Packaging a extension

2009-07-15T00:47:04Z

Jabbott: /* Note to Mac OS X users */

A directory with several loose files is not a convenient package for distribution. So the final step is to make a ''package''. This is a compressed archive containing the directory structure and all the files. The package can be in '''ZIP''' format (with a <tt>.zip</tt> extension), in '''TAR-gzip''' format (with a <tt>.tar.gz</tt> extension), or in '''TAR-bz2''' format (with a <tt>.tar.bz2</tt> extension).

If your template is in a directory <tt>mytemplate/</tt> then to make the package you can connect to that directory and use commands like:
* <tt>tar cvvzf ../mytemplate.tar.gz *</tt>
* <tt>zip -a -r ..\mytemplate.zip *.*</tt>

=== Note to Mac OS X users ===
Note to template developers using Mac OS X systems: the Finder's "compress" menu item produces a usable ZIP format package, but with one catch. It stores the files in [[AppleDouble]] format, adding extra files with names beginning with "<tt>._</tt>". Thus it adds a file named "<tt>._templateDetails.xml</tt>, which Joomla 1.5.x can sometimes misinterpret. The symptom is an error message, "XML Parsing Error at 1:1. Error 4: Empty document". The workaround is to compress from the command line, and set a shell environment variable "COPYFILE_DISABLE" to "true" before using "compress" or "tar". See the [[AppleDouble]] article for more information.

To set an environment variable on a Mac, open a terminal window and type:
export COPYFILE_DISABLE=true

Then in the same terminal window, change directories into where your template files reside and issue the zip command. For instance, if your template files have been built in a folder in your personal directory called myTemplate, then you would do the following:
cd myTemplate
zip -r myTemplate.zip *

J1.5 talk:Migrating from 1.0.x to 1.5 Stable

2008-12-05T23:30:22Z

Jabbott:

Step One: A newer version of migrator available. Article says RC6, but 1.0 Stable available http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/7279/24909/migrator.zip

ot2sen
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Suggest an addition to the documentation that if a third party plugin does not show up in the list after uploading, check the permissions on /administrator/components/com_migrator/plugins/ (should be 777) at the same time, check the dumps directory for the same permissions.

john abbott
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Joomla! Documentation - User contributions [en]

Packaging a extension

J1.5 talk:Migrating from 1.0.x to 1.5 Stable