Joomla as a content management system

February 17th, 2012

With modern age now every type of business now has a website to represent them in the market and need for updating the website from time to time has lead to the demand of a complete Content Management Systems. One of the most widely used CMS is that of Joomla. The various functions that users can perform on Joomla include introducing changes in the text of the website and that include functions of editing or changing the text in the website. Users can also add or remove the central navigation links that are embedded in a website. If you wish to attach or remove any promotional videos or any images on your website then you can do the same with help of Joomla.

Other than these common functions of Joomla, some of the advanced properties include the presence of several add-ons and applications within the CMS. Web developers with the help of a powerful tool like Joomla are able to build Application bridges, data reporting bridges, platforms for ecommerce sites with an integrated system, inventory control system, and complicated directories very easily. With the help of Joomla management system the web developers are also able to design customized catalogues for different products, powerful communication tools as well as effective reservation systems. Other than being a cost effective solution Joomla offers high level protection for PHP applications regardless of the size and type of business. Joomla proves to be an essential tool for managing business in both online as well as offline mode.

Sparks Fly over HTML 5

January 31st, 2012

The World Wide Web Consortium, the standard establishing authority of the web world, and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group have recently been at loggerheads, over new standards for HTML.

While the former claims that only it has the right to create new standards and proffer recommendations, the latter is of the opinion that they have greater rights in the matter. This contention arose, when developers started realising that W3C is taking way longer to release new versions of HTML, than WHATWG.

While there are those who consider W3C as the authority, there are some who think of the work being done by WHATWG as more revolutionary and innovative. It is also interesting to note that most of the browsers on which the users are active on, are owned by members of WHATWG.

Like anything else in the world, even HTML needs to change with the times and requirements of the users and developers. In order to ensure this, the only way out seems to be a coordination between the two organisations.

However, as of now, IT experts are of the opinion that things might not really affect the end users, because this argument will never really reach them. Product versions will always emerge, no matter what the standards and that is what the end users require. In addition to that, for IT people it is factors like compatibility and integration that matter more than standards.

As of now, we will all just have to wait and watch how this ‘war’ unfolds!

Compatible Versions with PSD to XHTML Conversion

January 18th, 2012

As per the opinion of web designing experts the process of PSD to XHTML is a very important from the point of view of web designing as PSD file are hardly implemented in the field now. Not only considered as a cost effective method but the process of conversion from PSD to XHTML or even HTML offers a sharp competitive edge to the firms. To improve the project structure of the web page and considering the platform compatibility, this process of conversion is carried on by professionals who have extensive knowledge about languages.

The process of conversion from PSD to XHTML is similar to that of PSD to HTML but the only difference is in the level of functionality. This process offers the liberty to the designers to modify the file drafts of the site into different kinds of layout. This modern mechanism also enables the designers and developers to modify the internal schema of the website and also improve the functionality of the website. This process not only assists in improving the visibility of the website along with cross browser compatibility but also in obtaining attractive web designs from simple PSD formats.

The end result you get after the process of conversion is W3C complaint file and it include formats like *.psd, *.ai, *.png, and *.jpeg that are converted using prototypes of XHTML coding. Other than PSD to XHTML conversion the process of PSD to WordPress conversion is popular among the designers for intensifying better cross audience communication. The preinstalled features like upgrades, password protection and easy installation makes PSD to WordPress conversion popular among the web experts.

CSS3 Support for Firefox 5 Beta

January 2nd, 2012

CSS is one of those powerful animation softwares which are capable of providing a virtually real feel to your website’s designs. The CSS property allow you to virtually animate designs as with its help the browser slowly morphs into the new value instead of directing changing into a property. This CSS property transition is supported by IE10+, Opera10+, Chrome/Safari and FF3.5+. Some of the main animation properties that are supported by CSS3 include:

1. Delay
2. Direction
3. Iteration Count
4. Name
5. Play state
6. Timing function

The only need here is to use the moz-prefix in the process. For a Firefox prefix, webkit proves out to be an ideal option as CSS3 animations have already been supporting Webkit based browsers like Safari and Chrome. A vertical list menu uses CSS3 animation to make the selected menu item gradually expand so as to highlight it. This process also uses CSS border trick for creating a cross browser slanted left edge. As a result, a sleek vertical list menu occurs that uses nothing else than the pure HTML markup language. For those who wish to see a live example of what all can be achieved with the help of CSS3 animations can see demonstrations of Anthony Calzadilla, Geri Coady and Andy Clarke.

Details about the CSS3 animations Firefox 5 support can also be derived from Mozilla Developer Network while details regarding its support for webkit can be obtained from Webkit blog. One can easily download the Firefox 5 Beta as well as its improved standards from HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL and Canvas from its recently released notes.

What CSS means to your website?

December 26th, 2011

CSS or cascading style sheets is a style sheet language that helps to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language. This application is most commonly used for styling the web pages that are written in HTML or XHTML language. CSS can be used not only for these two major coding languages but can also be applied to many other kind of documents written with languages like XML, plain XML, SVG, XUL and many more.

A Cascading style sheet is capable of improving a website’s design in many ways and by implementing them a website can be easily made attractive and user-friendly. When you launch your website in CSS, you help it move out of the category of basic styling framework and attain the category of superior designing.

Making a website presentable is one of the major requirements for surviving in the world of internet. Designers insert boxes, tables and shadows to differentiate document content from document presentation, but CSS allows it in a more fun and creative way. With CSS, a developer can include more colors as well as fonts in the document presentation so that it’s more interactive and interesting to see.

With the help of CSS, a website can be made the ultimate work of art as it enables a markup language to be presented in many styles. A CSS website provides more control and flexibility to the presentation characteristics along with facilitating multiple pages for format sharing and reducing complexity and repetition in structural content.

Features of Joomla 1.7

December 20th, 2011

Joomla is one of the most popular and recognized content management systems that most of the developers nowadays choose for their web development process. Joomla provides many kinds of advantages to the development process as it is free to download, open sourced as well as easy to understand. Its features will let you change the look of your site instantly. Many versions of Joomla have been launched till date and now this CMS is ready with its all new latest version of Joomla 1.7.

Joomla 1.7 is highly promising website software that has been launched on an open source platform. It is capable of working on Windows 7, Windows Vista 64-Bit, Windows Vista, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows XP and Windows 7 64-Bit. This version of Joomla provides many new features in terms of zones, email templates, auto approvals, campaigns, registration, ads manager, packages, advertisers, installation, admin and much more.

The installation of Joomla 1.7 is also quite a simple process and with the help of it, one can easily upload files to webhost to open it in a separate browser. Just a few questions have to be answered in the process and then the website will be all set to go online. With the help of it, one can easily add duplicate buttons to copy a zone as well as drop down all email templates in place of log template lists.

It also provides the ease of auto-approvals for the new tabs as well as the choice to auto approve any advertisement or campaign. Its new registration features provide registration to allow existing users to login first. Its ability to re-order ads and search by ID has also made it much advanced.

Ways to Install Wordpress Themes in a Website

December 12th, 2011

There are many advantages of using a wordpress theme for website development. Wordpress allows changing the theme, content, looks and designs of a website in a matter of minutes. This makes the whole process of website development much faster and efficient. A wordpress theme can be easily swapped by another and there are thousands and thousands of these available. But just their availability is not enough; rather it is important to know as how to install them efficiently.

There are three basic ways of installing a wordpress theme out of which, two are mostly used. The first one is through Wordpress free themes directory while the second is by uploading it from your desktop with the use of built in Wordpress Uploader. Apart from these two, the third way of installing a wordpress theme is a little complex but it is still useful. This includes uploading the theme from your desktop by using a File Transfer Protocol Program.

In the free themes directory method, the developer has to navigate to appearance option present within the Wordpress dashboard. After this, themes tab is selected from the top of the page named Install themes. In this category, themes can be searched under the titles ‘Featured’, ‘Newest’ and ‘Recently Updated’. In the Wordpress Zip File Upload Method, the theme has to be installed in the computer system in the form of a ZIP file. This file allows compressing a large file into smaller and easier to handle one. These themes can be uploaded from the themes tab of the appearance option, present on the dashboard.

What is more important: Software or the Developer?

December 6th, 2011

Stages like PSD to HTML conversion or XHTML coding is a part of almost every web programming process. Such processes are the main basis of converting an non-lively website into a live functioning one that could create profits for its company. But, the question is that, are these processes self-sufficient to make a website run efficiently on the web. The answer is a big ‘no’.

This answer owes to the fact that HTML or XHTML are complicated markup languages that cannot be used and processed by a normal person. To use and implement them successfully, it is essential that they are implemented by a person who has knowledge and experience in using such technologies and languages.

Such people are known as the web developers. Web developers carry the technical knowledge and talent to use markup languages in such a way that not only makes a website run without hassles but also makes them unique from others. Even if a user-friendly CMS or technology has to be used, the significance of a developer cannot be ignored.

If we take the example of a PSD design, then the process of PSD to HTML/XHTML conversion is not self sufficient to make those designs run on a live server. This is the job of a developer to launch the converted designs into a suitable browser and to make sure that it runs smoothly on the website.

Nowadays, many ready made softwares are available on the internet through which development and programming can be processed. However, these softwares don’t execute the flawlessness that manual coding does.

Improve Your Wordpress Design with Wordpress 3.3 Beta 3

November 29th, 2011

After the launch of Wordpress 3.3 beta 2, the wordpress developers are all set to bring out its new version in the form of wordpress 3.3 beta 3. This new version is mainly focused on improving the user experience of all kind of users and not only the ones that are involved in the development of wordpress websites.

The wordpress 3.3 beta 2 facilitated features like an updated blue theme, fixed IE7 and RTL support, improved flyout menu and contextual help styling, removal of unwanted bugs and several glitches, facilitation of welcome box to get new installs, etc. Now, its new version is not much different from its last one. However, its has definitely added more efficiency in wordpress development by getting more bugs fixed, making things prettier than before and by editing several text strings.

As per the current status, the launch has not been made but is very near and presently some tests are being made so as to detect any kind of incompatibility left in this particular version. Beta 3 also uses JQuery 1.7, which makes it much more advanced and less complicated. The introduction of JQuery with wordpress 3.3 will also help the wordpress developers to easily check plugins and themes in their wordpress design against beta 3.

The four most important features that you will get with wordpress 3.3 beta 3 includes responsive layout, postname permalinks, JQuery 1.7 and JQuery UI 1.8.16 and the wordpress editor API. Its responsive layout makes the left side menu to collapse on smaller screens automatically while the postname permalinks makes the wordpress setting usable for sites that contain large number of posts and pages. Its wordpress editor API will let the plugin developers to customize the post editor including the TinyMCE buttons.

Attributes of HTML5

November 24th, 2011

Most of the attributes that are found in HTML 5 may seem to be same compared to the previous versions but the same existing attributes have been introduced in addition to some new elements like the element of <base> now consist of a attribute target of <a> element. Here are some more attributes that have encouraged developers to convert to html 5. The first one is the content editable attribute which states that if the user is able to change the markup or edit the element.

The second attribute by the name of context menu allows a user to create an id attribute for the <menu> element. However, some feel that this attribute is yet to be practically tested. The data* feature is more of a prefix of the attribute that enables you to add any value to the attribute like <button type=”button” data-foo=”foo”>My Button</button>. This features assists in avoiding any clashes with the future version of HTML but it also has a limitation of not being able to be used with user agent extension.

Most of the tags and attributes in HTML5 have been built of web application purpose like the event handlers for drag and drop options like ONDRAG, ONDRAGSTART, ONDRAGSTOP, ONDROP and many more.