When you have been using a software application like joomla for as long as I have certain things become second nature.
But it is only when you see a newcomer struggle to work out what to do that you truly appreciate that there is room for improvement.
Don't Make Me Think - says Steve Krug
I had to smile today, and boy do I need something to smile about right now.
Linux.com, which is perhaps one of the biggest sites on the net, re-launched their site under new ownership and now powered by joomla.
All those years ago when we founded joomla I don't think we coud have thought of a web site that we woud have liked to see run joomla more than this one.
Of course I just had to dig a little further to have a look and see what extensions they are using.
Detractors of Free & Open Source (FLOSS) software often accuse it of being the home of the politicaly left wing.
That is certainly not something that could be send of The Adam Smith Institute.
The Adam Smith Institute was long a favorite of Maggie Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the Conservative Party, "as the founder of free market economics".
Even though I am known to many as Mr Gadget man I don't own an iphone. I've just never seen the point!
My windows based mobile has done everything I wanted it to do, and I already own an mp3 player and digital camera.
But today perhaps this has all changed. As someone who is regularly out on the road I rely on my portable joomla training suite to keep me intouch with the world and more importantly in control of my clients web sites.
Now Joomla! administration has finally found its way to the iPhone with J Admin Mobile (JAM!)(iTunes link). JAM! will allow you to manage many of the core Joomla! 1.5 features right from your iPhone!
Last week I blogged about creating a large form with complex validation rules using bfForms.
But what do you do if you want to add an existing html form to your joomla site?
Perhaps you have a form created in dreamweaver, or you have purchased a form from an on-line library, or even have a form created in microsoft word that you want to add to your site.
I spend a lot of my time training people new to joomla so I think, and hope, that I have a pretty good idea of the trials and tribulations that they face.
Looking at joomla for the first time can be, for some, a daunting prospect. With so many options and so much power and flexibility it is easy to be overwhelmed and quickly drop joomla in the trash.
Fear not, joomla help is easy to find.
Yesterday I had to build a form for a new web site. But this wasn't the usual form with a handful of fields and a couple of required elements.
Oh no! This client required a form with almost 200 fields (194 to be exact), each field required validation, and there shouldn't be a single table element anywhere in the form.
Gregory House the grumpy doctor of TV fame specialises in solving the problems that no other doctor can.
Famously he says "All patients lie!".
Of course what he really means is that you shouldn't believe everything the patient says about their illness and symptoms as they do not have the skills to accurately describe them.
Patients also have a tendency to neglect to inform you of facts which seem irrelevant to them but are crucial to a successful diagnosis.
The same is true for supporting users!
Don't believe what you can't see with your own eyes!
