Information Management

Information Management Content Management Systems CMS: Joomla & Drupal (with flashbacks to Wordpress) J. Michael Moshell University of Central Florida Original image* by Moshell et al . Imagery is fromWikimedia except where marked with *.

Objectives of this course • concerning CMS: • Be familiar with what CMS are good for • Have brief experience with three CMS • - Wordpress • - Joomla • - Drupal • Have extensive experience using ONE CMS to build an information management system/website

Some unfinished business • from Wordpress: • I was installing a Support Ticket plugin • Needed to have it appear on a Page • Didn't know how to make it happen. • WHAT TO DO?

Some unfinished business • from Wordpress: • I was installing a Support Ticket plugin • Needed to have it appear on a Page • Didn't know how to make it happen. • WHAT TO DO? R T F M

Some unfinished business • from Wordpress: • I was installing a Support Ticket plugin • Needed to have it appear on a Page • Didn't know how to make it happen. • WHAT TO DO? R T F M • Read the Flippin' Manual

What manual? http://wpstorecart.com/wpsc-support-tickets/#Dashboard_Widget

What wpsc Support Tickets Page? I go back to last week's notes; discover it in main admin menu

Page now appears with new tab

So we try it --

The ticket turns up in the Admin's • Support Ticket mgt. screen

The other problem we had ...

The other problem we had ... • What to do?

The other problem we had ... • What to do? R T F M!

The other problem we had ... • What to do? R T F M! • In this case, it means • READ THE FLIPPIN' MESSAGE!

The message says output was • started by fragrance/functions.php • What to do? Go look at that code.

Here's the code. • See any potential problems?

An old PHP hand would instantly • see ... a BLANK LINE outside TAGS

So, I fixed that little problem... • and the theme works fine now.

How do you get experience? • - Put in the time • - Blunder in the dark until you • KNOW what you DON'T KNOW • - Go ASK someone who's been there • before

How do you get experience? • - Put in the time • - Blunder in the dark until you • KNOW what you DON'T KNOW • - Go ASK someone who's been there • before • ... e. g. me. (That's what you are • paying me for)

Joomla: • Advantages: • - Designed as a CMS from the get-go • - Relatively easy to use • - Lots of plug-in modules (9969 in 2012) • Disadvantages: No built-in tag system; • Diminishing popularity

Joomla: Control Panel

Joomla:Features • User classification: • called User Groups

Joomla:Features • User classification: • User Groups • + You can add a new Group • (E. g. Pastafarians, subgroup of Customer)

Joomla:Features • Fundamental content types: • Article • Others added by Extensions • Instead of “published” or not, • Access Levels: Public, Registered, Special, and: • You can add custom Access Levels • You can assign each document an Access Level

Joomla:Features • Visual design: Templates • Easy to install • Build your own • Template Manager: • control over dynamic • elements of template

Joomla:Features • Menu design: Menus (links to Extensions, articles)

Joomla: Extensions • Come in three flavors: • Components (large) • Modules (smaller) • Plugins (small, usually built-in)

Joomla: Content classification • Categories: • + Hierarchical (sub-categories) • An article is in just one Category • Tags: Not native to Joomla • (What’s a ‘tag’? A search term that’s not in the • article itself, but which you may need to find • the article.)

An example of ‘tagging’ • A ROGUE’S REVENGE • The pachyderms had a field day last week at • the Oviedo Circus. Feeling mistreated, Jumbo, the • largest of the huge grey animals, deposited 800 pounds of (shall we say) “used hay” on the mayor’s doorstep. • TAGS: • elephant, Joan Horton, manure

Joomla: Setting up • Creating a database. If you haven’t figured it out • by now: • MAMP or WAMP -> phpMyAdmin • DB User:

Joomla: Creating DB User

Joomla: Creating New DB • Just name your database, • then hit ‘Create’.

Setting up Joomla: Special notes • As you walk through the procedure, you will • be asked for your database name, userID • and login. • You just created these information items.

Setting up Joomla: Special notes • IF you are setting up on Sulley, then you have only one DB for your use. Its name is your nid. • In this case open “Advanced Settings”. Provide your initials as a table prefix, like • jmm_ • o Backup old tables (you don’t have any)

Setting up Joomla: Problems • Here’s a typical problem. You may have others. • So I googled “Joomla error loading feed data”. • This brought me to a forum post.

Forum Post: • BUT .. No such module is in my default setup. • Also, that URL is NOT broken now. • However, it gives me the idea: some module is broken.

Debugging: • I disable lots of modules at once, to find the problem. • Didn’t help. Logged out and in again. No message. • Now I re-enable HALF the modules to seek the problem. • Re-enabling all of them; still no message. BUT • On front page, “Alert: The URL is not valid..” • SO, disable modules again. Click ‘Home’ to test. • I narrow the problem down to the ‘wrapper’ module.

Understanding: • I narrow the problem down to the ‘wrapper’ module. I google “Joomla Wrapper” Explanation: The Wrapper Menu Item creates a shortcut to a display page that wraps an external web page. The new display page appears as a 'page within a page'. If this is an external web site, all of that site's functions, menus for example, will be operable from within the Wrapper.

Exploring a Module’s Settings: • So … ‘wrapper’ needs some data. Maybe a URL? I open the module by clicking on its blue name in the Module Manager:

Exploring a Module’s Settings: • And … there’s an empty URL box! I put in a URL that I know is valid.

Exploring a Module’s Settings: Back to main page: NO PROBLEM! Lower left corner now contains: And, by using the control panel Of the module again, I can change the header:

Information Management