• Getting Started With Joomla! Multimedia
• Managing Your Joomla! Media
• Text, Characters, and Fonts in Your Joomla! Site
• Adding and Managing Image Content
• Using Audio in Your Joomla! Website
• Collaborating With External Sources
• Joomla! Templates and Multimedia
• Joomla! Multimedia Project
• Installing Joomla! Extensions

February 10 YOOtheme club template

YOOtheme proudly introduced Vox, their new February Template. It comes with a very sleek and simple design which will match any type of content you put on your site. It perfectly fits for any kind of editorial content like news, media, sports, music and many more.

One of the highlights of this template is the new designed tabbed style for the main menu which smoothly integrates the dropdown menu.

Template variations for every purpose

In this template they added 10 brand new astonishing template variations which will suite your needs. The wide range of different themes covers designs from clean over playful to complex background images. Your content will be supported by a large teaser area in the top position which, in combination with our YOOcarousel, can be perfectly used for rotating news articles or advertising.

Warp5

Vox is based on the powerful Warp5 framework which utilizes the latest web techniques. As announced in back in August, all templates released in 2010 and will drop the support for the old and outdated Internet Explorer 6 browser.

Feature list

• A variety of template color variations
• Built with the new Warp5 template framework
• Multi-column dropdown menu
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Compact size, using gzip and image sprites
• Works with all YOOtools

January 10 YOOtheme club template release

This template comes with four impressive color variations: Black, White, Green and Blue. They fit perfect for gaming and sports sites. They are combined with different color and glow effects. We introduce two new impressive visual effects: We animated the background image of the header to create a pulsating gradient effect. And we slowly change colors of module headers, article separators and more to create a glowing color effect.

This new YOOtheme template is based on the powerful Warp5 framework which utilizes the latest web techniques. As announced in back in August, all templates released in 2010 and will drop the support for the old and outdated Internet Explorer 6 browser. Taking this step will ensure better templates which use latest web standards and technologies offered by modern browsers.

Come and visit the four Planets (The Dark, Ice, Battle and Water Variations) of this template or customize them to create your own new worlds.

Feature list

• Black, White, Green and Blue template variations
• Built with the new Warp5 template framework
• Multi-column dropdown menu
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Compact size, using gzip and image sprites

Download YOOtheme's Explorer Joomla Template

Welcome 'Explorer', the December Template template from YOOtheme The Explorer template features really extensive themed variations for different purposes and different font-faces using CSS3. Like all our latest templates, Explorer is based on the Warp5 Joomla template framework.

Template variations at its best

There are great looking variations for websites about Adventure trips, Traveling, Vacations, Sports and Blogging. Further to provide a overall consistent layout, every variation comes with it's own style for the modules. So make sure to check out every single template variation! This template also features a large top module position to publish your pictures or promotional content, e.g. in a YOOcarousel.

CSS3 Web Fonts

In Explorer uses one of the great new features of CSS3, the font-face rule. With font-face you can enhance your website by using your favorite font. Just have a look at the article- and module headlines of this site. Also included are different fonts for the templates variations.

Feature list

• Extensive themed template variations
• Built with the new Warp5 template framework
• Muti-column dropdown menu
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Compact size, using gzip and image sprites
• Works with all YOOtools

A Symphony of Color, Style and Speed

Slick as slick can be! YOOtheme's new template creation Symphony is based on the Warp5 Joomla template framework and is a perfect symbiosis of colors and shapes. Symphony has the look of a very smooth surface.

Its header provides a large presentation area you can use for product images or large headlines and all menus have a stunning three-dimensional depth ... check out the menu items' cute little bullets! When you use the left and right column, the content area looks like it is hovering above them - a real eye-catcher.

Beautiful color variations

Symphony comes with a wide range of color variations and three extra themes we created to be used especially for cooking websites, online roleplay portals and blogs. Make sure to check out the perfectly balanced color combinations!

YOOtools in Action

Like its predecessor Mellow, Symphony also provides fresh looks for YOOtools. The YOOtools style overrides featured in this template include overrides for the YOOcarousel's buttons and a nice text shadow for the YOOtweet module. And just like always, the YOOsearch got a style matching the rest of the template. Also, the presentation area can be perfectly used to display presentational YOOtools like the YOOscroller.

Small Warp5 Updates

Symphony offers improved JS effects of the Down Down Menu for all Internet Explorers and added some new module templates.

Recent changes with the Tweetmeme servivce mean that this process if no longer necessary, however you can still revert to the previous system if you so desire. Here's an extract from the Tweetmeme Blog where this change is announced,

Since the initial creation of the TweetMeme button we’ve been looking for interesting, useful & innovative ways to update it and to make it easier for you all to update your Twitter accounts with the most interesting content that you find on the internet and to share your own content with your followers. As such we’ve extended and slightly altered the way that the TweetMeme button now works. Before I go on and show you how this will work and what it will look like please note that this functionality has not yet been put live and a such the images shown below may look slightly different to the final version but with no significant changes to the basic functionality. We will have two different variants of our button. One for on our TweetMeme website, which we call our internal button. And one for on external websites. I explain this first because I don’t want anyone getting confused that they act very slightly differently.

The image below is what you will see when you try to connect to TweetMeme for the first time after this change. It is basically setting you up to connect us to TweetMeme using Twitter’s Oauth access. It will take you to Twitter and ask you to log in just like in the image below. It’s a bit like Facebook connect really but for Twitter.

To ensure consistency and simplicity we use a very similar system to the internal one. So for the first time you log into the TweetMeme button you will see the following:

Once again it connects with Twitter just like Facebook connect for the first time. If you aren’t logged into Twitter you’ll be asked to log in as usual and then get passed back to the button. Where you can edit the content (excluding the URL) and read even more interesting content on the site. We don’t take you away from the site that you are reading to update your users.

We hope you enjoy the new functionality and if you are press and would like to find out more about the button or require additional infromation on this change go to The TweetMeme Button gets an Update.

Say hello to Mellow! YOOtheme's October template is mostly dressed in subtle colors. It's an unobtrusive template at hand that looks nice and modern without the need for gradients.

It has modules that change their color when hovered. It also comes with pretty style overrides for the YOOaccordion and YOOcarousel modules which change according to the color variation that is in use.

You can use Mellow for all kinds of purposes ... it presents your content in the proper light. And please pay attention to the nice three-dimensional menu tab design! And of course Mellow is based on the Warp5 Joomla template framework.

Feature list

• Built with the new Warp5 template framework
• Muti-column dropdown menu
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Compact size, using gzip and image sprites
• Works with all YOOtools

Crystal! is YOOtheme's September 2009 creation. This template comes with a super swish fixed menu bar on top of the site. Crystal also sets new standards in the use of PNG alpha transparencies. You can create stunning effects using multiple transparencies when you place transparent modules on transparent backgrounds. It also comes with a great selection of background color variations and further you are able to easily apply your own custom background images.

Crystal offers lots of different color variations for menu items, allowing you to style every page in a different color. The background color of the drop down menu also changes when you change a menu item's item color. Of course, you can combine all menu item-based color variations with all module color variations ... variety galore!

By the waythe ZOO component fits into Crystal visually, with the included black CSS styles for ZOO. Now you can seamlessly integrate ZOO into the new YOOtheme Crystal template.

Warp5 updates

YOOtheme also added some minor stuff to our Warp5 framework. The YOOmorph JavaScript allows now to use an ignoreSelector and we added some new module templates.

Feature list

• Built with the new Warp5 template framework
• Muti-column dropdown menu with fancy effect
• Nice text shadow for headlines, modules and menu
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Compact size, using gzip and image sprites

Be Impressed, Be Inspired. Get your hands on Flux, the newest YOOtheme template creation. Flux is based on the new Warp5 Joomla template framework and is designed with a chromish style which looks perfect for example for gaming sites.

Flux shines with its flashy menu bar, for which we once again used our amazing fancy menu: The menu items look like they are buttons pushed into the menubar. Also the YOOsearch and the breadcrumbs fit in perfect with the template design. Of course, Flux comes with our awesome new Warp5 menu that you might already know from their last template Phoenix. It also allows you to publish modules in the dropdown menu and, like all the templates, it comes with loads of module variations.

Warp5 updates

The are  also some added some new features to our Warp5 framework:

• The fancy menu effect is now also applied to modules published on the menu position.
• The effect of the fancy menu remains even when the cursor goes off the dropdown and back on again.
• You can assign individual widths for modules published in the dropdown via the Module Class Suffix, for example: dropdownwidth-255.
• You can set individual dropdown widths for menu items via the Page Class Suffix, for example: columnwidth-200.
• You can turn off background images for a specific menu via the Menu Class Suffix, for example: images-off.

Some of the Features

• Built with the new Warp template framework
• New muti-column dropdown menu with fancy effect
• Nice text shadow for headlines, modules and menu
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Compact size, using gzip and image sprites
• Works with all YOOtools

The results speak for themeselves. Awesome design and fast loading times.

YOOtheme recently introduced their new template framework Warp5. This is an Ultralight and Ultrafast template Framework. It's clear and the results speak for themselves.

Despite its beauty, the first Warp5-based template "Phoenix" only loads 9 kb of CSS, 3 kb of images and optional 22 kb of JavaScript for all animated effects (Mootools library is included)!

Judging by responses from site visitors and Joomla Retainer Club Members, this framework will be used a base for most of the designs and customisations we will deliver in the future.

We have implemeted the WARP 5Template/ Menu system on this site, as well as integrated it with our PHPBB3 forum template just so we can demonstrate its versatality and test thje response from our visitors.

Very few file requests

When you use a Warp-based template you will encounter very few file requests. Warp5 comes with two compression modes for CSS and JavaScript. The first one merges all CSS and JavaScript of a YOOtheme template each in a single file so that there is only one file request each instead of multiple ones. It is also possible to add the CSS and JS of extensions to these single files.

Gzip compression

The second compression mode, gzip mode, adds extra gzip compression to these single CSS and JS files to make them extra small. The file that all the JS gets delivered in then only has 22 kb ... and MooTools is already included! In the screenshot from Firebug you see that two JS files get loaded, one of them is Joomla's own caption.js file which has 1 kb:

All the templates' CSS put together in a single file only has 9 kb when gzipped, including the styles for all modules and their color variations:

So you see, when you add it up, the CSS and JS responsible for all module variations, all the fancy effects, the typography and so on only take up roughly 32 kb. And if you don't like JavaScript at all, you can even switch it off in the backend of your template. The template would stay fully functional.

CSS sprites

Another reason for why there are only so few file requests is that  Warp5  minimizes the requests to the server by merging image slices into so-called CSS sprites. This means that as many image slices as possible were put into a single image file which significantly reduces the loading time of your website. Some of the sprites that were used for the  Phoenix template's modules contain up to 11 slices. This reduces the file requests from 11 to 1! To save you some bandwidth we also optimize the file size of all our templates' PNG images. Even with all its rounded corners, in a basic layout without modules and with a dropdown menu, The Phoenix  theme uses only 11 background images that altogether only use 3.6 kb.

YOOtheme recently announced the Phoenix theme based on the shiny new Warp template framework. Warp is what's under the hood of a YOOtheme template. With Phoenix, you get a wide range of awesome new features. First of all, there is our amazing new multi-column dropdown menu, which is a true novelty for the Joomla world: You can set as many columns as you want, set the column width in the backend, display big icons for second level items ... you gotta check it out yourself, it looks so cool!

Phoenix also comes with lots of modules, some of them with color variations. Now you can also show icons in your module headers. Phoenix provides an endless supply of combinations of module styles, colors, badges and icons. The new 2-1-3 column ordering makes Phoenix super search engine friendly. The two nested 3-column-layouts makes your website amazingly flexible. And also, this is our fastest template ever, sporting a new way of CSS/JS compression and background image sprites.

Feature list

• Built with the new Warp template framework
• Amazing new muti-column dropdown menu
• Icons in module headers
• Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
• 2-1-3 column ordering for search engine friendliness
• Fastest template ever, using image sprites

1. Briefing
2. Appraisal of existing web site, IT systems
3. Confirmation of corporate and marketing objectives
4. Budget indication
5. Roles and Responsibilities
6. Pilot Selection
7. Initial timetable
8. First draft web marketing plan.

Content development

1. Overall look 'n feel
2. Standards and templates
3. Information Architecture
4. Navigation Paths
5. Interactions
6. Writing
7. Page mark up
8. Response forms / scripts
9. Other special content.

Technical

1. Server/ provider selection
2. Mirror sites - if applicable
3. Server software
4. Domain registration
5. Applications development
6. Transaction and payment systems development e.g. catalogues, shopping baskets
7. Supported browsers
8. Development systems
9. Management processes
10. Technical standards.

Testing and Going Live

1. Page quality check, validation
2. Link testing
3. Coherence consistency checking
4. Security testing - password access etc.
5. Transaction testing
6. Complete testing off-line
7. User testing
8. Site uploading.

Marketing

1. Marketing model - ads, referrals etc.
2. The 7Ps - how are these addressed?
3. Link negotiation
4. Marketing 'hooks' in each relevant page
5. Response mechanisms
6. Entries in search engines
7. Off-line promotion
8. Research and feedback
9. Data Collection (e.g. web stats) and Analysis
10. Revised marketing plan.

Sustenance

1. Webmaster activities
2. Content feedback
3. Content updating programme
4. Commissioning new content
5. Supporting new facilities e.g. video plug-ins
6. Link maintenance
7. Update release planning.

Management Processes

1. Overall project management - progress vs. plan
2. Use liaison
3. Legal and contractual e.g. copyrights
4. Release / change control
5. Performance measurement system
6. Budgeting
7. Ongoing roles and responsibilities
8. Documentation
9. Process Descriptions
10. Extracting Lessons
11. Periodic strategic audits and reviews.

GENERAL

MARKETING

IDENTITY

LAYOUT

Your visitors will obviously have to be registered users of Yahoo Buzz to be able to submit your content to the Yahoo Buzz Directory. The plugin offers the option to select the articles, sections and categories to display on and you can also exclude it from the Frontpage or from individual articles. Your can also position the button by defining your own CSS settings.

The plugin is currently in beta testing and will be released in the next week after the Beta testing is completed. We are awaiting feedback from the testers.

What coming up ? Well the whole idea behind Tweetme was to keep it small light and simple, so I will concentrate on Joomla extension integration and taking advantage of the Tweetmeme API's should they offer enhancements.

Download it here

We have created a Joomla 1.5 Native plugin that adds a nice "TweetThis" button to your Joomla articles. Its very simple, lightweight and looks good on any site. When your users discover content on your site and tweet about it, it will boost your site traffic. The plugin provides a fully integrated URL shortener and the story or page’s title. Each link which is posted on Twitter adds increments to the count on that story/article. The more tweets a story receives, the more popular it is! The compressed files are only 4kb and 10kb uncompressed, all the action hapens with one small line of javascript javascript. 

What Inspired This ?

Tweetme relies on the API provided by Tweetmeme .

Installation

Demo

You can see a Demo right here on the right sode of this articles title.

Get the plugin here Downloads

Please report any bugs if any here Tweetme Joomla Plugin

YOOtheme"s ZOO Explodes onto the Joomla Scene

In less than 40 minutes YOOtheme will release their much anticipated Content Construction Kit, called ZOO for the Joomla CMS platform. YOOtheme is known for pioneering some cutting edge Joomla technology. The ZOO extension is no exception to this statement.

YOOtheme has pushed all boundaries in making ZOO an extremely versatile and content rich application for discerning Joomla Web Designers and Developers. This is all well and good , but what is the ZOO really and what can it offer in terms of adding value to your Joomla based Website ?

Introduction to ZOO

ZOO can be best described as an extension that offers you the ability to create your very own custon content types. You will have the freedom to easily mould and design feature rich content presentations. Take for example if you needed to present images, text, videos and downloads in an easy eyecatching way that suited your needs, you would need to use various different Joomla extensions to achieve this. Add to this the fact that all these extra extensions would have different layouts and code bases and you realise very quickly the work that would be needed to get all of these to play nice together, and then there is also the fact you would not end up with a 100% flawless design and layout / integration. This is where ZOO steps in.

"Basically ZOO provides two core features. The first feature is the catalog system that manages the different catalogs and categories and the assignment of all content items. Catalogs with multi-level categories are containers for content all items. So all your items can easily managed with the catalog system. The second feature is the CCK functionality which allows you to create custom types for your content items. Each time you create an item you choose which type it should be. A type is a blueprint you create for your content items, a custom combination of elements that the ZOO provides. There are various elements you can choose from like text fields, textareas, selectboxes, radio buttons but also images and downloads."  

I recently came across  Joomla AJAX registration now with CAPTCHA after doing a lot of research and purchased and installed it on this site. I noticed that there were some conflicts with the template we used on the site that caused this Captcha script not to work as it should and before I could look at this further, I received an email from the developer Emir, after he had visited the site on his own initiative to see how his product was functioning, informing me his product was not functioning correctly and that it was because of template overides we have built into our template. 

Emir also provided an updated version of the script to overcome this conflict which is working flawlessly. Check it out live Here

I was impressed by the following

• The impressive proactive support from the developer,
• The script supports a native Captcha as well as reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam
• There is no need to hack core files
• A simple regular Joomla install/uninstall process
• AJAX Register will check all required fields as you type presenting error messages and asynchronously checking for username and email availability without page refresh.
• The quickest, most efficient and valid AJAX Registration out there.
• Only costs 7 € (Euro)
• A most effective Spam prevention registration system.