Well I have finally converted the Joomla template I use on my site and my entire Joomla template site to Joomla 1.5 and I have some goodies in store.

Soon I will be releasing a "file download" plugin which will work for Joomla 1.5 in Native mode as well as Joomla 1.0 series. This plugin will allow visitors to download files which would normally not download by clicking them. It does this by sending the file in small chunks. This would include any file, such as image files, video files, and audio files, that when you click them they usually start to open right in your browser instead of prompting you to download them. Normally when you link to an image file it will show the user that file because apache knows it is a file which can be parsed a certain way by the browser. With this plugin you will be able to include files for download with a link or button so that the user can simply click the file and be prompted to download it.

Another thing coming soon is a Joomla templates store with some high quality Joomla templates for Joomla 1.5 series created by me. They will be offered for a small fee due to the time it takes to make them and this will also allow me to support them properly. Sounds fair doesn't it? I think so. Many people have asked me for support and I simply cannot answer all of their questions. This is about to change. But for now I have just published the Professional Templates link again which will show you a bunch of other professionally created Joomla templates of other peoples.

I have installed a comment system so people can comment directly under articles and whatnot. I was going to remove it because it may slow page load times but I have left it in for now. It seems pretty sweet! I removed the hidden copyright because I fear it will result in some sort of search engine penalty which I really don't want. It had a hidden h4 tag so the author could put hidden links to their site at my expense.

I have installed a forum so that it is easier for people to get support and to post comments and bug reports, etc. I have decided to go with Fireboard for now because of its power and simplicity. I almost went with PHPBB with the RokBridge but I would prefer something that displays through Joomla and not through a Wrapper, and I haven't figured out how to make PHPBB do that yet. Besides Fireboard is much simpler to set up and has everything I could want.

And finally, I intend to update all my templates and extensions eventually so that they work in Joomla 1.5 Native mode. This will be a fairly large project because I also intend to fix some various bugs that have been mentioned to me over time. My apologies to anyone who has reported bugs and not received any fixes, etc. I am still working on things when I have time. I just tend to skip over emails if I have too many and am in a hurry.

I have begun to dedicate more time again to this Joomla website and to offering free Joomla templates as well as some higher quality Joomla templates. So you should bookmark this page and come back soon to see some nice changes and some great, new Joomla templates and Joomla extensions =)

Ryan

Released update to Date Module 2.1.1

Fixed bug where it would show blank day on 10th of each month

Lately I have been seeing an increasing number of sites using AdSense and placing misleading images next to the ads. This is against their policies!

On the AdSense blog last December there was a post about this that I read and since then I have seen many, many sites using these and similar techniques that they must have learned somewhere to try and increase their click-through ratio.

"We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads." - Ad and image placement: a policy clarification

I fear this will eventually get some peoples AdSense accounts closed so I am just posting the above link so you can check and see if your site is in danger.

FeedBonder is a Mambot that takes those big long links from RSS feeds Joomla! makes and turns them into a small image so they don't mess up your site. Works with RSS feeds created with Joomla! that have been imported as content items with components like FeedGator. Don't forget to publish the bot and configure it to your liking.

Also to come...

I will be setting up a template demo site with all the templates here on them with links to demo them to make it easier to pick your templates very soon.

If you have any questions or requests please contact me.

Thanks and take care!

Ryan