Joomla! Documentation - User contributions [en]

J1.5 talk:Developing a MVC Component/Introduction

2009-03-22T21:43:40Z

Clogan: /* Use lowercase file and folder names in your components! */ new section

is there anyway to make the font for ".source-php .kw1" a more printer friendly color yet still be distinguishable as important text? At the very least lets make the font "bold" so it is stronger in contrast. Even in the highest quality setting on printer it appears very washed out to these old eyes.

You can add your own stylesheet to override any of the system-generated styles by adding a special subpage under your user page. In your case, create the page [[User:N6REJ/monobook.css]] and add your CSS rules into it. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 08:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

== Use lowercase file and folder names in your components! ==

When creating custom components try to use file names and folder names with all lowercase letters. I had created some complex MVC components, naming my folders and files after my classes in the component. This meant that I had upper and lowercase letters in the folder and file names. During testing on my Windows machine everything worked fine, but when I transfered to a remote host running unix, nothing worked properly. The errors provided by the framework were only slightly helpful in identifying the root cause which was that the JPath:: class implicitly calls strtolower() on all paths. Therefore my files were not being found by the framework. I hope this helps save someone some time.

Talk:Component

2009-03-22T21:37:28Z

Clogan: Use lowercase folder and file names.

When creating custom components try to use file names and folder names with all lowercase letters. I had created some complex MVC components, naming my folders and files after my classes in the component. This meant that I had upper and lowercase letters in the folder and file names. During testing on my Windows machine everything worked fine, but when I transfered to a remote host running unix, nothing worked properly. The errors provided by the framework were only slightly helpful in identifying the root cause which was that the JPath:: class implicitly calls strtolower() on all paths. Therefore my files were not being found by the framework. I hope this helps save someone some time.

User:Clogan

2009-02-12T09:14:53Z

Clogan:

I am an electrical engineer from Austin, TX, USA, and have been a professional programmer since 2000 A.D. My expertise is in embedded firmware for MP3 players and other portable electronics. I have been a PHP programmer for longer than I've been a professional programmer. I was turned on to Joomla about a month ago, and to show my gratitude for this development platform I will try to add as much useful documentation as I can. I am also a singer/songwriter and a recovering drug addict. If you have questions about Joomla, programming, music, or you think you may have a problem with drugs and alcohol, please let me know and we can talk.

http://www.cullenlogan.com<br>
http://www.cullenlogan.com/music

You can find me on facebook by my email address: cullenlogan at cullenlogan dot com<br><br>
[[Image:Cullen1.jpg]]

User:Clogan

2009-02-12T09:12:53Z

Clogan:

I am an electrical engineer from Austin, TX, USA, and has been a professional programmer for since 2000 A.D. My expertise is in embedded firmware for MP3 players and other portable electronics. I have been a PHP programmer for longer than I've been a professional programmer. I was turned on to Joomla about a month ago, and to show my gratitude for this development platform I will try to add as much useful documentation as I can. I am also a singer/songwriter and a recovering drug addict. If you have questions about Joomla, programming, music, or you think you may have a problem with drugs and alcohol, please let me know and we can talk.

http://www.cullenlogan.com<br>
http://www.cullenlogan.com/music

You can find me on facebook by my email address: cullenlogan at cullenlogan dot com<br><br>
[[Image:Cullen1.jpg]]

File:Cullen1.jpg

2009-02-12T09:11:39Z

Clogan:

== Licensing: ==
{{PD}}

User:Clogan

2009-02-12T09:01:57Z

Clogan:

User:Clogan

2009-02-12T08:57:38Z

Clogan:

User:Clogan

2009-02-12T08:57:13Z

Clogan: New page: I am an electrical engineer from Austin, TX, USA, and has been a professional programmer for since 2000 A.D. My expertise is in embedded firmware for MP3 players and other portable electr...

I am an electrical engineer from Austin, TX, USA, and has been a professional programmer for since 2000 A.D. My expertise is in embedded firmware for MP3 players and other portable electronics. I have been a PHP programmer for longer than I've been a professional programmer. I was turned on to Joomla about a month ago, and to show my gratitude for this development platform I will try to add as much useful documentation as I can. I am also a singer/songwriter and a recovering drug addict. If you have questions about Joomla, programming, music, or you think you may have a problem with drugs and alcohol, please let me know and we can talk.

http://www.cullenlogan.com
http://www.cullenlogan.com/music

You can find me on facebook by my email address: cullenlogan@cullenlogan.com

J3.x:Adding JavaScript and CSS to the page

2009-02-12T08:28:03Z

Clogan: Added code example for adding dynamically generated javascript functions to the HEAD of a page.

{{stub}}

To have a well-formed XHTML document, you must put all references to Javascript and CSS files within the <head> portion. Since Joomla! generates all of the HTML that makes up a page before output, it is possible to add these references to the <head> tag from your extension. To accomplish this, you first need to get a reference to the current document object:

<pre>
$document =& JFactory::getDocument();
</pre>

To add a Javascript file, use this code:
<pre>
$document->addScript($url);
</pre>

For a stylesheet, use this code:
<pre>
$document->addStyleSheet($url);
</pre>

If you want to add custom HTML to the head tag, use this code:
<pre>
$document->addCustomTag($html);
</pre>

Using the $document->addCustomTag() API may be used to insert any type of HTML into the HEAD tag. For instance you may have some javascript code that must be generated dynamically using PHP code (and therefor is not in a .js file), and then placed into the HEAD. The below shows some sample code to accomplish just that. The code is used to define a custom tool tip that takes advantage of mootools.
<pre>
function getToolTipJS($toolTipVarName, $toolTipClassName){
$javascript = "<script type=\"text/javascript\">\n\n";
$javascript .= "window.addEvent(\"domready\", function(){\n";
$javascript .= " var $toolTipVarName = new Tips(\$\$('." . $toolTipVarName . "'), {\n";
$javascript .= " className: '" . $toolTipClassName . "',\n";
$javascript .= " initialize:function(){\n";
$javascript .= " this.fx = new Fx.Style(this.toolTip, 'opacity', {duration: 500, wait: false}).set(0);\n";
$javascript .= " },\n";
$javascript .= " onShow: function(toolTip) {\n";
$javascript .= " this.fx.start(1);\n";
$javascript .= " },\n";
$javascript .= " onHide: function(toolTip) {\n";
$javascript .= " this.fx.start(0);\n";
$javascript .= " }\n";
$javascript .= " });\n";
$javascript .= "});\n\n";
$javascript .= "</script>\n\n";
return $javascript;
}

$document->addStyleSheet("/joomla/components/com_mycustomcomponent/css/mytooltip.css",'text/css',"screen");
$document->addCustomTag(getToolTipJS("mytool","MyToolTip"));

</pre>
To make the above code usable on any page, you would need a corresponding style sheet added to the HEAD that contains information for the new Tool Tip class. The contents of mytooltip.css are beyond the scope of this document. This example is not even entirely useful however the methods used here can be used to insert any type of javascript into the HEAD of a document. I use it most when I have forms with <SELECT> elements that need to be filled in with information from a database. Then when the user selects an <OPTION> in the <SELECT> element some dynamically generated javascript function will be called to perform different actions based on what was selected. I am sure you will find many other applications for this technique. One last thing to note is the use of the window.addEvent() function in the javascript created. For cross-browser compatibility it would be wiser to use event listeners. Information on event listeners can be found in almost any javascript/DOM documentation.

[[Category:Development]]