StudioTalk: Wellington Web Design and Branding Blog

We support Joomla 1.7

Joomla! CMS has recently released an update to it’s heavy-weight CMS, and there is much debate as to which platform is the safest to develop with.

For the last few years Joomla 1.5 has been a solid option, with loads of third-party plugins, components and modules to get Joomla to work beyond it’s standard capabilities. And then in 2010 the developers of Joomla released version 1.6. This was a large-scale upgrade and much of the core functions and code was revamped. The result is a slick, well-refined CMS with power to boot.

The developers behind this popular CMS have implemented a 6-month release cycle, so every six months we will be hit with a new upgrade. While this sounds daunting, it is in the best interests of constantly changing technologies and website security. That is, of course, if our third-party developers can keep up.

Joomla! 1.7 has been released for several months now, and Joomla 1.6 reaches it’s theoretical ‘end of life’ this month, so it pays to consider an upgrade. More importantly though, we should all look to upgrade our Joomla 1.5 systems to at least 1.6 as it introduces much-needed core upgrades and a future-compatible system.

We have recently started a large-scale project in Joomla 1.7 and have been very impressed with the changes made. From multi-tiered categories and module activation within articles to interface design and a more considered menu structure, 1.7 is the way of the future.

With this new project, we also needed to develop for mobile platforms such as the iPad and iPhone, as well as the multitude of Android devices. With Joomla 1.5 all layouts were in a table structure which severely limited mobile layouts and general future compatibility. Introduced in 1.6, Joomla now uses HTML layouts allowing us to develop templates and websites with whatever structure we wish – heck, we can even develop an entire website in HTML5!

So if you’re looking at Joomla, 1.7 is a stable and confident release with a growing support from 3rd-party developers to extend your website. If you’re interested in upgrading to Joomla, then get in touch! You can also find out more about Joomla by visiting their website http://www.joomla.org/17.

As just about every web designer and developer will tell you, the Firebug plugin for Firefox is a godsend. Google and their new(ish) browser, Chrome knows this. Hell, even Microsoft knows this and has incorporated a similar (albeit, unattractive) tool of their own. It makes bug-testing and understanding how elements work a heap easier.

The world of developers need to know what is going on, and right now. In-browser utilities such as Firebug let us experiment, fiddle and play around with settings without having to go back to the original files, re-upload and then refresh each page.

I recently encountered a couple of Google Chrome Extensions that caught my eye, namely IE Tab and Chrome SEO. Somebody is listening to the developers! If only Microsoft would do the same by forcing users to update the severely crippling Internet Explorer 6!

There are two points to this blog post:

1. For those of you who don’t know about it already, get Firefox and Firebug. These two tools make your job as a designer/developer a great deal easier.
2. Look into Google Chrome Extensions.Be sure to check out IE Tab and Chrome SEO. This is going to be the way of the future of on-the-fly website development.

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  Build your website traffic

  Domain names – If you purchase your domain name for 3-5 years in advance search engines will rate your website higher as a more established/trusted website.

• Page titles & location – We’ve had some amazing results by add your business location to your page title. E.g. if you’re a builder in wellington add “Wellington builders”.

Give it a go and if your interested in improving your Google/Search results – give us a email