Joomla! Start to Finish - Jen Kramer's Timeless Tips

Joomla! Start to Finish –
Timeless Tips

Joomla Start to Finish by Jen Kramer
Northern Virginia Joomla Users Group
April 2012
Discussion by Dorothy Firsching, Ursa Major
Consulting, LLC
dfirsching@ursamajorconsulting.com

4-19-2012 www.ursamajorconsulting.com 1

The Book:
 Joomla! Start to Finish: How to Plan, Execute and Maintain Your
Web Site by Jen Kramer, Wrox, 2010
 Audience:
 “If you’re trying to make money building Joomla web sites, this book is
for you. If you’re just trying to build better Joomla web sites, for profit
or not for profit, this book is for you, too.”
 “If you’re trying to build a website for the very first time ever, you
might find this book a little advanced.”
 “If you’re expecting chapters on module development, they’re not in
this book.”
 Covers Joomla 1.5 in depth; 1.6 was in alpha when it was written.
 Jen Kramer is Program Director for the M.S. in Internet
Technologies program at the Marlboro College Graduate School, as
well as a frequent speaker at Joomla! conferences. She is
President of 4Web, Inc., a company dedicated to building highly
customized Joomla! web sites.
 This presentation was assembled by Dorothy Firsching and reflects
tips she has extracted from Jen’s book. Dorothy’s comments are in
BLUE.


Agenda
 Discuss Jen’s Joomla! Site Planning
Tips
 Discuss Jen’s Joomla! Site
Maintenance Tips


Jen’s Key Site Planning Tips
 When the Customer says, “How Much Will It Cost?”
 Understand Your Client’s Business Strategy
 Great Story – Housing Developer – page 3
 Illustrates why not to quote cost with too little
understanding
 Understand your Client’s Target Audiences
 Demographics / Technographics / Geographics / Goals
 Internal and External
 Measuring Success
 You have to know what you were trying to achieve!
 What was in that fixed price, anyway?


Some client education might be
needed…
 Some Clients Should Not Have a Web Site
 Not Engaged, No Strategy, Results in Neglected
Site
 A Web Site (Joomla site, particularly) is not a one-
time investment

How does the client want to handle updates,
maintenance?
 Training in front-end editing, limit back-end access
 Training in both front-end and back-end can be
confusing
 Must understand and plan for security upgrades
 Must understand and plan for support


Jen’s Key Tips on Your Website
 What’s on your website?
 Information about your skills -- OK
 Links to sites you’ve built -- OK
 Best is information about what problems the
client wanted solved and how you solved them,
before and after shots, increased store traffic,
etc.
 Blog is only good if you’ve got time to post
regularly
 3rd party verification / testimonials are best –
what you’ve accomplished for them


Choosing the Right Technologies
and Approach
 Is Joomla! the Right Answer? “It depends…”
 Do you offer HTML, WordPress, Drupal sites also,
or send customers elsewhere?
 The law of the hammer1
 Identify quality extensions vs. custom
 Reputation / usage / forums
 Is the code encrypted, overwrite core files, need
special permissions, not start with the correct line,
or not have an index.html in each folder?
 Research known vulnerabilities
 Assemble the team
 Here is where the JUG might shine
 The law of raspberry jam1 1
Gerry Weinberg,
The Secrets of Consulting

Jen’s Tip: Pick a Good Hosting
Provider
 Experienced in Joomla; responsiveness; forums
 Check for the right version of PHP, MySQL,
Apache; Good control panel (Cpanel / Plesk)
 Talk about backup policies
 Clients Who Want to Host Their Own Web Sites
(or Choose the ISP)
 Set the expectation that it is up to them to
maintain the server
 GoDaddy? Really?
 Encourage Clients to Host Though You
 And require Joomla and extensions to be kept up
to date!

Jen’s Tips: Lay out the Content
 Create a Site Map
 Jen’s Tip: Sticky Note Exercise
 Sticky Walls / Photograph the result; Draw up in
Visio
 Lay out Navigation
 Avoid Right Side Menus
 “Some Clients seem to expect content to fall from the
sky..”
 Jen’s Tip: A Google Docs list of Assignments
 Jen’s Tip: Include assumption that if you don’t get
content by a certain date, the end date must move
 Dorothy’s Tip: Make a special effort to document all
assumptions that affect scope and schedule
 Dorothy’s Approach: I will write a “strawman”
version for you to review on a test server =
jumpstart

More Jen Tips – from various
chapters
 Include a good article page title for SEO reasons even
if you don’t display it (p. 103)
 “Show unauthorized links” can be used to entice
clients to join site (p. 110)
 Date Format in category list can be customized using
PHP formats (p. 121)
 Article parameters (lowest priority), then menu
parameters, then individual article settings (e.g.,
show author name) (p. 123)
 Get rid of “Main Menu” menu name, sign of Joomla!
site?
 Great explanation of split menu configuration (p. 131)
 Stay away from image-based navigation and make
the site more easily maintained! (p.137)


More Tips
 Get rid of “Welcome to Joomla!” in the
backend, and provide contact information
for your company / tech support here (p.
180)
 Use “Session Check” on Contacts – so that
whoever submits the form actually has
visited the website! (p. 193)
 Load Module plugin – defaults to table.
Choose “Wrapped by Divs” or “Wrapped by
Multiple Divs” (p. 222)

Editor
 Lots of tips on use of editor (p. 223ff)
 Provide “Paste from Word” option
 Turn off fonts
 Include “Clean up HTML”
 Dorothy’s tip: Use JCE customization


Home Page Tips and Tricks (Ch.12)
 Jen references Steve Krug, “Don’t Make Me Think”.
It’s worthwhile reading.
 “Despite the requests from all sides, your mission is
to make the home page clear and concise. What
exactly is this site, and why does it exist?” Back to
strategy.
 “Once you have the rest of the site clearly defined…
then think how the home page will communicate an
abbreviated version of the site’s message.” (p. 229)
 Like an Executive Summary
 NOT “Welcome to the Front Page”!
 Consider laying out the Home Page in a static article
rather than using the Joomla Blog format. Less
bloated code. Great example (p. 243)


Templates
 Custom Template instructions are for
Joomla 1.5, not 2.5
 Template Overrides
 To ensure that changes to Joomla “core files” are
not wiped out with each Joomla! update
 Hidden Menus
 How to assign modules to web pages that don’t
appear on visible menus
 Put it on a menu but don’t publish the menu
module


Site Maintenance
 Backing up
 JoomlaPack  Akeeba Backup
 Don’t download through browser
 Restoring and Moving Sites
 Dorothy’s Tip: Use a test site on the web to test
changes as well as backups
 Upgrading Sites
 Keep a Spreadsheet of Extension Versions of
your sites!
 Dorothy’s Tip: Try Akeeba Admin Tools!


User Training
 Offer Options
 User Manual
 Plus an hour of Q&A
 In-person Training
 2 to 4 hours for up to 4 people
 Dorothy’s Tip: Virtual works fine too!
 Include Support Options: Customer staff
changes
 Hourly
 Retainer


Jen’s Favorite Extensions
 Akeeba Backup
 MassContent
 XMap
 MyBlog
 JomComment
 JomSocial
 JoomlaWorks
 Front Page Slide Show
 Simple Image Gallery
 Ultimate Content Display
 Allvideos
 K2
 RS Form Pro
 Grumpy Contacts


More Discussion?
 Jen did a great job on the book
 Publishing takes too long!
 Are we ready for an eBook for 2.5?


Joomla! Start to Finish - Jen Kramer's Timeless Tips

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Joomla! Start to Finish - Jen Kramer's Timeless Tips