It is a minor update but an important one. Unfortunately due to the way ISS has to work and my limited knowledge of Joomla, ISS would fail validation for XHTML due to how the internal CSS and javascript files were loaded.

David sent me a resolution to this demonstrating the use of the addStyleSheet and the addScript functionality of the Joomla JDocument class 

$doc = &Jfactory::getDocument();
$doc->addStyleSheet(JURI::root(true) . '/modules/mod_briaskISS/mod_briaskISS.css');
$doc->addScript(JURI::root(true) . '/modules/mod_briaskISS/mod_briaskISS.js');

So that change has been made, tested and the updated version of ImageSlideShow is available from here .

ImageSlideShow probably needs a minor update to round out its functionality and allow people to tweak more to their liking. Might also review the code as it was pretty much the first piece of Javascript/PHP I’d ever written so bound to be room for improvement.

Some ideas of galleries, site statistics, weather components have been floated, investigated and are now sinking rapidly! Look like too much time needed to invest in them to produce a quality component. I only have a few hrs at night to do this and Ido have a life too!

One thing that keeps sticking in my mind is that I’m here learning Joomla!, working through components, plugins etc and wanting to learn more about it but yet I use WordPress for this blog! Might have to change that…

Before I change it though I really want to work on how the site looks. Currently using a free wordpress theme from Brian Gardner specifically his Revolution Blog theme which, from looking at the code is well thought out and well crafted theme. I haven’t spent much time working with CSS, HTML or templating in Joomla! so think I’ll make that my next project, to design a new look for the demo site and create a new template for it, lets see how it goes

Quite unusually I across his music while listening to LiveDrive, far and away the most useful radio programme I have ever listened to in Dublin.  I have the misfortune to commute during rush hour in Dublin, takes me at least 70 mins to drive 10 miles and without Sarah & crew in the morning and John & friends in the evening I would be stuck in traffic for so much longer. Good accurate traffic reports with great range of music makes it an enjoyable commute. Public Service broadcasting at its best!

LiveDrive is broadcast by Dublin CIty FM. Sarah also has a music blog for her Critical Junctions section here

 Anyways, direct from YouTube, the song This is the dream of Win and Regine. Enjoy

Seem to have picked up several hundred spam comments in the few weeks whil I was away so am going to use the big Delete button rather than read through them all and decide which are useful and which are spam, life is too short for that!

Will also be starting up a new blog recounting our experiences in Walt Disney World to share with family and friends at http://www.ourdisneyholiday.com

Written in PHP, at their simplest a module only requires two files, one containing configuration information and the other code. In the best tradition of programming I’ll use a “Hello World” example to demonstrate.

Under the root of your Joomla! installation you will see a directory called modules, unsurprisingly this is where modules are installed to. Each module requires a unique name and although it is not required to be adhered to , a naming convention is in place which notes the module name should begin with “mod_” to denote module, components begin with “com_” (in the component directory) but oddly plugins do not seem to have a naming convention.

I’ll call my module “mod_briaskHello”. Joomla! expects the configuration file to be named the same as the name as the module and the configuration file is XML so I’ll create a file called mod_briaskHello.xml. The configurtaion file can also be considered the installation file as it is this file that Joomla! reads when it is installing the module. The module will be installed into the “mod_briaskHello” directory under the main modules directory.

Although any text editor can be used to create the file, I tend to use Notepad++ . The contents of the file should be as follows:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<install type=”module” version=”1.5.0″ >
 <name>mod_briaskHello</name>
 <author>Briask</author>
 <creationDate>May 2008</creationDate>
 <copyright></copyright>
 <license>GNU GPL</license>
 <authorEmail>briask@briask.com</authorEmail>
 <authorUrl>http://www.briask.com</authorUrl>
 <version>1.0</version>
 <description>A HelloWorld example</description>
 <files>
  <filename module=”mod_briaskHello”>mod_briaskHello.php</filename>
 </files>
 <params>
  <param name=”moduleclass_sfx” type=”text” default=”" label=”Module Class Suffix” description=”PARAMMODULECLASSSUFFIX” />
 </params>
</install>

You will need to change the various elements to suit your own details, the following are purely descriptive elements and have no effect on the operation of the module name, author, creationDate, copyright, license, authorEmail, authorUrl, version, description.

The install element and associated attributes type and version detail the type of Joomla! extension (module, component, plugin) and the version of Joomla! that the module is compatible with 1.5.0 meaning J! 1.5 and above

The files element and its child filename elements detail the files that make up the module and will ensure that they are copied to the modules directory. The filename element attribute module indicates the module this file is associated with and the value of the element indicates the actual filename. In the example config file above the module is noted as being “mod_briaskHello” and the file to be installed is called mod_briaskHello.php.

The params element is used to detail the parameters associated with a module, can specify types of parameter, sizes etc. I’ll cover those in a post on more detailed module development. The parameter in the example listed is that for adding the “Module Class Suffix” to a module.

Next we need to create the mod_briaskHello.php file.  As a default template the file needs to contain

<?php
/*
* Any comments or copyright(left) or licensing details
*/
 defined(’_JEXEC’) or die (’Direct Access is not allowed’);
 ?>

The defined(’_JEXEC’) or die (”Direct Access is not allowed’); line should be included as the first line of code to be executed in all modules as it helps to ensure that the module will only be called by Joomla! and not bay any nasty hacker type code.

Now for the exciting part! Add the line ” echo JText::_(’Hello World!’);” after the “defined” statement. When executed that line will output Hello World . The _ method of JText hooks into the translation services that can be installed with J!.

Now that the code is written, it needs to be installed into Joomla! To this we need to create a ZIP file that the Joomla! extension manager can read and use to install the module. Use your favourite compression tool to create the zip file and ensure it is named the same as the module, in this case the file would be named mod_briaskHello.zip. Now just follow the usual steps in Joomla! for installing a module and you’ve written/installed your first Joomla! module. You should see that the module appears in the list of modules and that on the filesystem of your server a new subdirectory of the modules directory has been created for this new module.

Have fun!

It can be downloaded from here.

What is ImageSlideShow? 

ImageSlideShow is a simple Joomla! module written in PHP and Javascript. The module displays a sequence of images from a specified directory either in order or in a random order. The slideshow has a simple transition between each image, the timing of which can be specified. ImageSlideShow also has the ability to create “thumbnail” versions of the images and to use them in the slideshow.

It is/was a project for me to learn PHP & JavaScript. Also proved useful in learning the framework behind Joomla 1.5 and generally how programming for the “web” world differs from my normal C# development efforts.

Should be able to release it on the Joomla! extension site in the next few days. I will need to write up some instructions on how to configure it as it is not as straightforward as the rest of ISS.

Once it is released, I think I’ll actually get down to writing up a tutorial on how ISS actually works, walking through the PHP and Javascript required to allow it to do what it actually does. ISS has served me well in learning about PHP and Javascript which was the original intent,  so it seems good to wrap it up by revealing how it works.

The question then becomes what to look at next…  am toying around with taking some extensions which work on J! 1.x but have no current owner/updater and see what I can do with them. I do also want to get to grips with MySQL and CSS so maybe I’ll go in that direction.  Maybe I take this site from being a WordPress blog and actually put it on Joomla! 1.5.  Maybe Drupal is worth a look? We’ll see…

Maybe I’ll also get around to organising this site so it actually makes sense! and that people can actually easily find the download for ISS, just noticed I couldn’t find it myself! If you are looking for the current version it is here.

I still want to create a simple tutorial on how to write Joomla! modules for 1.5 but trying to figure out the most effective medium, probably a combination of webpages, video and sample code works best.

Anyways, back to the music, Andy Mckee is the guys name, plays guitar and make some wonderful music while doing so. Have a listen to him here and enjoy!

One thing I do get to do every day is read the email/comments and respond to them if I have an answer or comment to make, some get held until I can actually spend time to give a considered response but they will get responded to in due course.

Today though, one comment caught my attention. It essentially said the sorting option wasn’t working! I read it with utter disbelief! No way! My code is perfect! Couldn’t be wrong! 

So I wander over to the site pointed out in the comment, had a quick look and would you believe it they were right, there was a problem! And worse still, it was in my code! One of of those painfully idiotic and “duh” type of bugs that always seem to bite when you least expect it.

And so we have an update to ImageSlideShow, some minor bugfixes, the sorting one included, but also included is the Module Class Suffix parameter which quite a few people were looking for. Go and play! Spread styles around it as much as you can.

Do let me know if y’all find any other issues or improvements that you’d like.

One item that I am working on is creating a plugin version of ImageSlideShow so that you can actually include it within articles/content. Look out for it in the next few weeks. For it to work properly I’ll have to get the image resizing and directory permissions functionality implemented and play some more with CSS so I can actually style it correctly.