías. Al ser el conocimiento digitalizable, su reproducción puede ser infinita. Y al ser un bien ilimitado queda fuera de la esfera de la "economía".

Ahora advertimos que la revolución copyleft implica un cambio radical, en donde pasamos de una sociedad de la escacés, a una sociedad de la abundancia, en materia de conocimiento, solo limitada por las retricciones y censuras que "el mundo antiguo" se empeña en aplicar con leyes y acuerdos internacionales, organísmos con recursos millonarios para trasladar al Ciberespacio esa sociedad privativa y restrictiva que ya está conceptualmente en su ocaso, que ya fue superada por el "sentido común" de la humanidad. La sociedad que vivimos antes de la era de la información ha sido desbordada pòr el propio avance de la inteligencia colectiva y la conciencia global.

Pero esto no implica que las cosas cambiarán completamente por sí solas. Si bien es cierto que la historia ha tomado un rumbo, casi por dafault, tambien es cierto que el aparato de control y censura del mundo antiguo es demasiado poderoso, y puede perfectamente prolongar su agonía por mucho tiempo más. Y en tanto "animal moribundo" no escatimará en gastos para reprimir, censurar y reglamentar con sopas y pipas, ahí donde todo es libre, fluído y cooperativo.

Por ese motivo debemos avanzar hilando un poco más fino. No sólo abandonar el consumo de bienes culturales privativos o con copyright. No sólo dejar de alimentar a la industria cultural del mundo antiguo. Debemos crear y fortalecer nuevos y poderosos enclaves de cultura libre y conocimiento libre, - el dominio público - y hacer llegar estos a quienes aún no se han incorporado a las filas de nuestra conciencia global. Los caminos deben ser variados y no ortodoxos. Necesitamos una "masa crítica" de personas que en un momento determinado tome el control y sea capaz de avanzar en la creación de un gobierno global, paralelo o distinto al que opera en el mundo antiguo, que aún sobrevive.

Existen muchas iniciativas que debemos apoyar, continuar y fortalecer. Una de ellas es a la que ahora quiero invitar. Se trata de la comunidad Juuntos.org, que ha surgido desde el seno del debate sobre joomla! y el Copyleft. Juuntos es una comunidad formada por usuarios del sistema Joomla!, que hemos decidido levantar un espacio latinoamericano para crear e intercambiar conocimiento en tecnología web. Nuestro principal proyecto emblemático es un CMS que se basa en Joomla! pero superamos a joomla! ya que ese sistema tiene una marca registrada bajo el copyright, lo que implica restricciones para poder difundirla con libertad, en el dominio público.

En estos años nos hemos dado cuenta que el código pasa y se transforma, surgen nuevos lenguajes y nuevas maneras de crear y manejar la información. Pero el patrimonio identitario surgido el el marco de un proyecto GPL, esto es, con el apoyo de toda una comunidad de voluntarios, puede terminar siendo administrado por unos pocos, lo que equipara esto a una gestión privativa del proyecto, convirtiéndose en la práctica - y tal vez sin siquiera proponérselo - en una forma de hacking al espíritu del copyleft y la escencia de la GPL.

Frente a esto, Juuntos está creando un sistema del tipo CMS, que es un "Fork" o "bifurcación" de Joomla!. Compatible con sus actualizaciones y parches, pero con una marca que es y será del dominio público: jokte!. Una marca que sea propiedad de los usuarios y desarrolladores, para que se pueda usar libremente, en tanto conocimiento libre y de dominio público.

En Juuntos, los que somos usuarios Joomla! tenemos un sentimiento común: le debemos mucho al sistema Joomla!. Muchos de nosotros hemos logrado llevar el pan a nuestra mesa con ese software, durante años. Y tenemos una relación de respeto y admiración por quenes han participado al igual que nosotros en su impulso y consolidación. Y seguiremos usando Joomla! para muchas iniciativas que no se pueden detener de un día para otro, sobre todo aquellas actividades que nos permiten subsistir. Pero joomla! con la marca "joomla!" Copyright se ha autoaplicado un techo, que para nosotros es finalmente una barrera que debemos sortear, para continuar con nuestra idea de cambiar el mundo. De ahí la necesidad de crear otra herramienta que, haciendo uso de lo dispuesto en la Licencia Pública general - GPL - tome el código de joomla! y lo proyecte a otra dimensión: la dimensión del dominio público.

Joomla! a través de Jokte! es desde ahora patrimonio de la humanidad.

La invitación es a participar en Juuntos y su proyecto Jokte!. A profundizar en la tecnología web y empoderarse de su capacidad de articular redes sociales y replicar conocimiento comunitario. La invitación es pasar de ser consumidores de tecnología a ser productores de tecnología y proyectarla a más personas. Los necesitamos a todos y a todas. Ahora es el momento de ir transformando en acción, toda la conciencia que hemos ido acumulando sobre el mundo, la vida y nuestro futuro; conciencia lograda por la hipercomunicación que obtenemos en este Ciberespacio que nosotros mismos creamos y proyectamos día a día.

Debo insistir que nuestra comunidad Juuntos no se agota en el proyecto Jokte!. Ya se comienzan a inscribir personas de otras comunidades e iniciativas, que ven en este espacio un lugar para difundir sus sueños, a nivel continental, ya que en otras partes los han limitado. Ellos y nosotros tendremos derecho a voz y voto en una organización con democracia total, que la propia tecnología nos permite crear y sostener.

Por eso, la invitación es a unirse a un proyecto de Software Libre Latinoamericano, a una comunidad de respeto recíproco que abraza el comercio justo, y que luchará contra las desigualdades en el acceso al conocimiento, construyendo y difundiendo conocimiento.

Juuntos con Jokte! América Latina se úne, avanza y hace su aporte a nuestro mundo.
http://juuntos.org

Te esperamos...
Hugo Baronti

*Estas son mis opiniones personales que no comprometen necesariamente el pensamiento de Juuntos como organización.

Asamblea Juuntos
https://groups.google.com/group/juuntos?hl=es
Manifiesto Juuntos
http://juuntos.org/comunidad-juuntos/manifiesto-juuntos.html
Pacto Social
http://juuntos.org/comunidad-juuntos/nuestro-pacto-social.html

A Coffee joomla! for a new "distro" Joomla! from Latin American

2011-11-22T15:33:54.000Z

Joomla Coffee its aimed to talk about new projects of general interest of Joomla! users for Chile, Latin America and the World.

The topic to treat in this activity is the creation of the first Chilean/Latinamerican "distro" of Joomla!. A project which is already creating interest in many programmers and Joomla! users in Chile, Venezuela and other countries, and we hope to share this with people from all over the world.

The decision is taken, and both human and material resources are available, but this is a great project that requires the participation of everyone.

Our objective is to create a new CMS based in Joomla! with improvements and new integrated functionalities, free for download, with GPL3 license, and its corporate image under Creative Commons license, this way, the corporate asset belongs to everyone who participates in it; and something very important, with a horizontal functioning structure of the development team, in which all members can make their contributions feeling really "owners" of the results of their work, just like the philosophy of the development of free software.

In this project, for general topics, each developer will have a vote and the decisions will be taken in consensus or through an electronic voting system for the relevant decisions.

On Line Event

Some thoughts about Transifex and Open Translators

2011-10-03T19:15:12.000Z

One of the most lately exciting new projects in the Joomla community is the cooperation between Open Translators and Transifex. Open Translators and Transifex has become a valuable resource both for devs, translators and end-users. Devs now has a great platform to reach translators and provide complete translations for their extensions (and hopefully sell/provide more extension). Translators can easily contribute (with little tech knowledge) to the community and the dev. End-users dont have to do any translation and can just focus to use the extension.

Soon I have translated about 100 extensions, for Joomla, to Swedish (www.joomlasverige.se). I work either in direct contact with the dev or using Transifex to make translations. Now when many devs moving to Transifex the workflow has change.

One thing is that many devs seams to think - “the more the merrier” - they have the language files public, making it possible for many users to translate. I think this is a pretty bad approach.

If several translators are contributing there is a big chance that they are not using the same nomenclature. Of course some words/sentences are pretty obvious but this is not always the case. This can be confusing both for the end-user and the translator. For example, sometimes the .sys-files for menus are added later and if another translator translate these strings later on, without checking previous files/strings, the result becomes messy.

In a perfect world I think one or two translators should contribute and one or two translators should have another role as proof readers. The proof readers should not be able to contribute new strings or to overwrite existing strings without the translator(s) approval. In most cases the dev don't know if the new translation is better or worst, it's more logical that translators has more knowledge about this.

Before, I could be the only translator for one extension and have translated over 1000 strings. Suddenly there are one or more translator involved in the project due to that the dev made the language files public. Personally it made me a bit tired, why do a dev want more translators involved in a specific translation without knowing anything about the work of the new translator? Imaging letting a coder full access to the extension source files without knowing anything about the new coder. In Transifex you can follow some history of the contributions but as I wrote above, it's not easy for the dev to value the quality of the translations.

To summon up; if you are a dev, make translators request involvement and be careful to use several translators for one project. If you do, be sure that the translators communicate. I also hope that Transifex could implement a proof reader role, hopefully this will lead to better quality and non-messier translations.

Not to forget, this text is not to criticize Transifex, devs or Open Translators – this are just some thoughts on how a great platform of contributions can be even better.

So, what do you think?

Open Translators - Traducciones libres para Joomla!

2011-08-07T03:30:00.000Z

De un tiempo a esta parte la traducción distribuida se ha convertido en una alternativa al modelo monolítico en el cual un individuo, normalmente voluntario de la comunidad, acomete la tarea de traducir una extensión de principio a fin con todo lo que eso supone, pues en ocasiones son numerosos los archivos implicados y un ciclo de actualizaciones elevado por parte del desarrollador, como por ejemplo Akeeba Backup, extensiones de Nonumber, JoomlaWorks y otras provocan que lo que inicialmente era una lúdica tarea colaborativa se convierta en una situación de compromiso permanente en el tiempo para mantener los correspondientes idiomas actualizados a la par que lo hacen las extensiones.

Desde ATAAW surgió entonces de la mano de Svein Wisnaes la iniciativa de poner en marcha Open Translator desde Transifex, una plataforma open source para gestionar traducciones colaborativas a modo de cooperativa. En el caso de Open Translators la iniciativa se centra en proyectos de código abierto basados o relacionados con Joomla!.

El equipo de Open Translator esta preparando un sitio web desde donde serán gestionadas las actividades de este equipo conformado por profesionales del mundo de Joomla! y del desarrollo como Ole Bang Ottosen, Brian Sullivan, Hils Cheyne, Manoel J. Silva, Marcos Peebles, entre otros.

Desde aquí te animamos a sumarte a esta excelente iniciativa, pues aunque no tengas conocimientos en Joomla! si eres traductor o dominas algún idioma en concreto hasta el punto de poder colaborar traduciendo del estándar (en-GB) a otras leguas ten por seguro que seras bienvenido a participar como colaborador voluntario en este proyecto Open Source.

Todos hacemos uso, en un momento u otro, de extensiones para Joomla! y en numerosas ocasiones(cada vez menos por suerte) encontramos que estas extensiones no están traducidas a nuestro idioma o el deseado y eso nos supone una tara a la hora de liberar nuestro proyecto web haciendo uso de estas extensiones.

Esto se soluciona uniéndose al proyecto y participando en las traducciones que se van incorporando al mismo o como desarrollador de extensiones poniéndolas a disposición de todos los usuarios para que participen de su traducción lo que no solo beneficia al desarrollador y su proyecto sino al resto de usuarios que hacen uso de dicha extensión.

Unirse es gratuito y a cambio de tu participación obtendrás la gratitud de toda la comunidad de desarrolladores y usuarios de la mayor y más organizada comunidad en torno a un CMS.

Puedes obtener información del proyecto en los siguientes enlaces:

Sitio web oficial de Open Translators
Open Translators en Transifex
Translators en ATAAW
Twitter Open Translators
Open Translators en Facebook

Cutting corners from a (Joomla 1.6. ACl) wheel

2011-05-11T08:30:00.000Z

Introducing Forkito ACL - a project that aims to deliver simplified and logical ACl trough reusable library compatible with all main Joomla based projects and will come in 3 flavors:

Joomla fork flavor (working - proof of concept)
Nooku flavor (in progress)
Molajo flavor (postponed)

More: Slides from JAB11 presentation

WARNING: for testing purposes only, do not use on live site (and on install you need to use Molajo sample data or it won't work) :

git repository of the Joomla fork flavor git://git.forkito.org/forkito

for those not using git - simple zip download for testers: http://git.forkito.org/download/joomlafork

Will add video from presentation and link to Molajo flavor as soon they are available

Video:

Cutting corners from a wheel - Introducing Molajo ACL - Klas Berlic from jandbeyond on Vimeo.

Blog post: There is no them nor we, there is only us

2011-04-21T09:47:37.000Z

This is such an insightful read, I've taken the opportunity to post a link to it here.

ATAAW by its very nature reflects a lot of the values Johan speaks about. The clarity of mind is impressive.

Using Bouml for joomla documentation

2011-03-04T14:20:53.000Z

Hello,

I use Bouml for UML modeling. This software can generate UML classes from PHP files.

In addition it can automatically generate HTML documentation.

So I tried with joomla 1.6 and you can see the generated documentation on this link:

http://www.map4use.be/joomla_1_6Doc/index-withframe.html

it seems (-ok a little bit- ) to java documentation http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/ , no ?

Note, I did export all joomla "library", Bouml tooks 20 seconds to do it all!

Obviously , stylesheets and interactivity mootools-javascript must be worked :-).

What is not seen here is that with Bouml could add UML diagrams (class diagrams, use case diagram, etc ...) and this is a real plus: for example a sequence diagram MVC on a particular component, it can help new coders ...

so the questions :

is this useful ? (comparing to joomla official documentation)

is this legal ? (I don't know if publishing this documentation is legal : has joomla some restricted right on documentation ?)

Have a great day

Joomla! Help Wanted: Looking for a Volunteer with PostgreSQL and VCS Skill

2011-03-03T14:01:24.000Z

Sam Moffatt, a member of the Production Leadership Team (PLT) on the Joomla! Project, is responsible for JoomlaCode, amongst many, many other project responsibilties.

We need someone in the community with strong skills in PostgreSQL and experience working with version control systems for release management, to volunteer to help the community by working with Sam.

If you are interested in contributing to the Joomla! community in this manner, you can get started by contacting Sam via email ( Sam dot Moffatt AT joomla DOT org) or by tweeting him. (Skype works, too, if you are already connected to him that way.)

Let's each find a way to do our part in helping make Joomla! better. That's our job as members of this community. Thanks for considering and helping find the right person to help our community in this way.

Taking Joomla! into the commercial world

2011-02-19T13:39:10.000Z

I probably need to apologise for my title since Joomla! is used extensively in the commercial world and is, in many ways, a commercial ready application.

However, with version 1.6, Joomla took a huge step, not necessarily in functionality, but, more importantly, away from its roots; with this version, the developers have at last produced a working base from which a truly flexible and solid web application environment can be grown and nurtured.

But in walking into this new future, there maybe a need to put up some large warning banners about how and why the project is developed.

My background is non technical. I spent 25 years as a recording engineer, advertising professional, composer and copywriter. When the "internet" became the in thing, I was dragged into that world, determined to put my stamp on it. I wrote an article in 1997 saying how in the future you would browse through your world, visiting 3d shops and buying most of your goods on line (well, I was half right). I also very quickly latched on to the idea of community and information disemination using easy to use tools that meant that people like me could step into the brave new world of the web and pour forth their experience without having to change the way they thought or by getting re-educated.

To be honest, it has taken 15 years to get even half way to that goal.

If there is one core issue that has tripped me up, and many others, time and time again it is the need to teach old dogs new tricks before you can start to benefit from their years of experience and knowledge. This has been a major failing with IT development in many sectors, almost to the point of universality. I come from a world of instant media, hard core information, and heavy promotion that for most users is as technical as "sit there and talk into that." Although radio and TV are technologically incredibly complicated, for the user who wants to use them to sell or communicate, all they need to do is roll up with the content - the system and the people who run it does the rest.

With the internet, and especially content management systems, the expectation has been that the same thing would happen, only run by a computer rather than a team of sound recordists, cameramen and runners. It has often fallen woefully short of that.

A modern web application, therefore, has to meet two very precise criteria:

It must have a core that allows limitless variety
It must be focused on the end user.

And by "end user" I do not mean the developer who installs and maintains it, though they are very important, but their clients - the people who sit there and type in their message that they need to communicate. Those people must be able to log in and say "I recognise this, I know how to use this," but without having to have any more training than they have already when they started their computer. The difference between posting on Facebook and writing a web page in Joomla! should be hardly discernible. If you can write an email, you can write an article.

For this to happen there needs to be a vision beyond pure functionality that is shared between core developers, extension developers, site builders and end users - with the end user treated as King. It is a vision that starts with people like my clients saying "I want to achieve that" and works backwards down the line till it becomes part of the application.

In practice this means that with every new development at least one person must be looking at the plan and saying "yeah, but why can't I do such-and-such?" Even if they say that right at the last moment, at the most arkward time, then that should be answered - and 9 out of 10 times not with an excuse but with a solution so they CAN do what they asked.

Let me give a very simple example with the new Joomla 1.6 ACL.

I am currently creating a website for an MMO. It will be a very complex mix of news about the game, news from in-game, stories written by users, help, hints and tips, media, images - far beyond what this sort of site would normally wish to achieve. I am doing because I have worked in large news organisations - I know how a newspaper office works, who is responsible for what, what the job title should be and so on (for instance, a publisher is the person who OWNS the newspaper - the decision to actually publish is made by an editor. A publisher would never push the publish button!)

The new ACL system in Joomla, as you can imagine, is perfect for me. I have installed around 50 Joomla sites, I know it well, I have my favourite extensions and, most importantly, I am confident in teaching clients how to use it.

However, there is a very small problem which has completely floored me. If you create a group who you want to have access to create an article for only one particular category, then that category MUST be at the top level. Why? Because if it is a child category, then the group can also create articles for the Parent category. Oops.

The actual problem, from what I can work out, is due to the article manager. If you allow access to the article manager for a particular group (one with almost no permissions, by the way), then they can see the manager, but they do not see a NEW button, even if they have been given create privileges in one of the categories. To make posting to that category possible, you have to set create to Allow in the article manager - and now you can post to ALL categories.

Now, I am fully aware that this is a very new product and that this sort of issue will probably be sorted out. But it highlights the need for planning that involves those annoying clients who say "but I want to post in just the one category halfway down the list."

My main living these days is split between consulting on large, complex news/web/community style projects and being a professional composer. If an advertising client tells me that he wants his slogan sung by a girl rather than a boy, and that means I have to rewrite the jingle, then that is what I do. The client has identified a weakness in my product in the way it relates to his business aims. It also shows I have failed to do my job properly - you see the proper way would have been for me to ask the client if he wanted male or female BEFORE I wote the flaming jingle.

We live and learn...

Joomla Wiki: Upgrading a Joomla 1.5 extension to Joomla 1.6

2011-02-12T10:43:27.000Z

In reviewing the Joomla! Wiki today, I found that the resource Upgrading a Joomla 1.5 extension to Joomla 1.6 has taken GREAT strides forward. In reviewing the history, it appears we have Marius van Rijnsoever to thank for his work detailing the various changes he found in migrating jFusion.

If you have been through the process already, you know the migration is not easy. It does take a little effort to share what you found but it's so helpful to others. Let's all follow Marius's lead and add to this community resource.

Thanks Marius for your work on the upgrade documentation.

Would be nice to see something like this in 1.8...

2011-02-06T20:50:17.000Z

Would be nice to see something like this in 1.8...

Joomla 1.6 Core CSS Classe and ID Lists

2011-01-14T22:30:00.000Z

Most of this stuff is now on the "Official Joomla! Documentation" site.

Joomla 1 6 core css classes and ids (http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_1_6_core_css_classes_and_ids)
Joomla 1.6 Core Classes - Components (http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_1.6_Core_Classes_-_Components)
Joomla 1.6 Core Classes - Modules (http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_1.6_Core_Classes_-_Modules)
Joomla 1.6 Core IDs (http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_1.6_Core_IDs)

Pages are all under the Template Development, Template and C SS categories. Stuff is gone from http://rc.hrpr.com/j16 where it died of loneliness!

It is less than 100% complete and/or accurate and I suspect it will probably stay that way forever and a day.

What's going on with Virtuemart?

2010-11-18T07:30:00.000Z

This is a post from joomlablogger.net:

Virtuemart has been the largest ecommerce solution for Joomla for a number of years. However, the component has started to show signs of age.

The way VirtueMart was built is quite different from how Joomla is put together, and a growing number of users are feeling frustrated about the system.

In this post I take a look at the current state of the VirtueMart project (as I see it), and the future ahead of us. Will VirtueMart keep up?

Nine months between 1.1.4 and 1.1.5.

One particularly annoying thing about VirtueMart, is the huge amount of time between updates. For instance, it took the VM team nine months to release 1.1.5. This version contains mainly bug fixes and few, if any, new features or improvements. See the change log here.

At least, the upcoming 1.1.6 version will remove Joomla 1.0 compatibility. That’s a step in the right direction for the project.

In the blog post Something about version 1.1.6, written by Konan on August 18th 2010, they hint at a September 2010 release for 1.1.6 beta. We’re now in November, and according to a comment to the post from Francesco Abeni, they are:

Now in BETA 3 and very close to final release. There is still some testing to do, but unless totally unexpected issues arise, i guess it will be out in 1-2 weeks.

However, as of now, there are still 36% open items in the VM 1.1.6 tracker.

Templating in Virtuemart

Working with templates in VirtueMart is a pain, particularly when compared to Joomla or extensions like K2 and FlexiContent. As you know, both of these extensions, as well as most Joomla extensions, support template overrides. Not so for VirtueMart. All of the files for the so called themes in VirtueMart reside in the components/com_virtuemart/themes/ folder. And finding the correct file to adjust is not entirely straightforward. This is the main area where I struggle with VM. Creating and modifying the layout and style of your shop should be fun, not a pain in the...

Also, the user interface of VirtueMart is overly complex, and settings are scattered around in lots of different views and tabs.

What happens to Virtemart when Joomla 1.6 arrives?

As you might know, Joomla 1.6 is in the final stages of beta these days. The version has some neat, new features. Among them is the new ACL (Access Control List) system, which controls who can see and edit what on your site.

For extensions to be compatible with Joomla 1.6, they need to be rewritten, or at least upgraded, to take advantage of the new ACL and other features. I doubt this will happen for the VM 1.1.x series. That leaves us with the question:

Virtuemart 1.5 – is it coming at all?

There has been talk about VirtueMart 1.5 for some time now. Soeren Eberhardt-Biermann wrote a blog post about it in 2009 called Virtuemart 1.5 Development, and there is also a tracker available. However, the tracker does not show much progress. It still has 73% (62) open issues.

They claim there's a lot of work on Virtuemart 1.5, though.

Apparently, there is a separate team working on the 1.5 version. The question is: Are they too late? Other solutions are popping up and threatens the position VirtueMart has had through the years.

Although VirtueMart 1.5 appears to be in development, I miss some clear communication about the progress from the team. One blog post 11 months ago will not do it for me. I guess the VM guys need to be better at communicating their progress and plans if users are to keep their faith in the project.

Fransceco Abeni, one of the new people on the VM team, wrote this in a comment:

To everyone who posted bad comments…you’re right. VirtueMart has done a lot to make life harder for its users. I still am surprised at what a large user base it got to, with such a lot of things which need to be improved.

But i can assure you, really, we are working hard now. Some of us are fixing bugs on 1.1.x so other can spend their time on 1.5. Please remember that if we count all developers for both versions we are no more than 4/5 people and we DO THIS IN OUR SPARE TIME, FOR FREE.

This does not mean we are not taking our responsability; We don’t consider VirtueMart a “hobby”. But please bear with us; give help instead of ranting about; test new 1.5 and report bugs, or better still, contribute some code.

I myself have entered the team only 6 months ago; you just have to ask, we always welcome new faces.

VirtueMart and Joomla 1.6

As far as I can see, there is no plans for making VirtueMart 1.5 compatible with Joomla 1.6. This means we might have to wait for a 1.6 version of VirtueMart before we are able to use it with Joomla 1.6 or later versions. Considering the upgrade frequency of VirtueMart, I really can’t see how they’ll keep up. Again, a pity if they won’t be able to keep up, as there are a lot of possibilities in a Joomla 1.6 / Virtuemart combo.

What can you do?

As in all open source projects, help is appreciated. If you want to contribute, you can download the Virtuemart 1.5 nightly build and test it for bugs, then report the bugs to the team. If you’re able to contribute fixes as well, I hope they’re willing to accept those as well.

Alternatives to Virtuemart

Fortunately, there are alternatives available. Some of them are new-comers, while others have been around for some time. As of now, however, I don’t see any really good, matured ecommerce solution for Joomla out there. Ecommerce is the achilles heel of Joomla right now - there is no bright star on the Joomla sky. I haven’t tried all of them, though, so don’t arrest me on that one ;)

One VM user I talked to said: "If I had to build a store tomorrow I would use VM because I know it and I don't know what else to use...".

Tienda

This ecommerce component is developed by Diosouri, a New York-based company. I met Rafael Diaz-Tushman at J and Beyond, and from what I can see, Tienda seems to have a bright future ahead. As they’re a commercial company, Dioscouri has decided to create two versions of Tienda. One is the Community version, which is free. The other version is the Enterprise version, which will have professional support and more features than the Community version. The Community version is now in Production beta, the current version being 0.56. The Enterprise version has not been released yet.

Tienda has been updated regularly since the release of Tienda 0.20 back in February 2010, with minor releases every month. Take a look at the change log for Tienda Community.

More about Tienda here

RedShop

RedShop is developed by the Danish developer Ronni K. G. Christiansen. I have not tried it myself, but I hear a lot of nice things about it.

K2Mart

The newest kid on the block is K2Mart from JoomlaWorks. This isn’t a complete ecommerce solution. Rather, it’s a bridge between K2 and Virtuemart. K2Mart lets you work with your products in the familiar K2 environment, and also take advantage of the templating system of K2. If you want to extend Virtuemart, this is the solution to choose. I’m testing it these days, and it looks really good. Merging K2 and VirtueMart in this way is for me a very natural thing to do :)

Virtuemart VMX

Virtuemart VMX is a project by German developer Thomas Kahl. The VMX project is an attempt to move the 1.1.x version forward by adding functions to it. For instance, Virtuemart will be Joomla 1.6 compatible using VMX. Thomas has had some struggles and disagreements with the VM team. He talks about the current situation of VMX here.

Thomas Kahl and myself at J and Beyond 2010 (Photo: Soeren Eberhart-Biermann)

Comparison

Team EaSE has compared the three leading shopping cart solutions for Joomla side-by-side, each extension getting a two-hour evaluation, in a formula that echoes iPhone/Android/Blackberry comparisons, as Rafael of Dioscouri put it. The article includes an audio interview with Rafael Diaz-Tushman, Ronni Christiansen (RedShop), and Francesco Abeni (VM) - a podcast is available at the bottom.

You can read this thorough comparison between RedShop, Tienda and Virtuemart in the October issue of the Joomla Community Magazine.

End note

Although this post has been somewhat negative, I still believe that VirtueMart has a great deal of potential. The future success of the project comes down to three points, as I see it:

Communication with the users
Regular updates
Clear roadmap for the future development of Virtuemart

Don't get me wrong. I use VM for a few shops myself, and I think the package works ok. However, when I see what the potential of Joomla and ecommerce is, I dont feel VirtueMart is in a position to lead. Some people even say: "Friends don't let friends use Virtuemart". I guess that sums up some of the frustration people are feeling about the component.

Which is sad, when you consider the number of sites working with VirtueMart today. Personally, I’m looking for alternatives, as my faith in the future the project is fading. I hope they can prove me wrong.

What are your thoughts on the development of Virtuemart? Please share in the comments below.

Note:
After this post was published on joomlablogger.net, there has been some comments from Francesco. Virtuemart 1.5 public beta 1 has been released. However, I still think the project needs to communicate these things better. I would have no idea there was a public beta out it it wasn't for Francesco's comment. No blog post and no forum post (that I could find, at least). This is the only clue I found after looking for the beta...

Why Joomla!? By Brian Teeman

2010-11-04T15:50:01.000Z

Good stuff. I think this is one of the best Joomla! overviews for introducing Joomla! and engaging community contributions, ever. Excellent work,…

Spread Gerenal Statistics of Joomla - Why not?

2010-11-03T15:48:21.000Z

After the post of Christophe Demko in http://groups.google.com.br/group/joomla-leadership/browse_thread/thread/11e00491b105b893, I would like to think: why not go a bit more far?

Let think about some general information about Joomla, not aimed for final users, but for developers, JUGs and Joomla Entusiasts. And, also not just put on Joomla mainsite, but permit that or via RSS, or via any other way any Joomla site, in administrator and in frontend via some cacheable module, display these information?

Lets think about show these numbers:

Last stable Joomla Version (and beta version of J1.6)
Confirmed bugs on J! 1.5
RC tracker blockers of J!1.6
Core Teams members
Forum posts
Community Workgroup members (forum.joomla.org)
Development (forum.joomla.org)
Documentation (forum.joomla.org)
Global moderators (forum.joomla.org)
OSM (forum.joomla.org)
Translation Teams (forum.joomla.org)
Translation Workgroup (forum.joomla.org)
(Your opinion here)

I Think that is not necessary show warnings about insecure version or etc, just last stable version. And also make editable for final user with info he will show. Also some of these info can have some links specific for sources of data (like link of download last stable version.

O Believe that more simple data, like the fist one on this list, that do not change so often, maybe in one fist stage can be used fist, and later just make some script to take rest of data on Joomla Forum, or even with some automatic script forge.joomla.com.

In fact, is not so hard to do it, and I believe that if we do it, each change in number of persons in team, for example, will really makes difference because everyone will see, and also for bugtraks alive, will make more people try think in help because they will see this more often.

Is not so hard to do it

Make one source of these data (RSS or any other way like ajax)
Make one module to take data from this source

I believe that this idea may help people better understand how the developers are working with Joomla, and it may even make better appreciate these people and become collaborators also

What all you think about this?

Banned from people.joomla.org

2010-10-17T09:30:00.000Z

So I got banned last month, and have a few questions related to that ban.

For your reference, here's when it happened: http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdiscussion/664-Communityjorg+Comment+Moderation.html?groupid=398

It's a long discussion, and JomSocials reversed comments order doesn't make it easier.

So here's the post notifying me of my ban:

Sandra Warren,
@Stian I have warned you not in this thread and you seem bent on discussing off topic issues in this thread. So congratulations, you are the very first ban in JPeople for posting inappropriate content After warnings. I am quite sure you knew this was coming.

I find it very amusing that this first ban of this kind happened on THIS post about Moderation. I think that solidifies the need for moderation and perhaps even more moderation.

Consider this your notice that you are now banned.
Sunday, 19 September 2010 09:43

You can find it here: http://people.joomla.org/groups/discussapp.html?topicid=664&app=walls&start=5

I got a single warning btw: http://people.joomla.org/groups/discussapp.html?topicid=664&app=walls&start=25

Now since I'm the first one ever banned from there, there's no previous record for how that works.

So I have a few questions I would love to ask, but obviously can't on j! people:

What's the length of the ban period?
Shouldn't ban notices give you an opportunity to redeem yourself? Everyone can screw up once in a while so we should be civil right?
Is my ban a permanent even though the Community Guidelines state you get 3 warnings first?

If anyone could answer that, I would be very grateful.

Thanks.

Bring on the Joomla! Distributions!

2010-10-12T00:30:00.000Z

There's been a lot of talk over the last year, or so, about creating Joomla! distributions. The idea is an obvious one, pull together all the extensions needed into one package to create a nice vertical market implementation that makes creating certain types of Web sites a snap.

The Drupal community has been heading this way, for awhile. Many of you have likely looked enviously at some of the choices available. There's Open Atrium, an intranet built on the Drupal Platform. Open Publish, intended for online publishers and phpEdu for learning management systems. And that's just a drop in the bucket. According to the Drupal Distro Watch site, there are pages and pages of great solutions ready made for different use cases.

A group of us are exploring creation of a Joomla! 1.6 Distribution intended for the blogger community. It's going to have nice differences in the site and Administrator Templates, response extensions, and improvements to the ACL. But, we want it understood, this is a distribution, not a fork.

One of the more important benefits we hope this effort brings forward are ways for this community to collaborate and not be overly reliant upon the core code base and project for our needs. We've heard (and made) the complaint "They won't take my patch!" too many times and finding a peaceful way to continue innovating the platform -- even in different directions -- even in exotically exploratory ways -- is good for our future as a community.

So many times, we make our own boundaries and we need to enjoy the freedom of free software. Look for more information from various team members as they share what they are working on. Any questions or concerns or ideas you might have are welcome. We hope to see more and more collaboration between Joomla! developers in this amazing community. In fact, helping make that happen is a key goal of All Together, As A Whole.

Joomla 1.6. caching changes

2010-10-05T14:30:00.000Z

For everyone interested in cache and speeding up you extensions and Joomla , I wrote 2 blogposts with the outline of Joomla 1.6. caching:

http://www.bzzzz.biz/blog/joomla/joomla-1.6-caching-demistified-jennifer-series.bzzzz

and another one with some more detailed information about Joomla 1.6. caching changes relevant to extension developers:

http://www.bzzzz.biz/blog/joomla/joomla-1.6.-cache-changes-for-extension-developers-jennifer-series-2.bzzzz

Please place any comments you might have here.

Passing the Torch at All Together, As a Whole

2010-09-20T06:48:07.000Z

I've spent the past 7 months as the Host and Spokesperson here at All Together, As a Whole. When Amy Stephen asked if I would like to take the wheel of this ship, I had no idea what I was in for, but I must say, I've been absolutely pleased with the friendships I've made and the life lessons I've learned while I've been at the front of this boat.

We've had a lot of great times here already:

I was removed from my volunteer position within the Joomla! Project my first day on the job here. (Thanks Brad)

We expanded our Admin team to include some awesome people here at ATAAW, including Hils Cheyne, Nicholas Dionysopoulos and Wilco Jansen.

We created the Joomla Forward initiative and signed up 65 people to the Joomla Bug Squad in less than a week.

We won a J!OSCAR at JAB10

We managed to get the Joomla Community Magazine started back up again on property

We got Mootools 1.2 into 1.5

We started a podcast called JoomStew that featured an 11 week series on the book from Jono Bacon, The Art of Community that took a cold hard look at the Joomla Community as a whole, and what we, as community members could do to improve it.

We were most likely the reason that the people site actually came to fruition. They just couldn't stand that we were having so much fun over here. (I can say that since this is my post... get your own post to rebut me).

We've witnessed the OSM Board expand with some really strong people who seem to have made some fairly large changes in the project for the better towards transparency and openness.

We created a Joomla 5th Birthday Movie that rocked!

Now, I'm going to step down and take some time to focus my efforts on my own business ventures, Sobi Templates and a few other projects I have in the works. I'll still be around as a site admin to help with various projects and making coffee... but I'm going to put the leadership back into the hands of someone that has a clear vision of where we want to go for the near future.

So without further ado, I give you the First Lady ever to been banned from the Joomla Project...

Ms. Amy Stephen as your newest Host and Spokesperson of All Together, As a Whole.

Thanks Amy... you know I Love Ya and will always support your efforts here at ATAAW!

All Together, As A Whole Joomla! Site Builder and Developer Network

2010-09-20T02:30:00.000Z

The All Together site is ours as a Joomla! Site Builder and Developer Community. I think it's time, again, that we start pulling together. Having an independent place can help us focus on strengthening the ecosystem and resources available for us.

Here are a few areas where I believe forming volunteer teams and getting rolling could be very helpful.

Security
Test Extension software, monitor security services and cracker sites for vulnerability reports. Contact developers with vulnerability issues and help them, if necessary, with fixes. Improve notification processes with users.

Distributions
Organize a distribution center or help create easy ways to develop installation profiles, that make it easier for site builders to jump start new engagements, and create new marketing opportunities for developers.

Learning
Organize regular developer learning opportunities where community developers take turns teaching courses online and anyone can sign up and attend the training. Identify critical documentation needed and find ways to produce that work and share it with the community. Provide and support example Extensions and basic getting started Tutorials.

Support
Organize a support environment where developers can help each other with questions, upgrades to new releases, ideas, and so on. Peer support is a valuable resource and having a team of community developers consider the best ways to do that would start to make that happen.

Project Policies and Communication
Provide regular updates, through written form and podcasts, to the developer community on changes to project policies, like the JED TOS. Organize "calls for comment" on change. Collect input on problems and opportunities. Improve overall communication to the development community so that we are able to evolve away from forum debates towards well structured policy recommendations developed from broad developer outreach.

Ecosystem
Consider new marketing approaches that help developers reach out in organized ways that extend beyond the project Web site. Share business model resources and exchange business ideas.

What do you think? Is it time to work together more closely? If so, what areas do you believe are important? In what areas would your skills and interests help the Joomla! developer community?

JoomStew Radio - Extension Series Show 1 - CCK Shuffle

2010-09-15T21:33:54.000Z

This week JoomStew welcomes power CCK (Content Construction Kit) users Matthew Philogene of Raramuri Design and Cristina Solana Nightshift Creative.

K2 and Flexi Content are two popular CCK components for Joomla! Both seem to have similar features, and today, our guests are going to tell some of the differences between them and why they might choose one over the other.

There's also the usual Joomla News updates from the past week, and we award the Contributor of the Week and Bad Boy of the Week as well.

You can listen to the full podcast here:

http://www.joomstew.com/joomstewradio/extension-series/joomstew-radio-september-15-2010-extensions-series-ccks

5 Years Later: The Phases of Liberating Joomla!

2010-08-19T21:30:00.000Z

Photo courtesy of Joomla! Founder Arno Zijlstra's lovely wife.

Five years ago, today, on August 19, 2005, the brave and incredibly naive core team of the Mambo CMS made a monumental and important announcement, and thus began the process of liberating Joomla!. From all over the world, people who believed in the power of people came and worked hard, thus forming the Joomla! community.

Thanks to Andrew Eddie, Emir Sakic, Andy Miller, Rey Gigataras, Mitch Pirtle, Tim Broeker, Alex Kempkens, Arno Zijlstra, Jean-Marie Simonet, Levis Bisson, Andy Stewart, Peter Russell, Brad Baker, Brian Teeman, Michelle Bisson, Trijnie Wanders, Rey Gigataras, Shayne Bartlett, Nick Annies, and Johan Janssens.

On November 5th of 2005, I joined the Joomla! forums and began my involvement. It's not always been easy. But Freedom is never easy. It's something you have to be committed to defend and willing to work for. Freedom isn't instantaneous, either, it comes in stages. The August 19th fork was merely the first step, the birth of this project.

During the first period of freedom, everyone was excited as leaders like Rey and JM and Brad and Brian worked in the public eye greeting community and helping everyone get started, sharing information, and projecting a welcoming message. It wasn't until much later that I learned behind the scenes, the core team was working very hard and extremely stressed. The drama was quite intense as the realities of forming a project under the weight of a growing International community super sized all problems.

The second major liberation of Joomla! was the adoption of the GPL for extensions.Those who lived through that era might remember me as a not very nice, fierce defender of the Castle, pushing down the townspeople as they advanced. How dare they protest such an enormous change in the clear agreement they had with this project? I continue to believe the change was good. I finally see that the way it was done was very damaging to our community.

The third period of liberating Joomla! is the community engagement period. By far, this has been the most enjoyable part of my experience with Joomla!. The friendships, the learning, the code, the innovation, the renewed passion within the community have been great. Those rewards came from the efforts of many, many, many inside and outside of the project. The Bug Squad, ATAAW, JandBeyond, People, JoomlaForward, the nooku community, the individuals who selected the OSM Board, and of course, the new OSM Board, the Joomla! Community Magazine, Twitter, and even blogs, like Brian's and Torkil's, are tools we find useful to strengthen and engage our community.

If I could make a wish and blow out Joomla!'s five-year birthday candles, I would wish that our fourth period of liberating Joomla! will be a long period of innovation, where lots of value comes from fun, cohesive, self-forming and self-directed teams each working hard to improve Joomla!. I hope it's a period of opinionated, spirited discussions, and lots of teasing and laughter and relative peace. It's time to renovate the castle into office space, open a few windows to let the fresh air in, and use our torches as lamps for late night coding sessions.

It's also time for the old timers, people like me, to learn to shut up and listen, stop *gossiping about one another*, work on changing ourselves and not anyone else, and step aside for fresh, new emerging leaders. People like Hils and Nicholas, Klas and Alice, Robert and Jen4Web, Paul and Christina, Matt and Sandra, Stian and Diane, Marco and Tess, Kyle and Andy (to name only a few), can help guide our next phase with the full support of a sincere community manager, Steve Burge, and the entire community-focused OSM board.

Ian - I appreciate your heartfelt note. I don't know the answer, either, but I do know that the first step is for each of us to admit, "I am a big part of what is fundamentally wrong with Joomla. I am willing to try to change and help bring improvements. I am proud of Joomla! and what we have accomplished.

Thanks for Joomla! to our founders, which includes the first 17 who chatted on IRC in the picture Arno's wife took as Andrew published the Letter to the Community, and every one of us who put our hearts and time into keeping her free and moving forward.

We can work together to move Joomla! Forward. There are no lost friendships. If we want to, we can find the good in one another. Even those where others might have said, that's never going to happen.it can. I'll take that beer, Brian. Thanks for your major contributions to Joomla!. I am proud to call you friend.

ATAAW Movie 1 - Happy Birthday Joomla! - update

2010-08-08T12:46:32.000Z

A little update!

We are bowled over with the response from our Movie Makers... there are some very special things beginning to arrive. Forgive us for not going into precise details but surprises are nice aren't they - especially Birthday ones!

The upload deadline is 15th August. Please let us know if this is difficult for you. We have mailed all our Movie Makers from ataawmoviemakers @ gmail.com - if you haven't received any mail from us do let us know here!

As soon as the uploads are in place, our Directors, Svein and Jeremy, can get to work and our Music Department will spring into action...

All I can say is thank you - for your time, your effort, your wonderful imagination and not least for being part of our fantastic Joomla! Community.

Any questions or queries can be posted here... and/or skype contact is available

Hils

Twitter follow: ataawmovies

On the economics of Joomla! - ACTION REQUIRED

2010-08-07T16:07:43.000Z

At the J and Beyond 2010 conference in Weisbaden, DE, I had the pleasure
to meet and chat with Aarti Mahajan, a graduate student in Innovation
& Entrepreneurship Management Department at the Ghent University in
Belgium.

Aarti’s doctoral research is aimed at revealing the entrepreneurship and revenue generation opportunities within the Joomla!
ecosystem.

To obtain the appropriate data for her research, Aarti has prepared two surveys aimed at Joomla! extension developers and
service providers. Each survey will take approximately 30 minutes to
complete. The results of the research will strictly be used for academic
purposes and will be shared with the respondents.

With the help of the responses, the companies will be compared across various
dimensions and best practices leading to success of these firms will be
identified.

As an academic myself, I find this research very exciting. To my knowledge, this will be the first formal economic study
of Joomla! and I am very interested to see the results.

Since Joomla! is all about community, I strongly encourage all developers and
service providers in the Joomlasphere community to participate.

The founders of companies that develop extensions and/or templates for Joomla! are invited to participate in the survey for PRODUCT DEVELOPERS which is available at the following URL:

http://ugent.limequery.com/79385/lang-en

The founders of companies that provide services (web design, consulting,
training, SEO, etc.) for Joomla! are invited to participate in the
survey for SERVICE PROVIDERS which is available at the following URL:

http://ugent.limequery.com/55822/lang-en

More background on Aarti’s research will be posted below. Fell free to discuss any issues and ask questions in this thread.

Disclaimer: Joomla!™ is a registered trademark of Open Source Matters. The research
described above is not affiliated to Joomla!, Open Source Matters or
any of its subsidiaries.

Security competition

2010-08-04T20:33:09.000Z

As you know joomla is often accused of being insecure. Nearly always this accusation is wrong! Joomla is secure, but 3rd party components are most of the time not.
There are different reasons for this, but the most obvious in my eyes is the fact that it is super easy to create an extension. And most of the time those extensions are created from people that don't have enough experience and ....

I don't want to be one of those 3rd party developers that end up blamed for security holes, that is why we've organized this small hacking competition at compojoom.com (more info here ) The idea is pretty simple - if you find a way to hack compojoomComment (the former joomlaComment) you are going to win a prize. So far it is been a great fun! Several people tried XSS attacks, few SQL injections, I have friends trying to crack the captcha with some brute force attacks. (thank god we are still holding tight :D)

I know that some really clever people are visiting the ATAAW page and I really hope that you are going to try your skills against compojoomComment!

You can experiment here: http://hackme.compojoom.com/

If you want to throw a look at our code you can always visit the repository:
frontend and backend

If you have any questions let me know!

Daniel

Komrade makes Web Design Ledger Top 40

2010-07-21T12:24:06.000Z

Congrats to Komrade for being recognized for their stunning one-page design by Web Design Ledger. That's really cool - and good for Joomla!, too, since they are the designers for Joomla! Community Magazine, as well! It really is an exceptional design, take a look, and then, let Fotis Evangelou know what you think!

Is Your Oscar Acceptance Speech Ready? [Joomla! Movie Project]

2010-07-17T18:52:17.000Z

Have you ever wanted to work with Steven Spielberg on his next movie?
Could you be the next winner of the Oscar for the best Cinematography 2010?

This is your chance now... to work with our talented Professional Directors, who have over 30 years combined TV/video/film industry experience and, most importantly, they come from right within our Joomla! Community.

From a series of shorts/adverts/videos planned for Joomla!, this is the first call - for the Happy 5th Birthday Joomla! movie. We need you and your videos! Signing up will give you all the information you need and personal access to Svein Wisnaes & Jeremy Wilken who will advise on your particular camera and how best to shoot in your chosen location.

Call for Video Makers

WHAT: This is the preliminary international call for people to sign up to take part in the 'Happy Birthday Joomla!' movie project. Please read the Production Brief

WHERE & HOW: Sign-up Form available here

WHEN: Sign ups for the main movie should be completed by midnight UTC 23rd July 2010

NOTES:
This call is to find out who is able to provide short movie clips which will be edited to make up the main 'Birthday' movie. Detailed scripts and shooting instructions will then be provided by our Directors, Svein & Jeremy.

We want to hear you, in your language, in your voices
We want to see you, in your country, showing your heritage
We want to know how you, in your country and language, use Joomla!
We ALL want to say 'Happy 5th Birthday Joomla!'

TIMELINE:

July 23 - Final day for community members to sign up to shoot video
July 26-28 - Personal consultation with production team to help finalize team goals
Aug 5 - Check-in with production team to ensure things are going well
Aug 15 - Video should be uploaded and sent to production team

Original post: Joomla! the Movie? Yes, we can!

Joomla! the Movie? Yes, we can!

2010-06-26T09:00:00.000Z

...or why should the other FOSS projects have all the good ideas!

Call for: Script Writers, Director, Production Team, Camera Operators, Actors, Composers, Musicians, Graphic Designers, Promotion Team and all associated professional skills that we know we already have within the Joomla! Community ...and some financiers/philanthropists would probably be essential too!

Why: to make a promotional, positive, professional movie/video for Joomla! with a difference

Background: Linux have the 'throw it over the wall' presentation, Java have the Java 4-Ever Trailer both of which get their desired message across with great wit and skill - can we do the same for Joomla? Make an unforgettable, subtely humorous video that might even become 'viral'?

Example: Warning - a little bit of adult content! http://jz10.java.no/java-4-ever-trailer.html

What Now: If you have the skill in any of these areas are you with us? We are not thinking about a quick YouTube here - more a professionally produced 'short' that will make the name Joomla! even more unforgettable in a great way. It wouldn't be affiliated with the Project - let's say it could be a gift from the Joomla! Community to the world!

This is ambitious but very doable! Do you want to be a part of it?

Oleg Nesterov: Joomla Extensions Kung Fu from JandBeyond

2010-06-22T16:42:39.000Z

Joomla Extensions Kung Fu

View more presentations from Oleg Nesterov.

That is exceptional. Thanks…