Tables in Joomla - joomla

I would like to know if it is incorrect to use tables for a given article layout in Joomla? By that I mean that if you use tables it is easy to see the layout of the article that you are making.
From Julie

It's a bad practice in web design to use tables for this purpose, these are intended only to layout tabular information.
By default joomla! includes Bootstrap v2.3.2, so you can use the code in this library or you can include other library or framework. In this case you can use the Grid System:
Find more info here:
http://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/scaffolding.html#gridSystem
Best Regards.

Related

Analyzing community builder database

My server is Joomla 2.5, the version of CB is 1.8.1 and it runs on a MySQL database.
I would like to analyze the data in my database and create simple reports, for example: a list of all email addresses of all subscribers in a given period in time.
Is the right tool for this available in CB, in Joomla as an extension or should I go for a separate tool to dive into the database directly?
I searched in the CB site for reporting but didn't find a plugin for it, did find some 'advanced search' extensions for Joomla but they do not support reports as such.
I had to write custom components for this kind of requirements a few times, if you are familiar with Joomla coding I strongly suggest this approach it will be the most effective unless you need strong business intelligence, in which case you'd better switch to a bi tool.
The difference is: if you can pull all the data you need with just a few simple queries, write them yourself; if you need to analyze data, use a proper tool.
If you however are not a developer you might get away with a reporting tool, or a versatile CCK for Joomla.
Community Builder won't do this on it's own.
The easiest and quickest way to achieve this is to use an extension like ChronoForms and/or ChronoConnectivity which can help retrieve and display the required data from one or more tables.
ChronoForms: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/contacts-and-feedback/forms/1508
ChronoConnectivity: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/directory-a-documentation/directory/5661
These extensions make it easy to restrict a report to a particular group etc without having to write code.
There are plenty of examples in the chronoengine.com FAQs and the forum if you need help.
Probably the original question is not valide anymore, about an year later, but now there is a component that does what you need if you use ”registerDate” field as search criteria. The name of the component is JEmbedAll and you can find more information about that here: http://www.goldengravel.eu/jembedall-manual#.VVph_bvyNC0

best CRUD library for codeignitier?

Using codeigniter 2. Don't want to reinvent the wheel. Have tried Grocery_CRUD and found it takes as long, or longer, to learn it that it did to learn codeigniter.
Looking for crud library that makes sense, easy to learn so I don't reinvent the wheel.
Many thanks for any ideas.
You can use http://www.grocerycrud.com
It's easy to use with codeigniter.
Sample use
$this->grocery_crud->set_table('customers');
$this->grocery_crud->columns('customerName','phone','addressLine1','creditLimit');
$this->grocery_crud->render();
Also you can take look at https://github.com/jamierumbelow/codeigniter-base-model
This is very basic base model class for CI
Subjective but take a look at https://github.com/keevitaja/simple-crud-codeigniter
Why don't you try MY_Model to do all the CRUD functionality?
MY_Model
Just want to inform all you that I have released CRUDDER. This is a plug-in module for your application that works as a CRUD solution, ideal for systems back-ends.
CRUDDER is developed using CodeIgniter and Bootstrap for look&feel. You can develop your own skin appart from the Bootstrapped one. Full localization is possible. CRUDDER is designed to be intuitive and easy to use. The interfaces always show on-line help tips related to the CRUDDER itself and also to your database characteristics.
I'm attaching here an image of the CRUDDER example contained in the product web page so you can figure how easy it's to use.
On the other hand, you will find that configuration is very easy. There is no need to write code other than your own custom validation rules (more powerful than the CodeIgniter ones). There are only two classes: one contains all the functionality code and the other, Crudderconfig, encapsulates the configuration and localization parameters.
In contrast to other commonly used open-source CRUD solutions available, in CRUDDER all the table-and-field-specific metadata don't require to write code. All of this is contained in two "metatables", that can also be managed using the CRUDDER itself... so you use the CRUDDER to create your own CRUD rules (don't need to use phpMyAdmin, for example). This is a plus for users seeking for simplicity.
A full list of features is available:
Open the project web page
Among them:
Pluggable to applications not developed with CodeIgniter.
Sort, filter and pagination features, among others.
Soft deletes with unique-index collision avoidance.
Automatic menu-type form fields based on other tables content.
Extensible event triggering when a value is changed in a form.
Interface help tips for fields are contained in the database.
Designed with strong security in mind.
Take a look! Write me if you like it, have questions or want another functionality.
CRUDDER is released under the GNU LGPL license.

Titanium Alloy MVC Architecture

I don't get completly the architecture of Titanium Alloy. Maybe someone can explain it better or draw me a picture? :)
What I understood is that it is a mvc architecture but not in the "basic" way... The Model is only a blueprint for the intern SQLite database. The Backbone Model also can be extended to check for correct input and duplicates. To synch with the extern the Controller is used. At least all the examples I found did that. And the View is basic with Titanium Style Sheets.
Unfortunately you have a very terse, incomplete understanding of what Alloy is, what it does, and how it does it. Fortunately for you though, there's is extensive and complete documentation that covers all this in guide form. Answers to all these high level architecture questions and more can be found here: http://docs.appcelerator.com/titanium/latest/#!/guide/Alloy_Framework
Well Alloy is indeed a framework that is based on the MVC architecture, maybe what you need is to get some insight on the design goals of MVC and how they can be achieved using the separate roles for each unit of software. Here is a very good article I would recommend: http://blog.codinghorror.com/understanding-model-view-controller/
The fact that you can specify view structures using only xml files and styling using only static properties means that Alloy is a very well implemented MVC framework as it does not allow you to mix the responsibilities of each role.
My 2 cents of understanding Alloy:
controller.js
Here place only code that handles ui element events such as clicks, taps and so on. Your controller should pick up an event and call a method belonging to some external common.js module that you should require using require(). It is fully supported in Alloy.
view.xml
Here you only specify the tree structure of your ui elements. This means what component belongs where and to which other component.
style.tss
Here you should specify anything that has to do with colors, position, layout etc.

what is simple MVC based PHP blogging application?

I am searching for a Blogging tools like wordpress. But I want MVC based tools to extend my blog with MVC structure.
My main requirements is
Must be based on MVC
Simple & lightweight
it's blog url structure should be domain.com/cat_name/post_title , because my current wordpress blog is like that, I don't want to lose Facebook Share and Tweets.
I want a simple one, because this is learning only.
Clarifying: if a CMS you use is based on a MVC design pattern or not is irrelevant to you as an user, except if you want to meddle with its inner workings (which you don't - a CMS is made to be used and possibly extended, but in 99% of use cases, if it isn't extendable to your needs, changing the source code is a bad idea, as it will most likely break with any updates you may want to make)
You may want a MVC framework, which will in turn allow you to **code** a CMS of your own, or use a good, extendable, CMS app
The one I use is ProcessWire, which is a CMS/CMF (F stands for Framework) php app, and seems to be the kind of thing you are looking for - it manages your content for you (the default installation comes with a few demo pages) but you define the fields, and you use them to display your content at will. Check it out - the user forum is quite active, and people there are really helpful.
Well there are tons of Content Managment System Based on MVC frameworks (eg . CodeIgniter ) . I personally recommend Pyro ( Based on CodeIgniter) but other also seem promising . but i don't know much since i haven't tried .
Note that this is a highly relative question and will bring forth a ton of opinions and not real answers. With that in mind, here is my answer.
I know of a tool that you can use to install an MVC template for and on top of ProcessWire along with basic project managing tasks using gulp. Note, the M will be considered ProcessWire.
Have a look on github.com and look at the profile of fixate and repo generator-fixate-pw. (ie: generator-fixate-pw, added the sentence if the link breaks).
Install this by following the instructions on the repository. The tool is very specific but learning to use the framework helped improve my php skills allot (still learning allot).
Whether the CMS will be used as a blog or not will depend on your implementation of the install.

Building an online MVC architecture description

I would like to create for my Yii application, a site where I can describe each model, view and controller used. However, doing this for each and everyone of my classes would be an extremely long task which I believe might already be solved out there.
Is there a way to automatically create an site with each model/view/controller and its methods, so then I can add a description to it?
Have you tried phpDocumentor http://www.phpdoc.org/? It's crawls your PHP files' comments and generates a simple website for them in the spirit of JavaDocs.
Or, better still, there is a custom extension you can use to build docs like those on the Yii site call Yii Docs Generator http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/yiidocsgenerator. See the details at http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/186/how-to-generate-yii-like-documentation
I would take a look at T4MVC - it uses a T4 template to generate code for each controller / method. Maybe you could utilize it.
Have you looked into the Gii module of yii. Once you create the tables it can produce models and then CRUD (create, update, delete) pages. Excluding the database there would be no programming required. And then you have the full source in a readable and documented form to manipulate and change to suite your needs.
If you wan't something a bit more advanced or custom you could extend Gii and produce some of your own templates
Larry Ullman has a really nice series on Learning the Yii Framework. In part 3 of the series, he walks you through configuring Yii and enabling Gii, a web-based automated code generation tool for Yii. In part 5, he shows you how to use it to generate the code for your models. The whole series is a really nice introduction to Yii, I recommend it.

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