Joomla! Documentation™

This page has been archived. This page contains information for an unsupported Joomla! version or is no longer relevant. It exists only as a historical reference, it will not be improved and its content may be incomplete and/or contain broken links.

The aim of the API Reference Project is to construct a useful reference manual on the Joomla 1.5 (and later) Framework API which will complement, rather than replace, the automatically generated material on http://api.joomla.org. The starting point for the API Reference is the Framework page which lists all of the classes in the Framework API.

If you would like to help us with this massive project, then all you need to do is register on this wiki. You don't need to join a Working Group and you don't need to ask permission. You just register and get started. A good idea is to pick a class you know something about, or have spent time researching, and start there. Also feel free to add examples, improve explanations, or correct mistakes on existing pages.

We are only documenting the classes in the /libraries/joomla directory. These are the Joomla Framework classes. Some of the material developed on the wiki API Reference will gradually be merged into the phpDocumentor tags in the source code itself and hence will end up on http://api.joomla.org too.

Our inspiration is the online reference manual for PHP. For example, see this page: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.echo.php which can be accessed by a simple, clearly defined, standardised URL and which permits user comments to be added.

Guidance notes

The starting page for the API Reference is the Framework page where you can see a complete list of all the classes in the API. Each class will be given its own wiki page linked to from the Framework page. Each class page includes a list of all the public methods available and each of those methods will also have its own page (actually a "sub-page").

If you are unsure of making a change to the page itself, leave a comment in the relevant Talk: page instead (click on the "discussion" tab at the top of the page).

If you are making substantial changes to a page, please put {{inuse}} at the top of the page you want to work on. When you have finished, replace it with {{review}}.

Sources of information that might be useful when writing for the API Reference:

• Current source code (of course). To find out how to get the latest source code, visit the Joomla! Developer Site.
• http://api.joomla.org.
• The old developer site still has some old material here: http://dev.joomla.org/component/option,com_jd-wiki/Itemid,/id,references:joomla.framework/ that can be useful.
• It can also be useful to search http://forum.joomla.org for further information and examples.

Class pages

The format for class pages should match JDocument and you can use that page as a prototype (click Edit so you can copy/paste the wiki text). Lists of methods should be in alphabetical order.

Method pages

Each public method of each class will have a separate sub-page in a standard format. The format should match JDocument/addScript and you can use that page as a prototype (click Edit so you can copy/paste the wiki text). By using the sub-page feature a link back to the class page is automatically inserted into each sub-page. This is done by using a forward slash character to separate the class name from the method name. For example, if class JClass has a method called jmethod then the page would be called JClass/jmethod.

You do not need to document any method beginning with an underscore as these are private methods that do not form part of the API.

Categories

Each class in the API has its own category page. All pages directly relating to the class or which have a significant relevance to the class should be added to the category, which you can do by adding [[Category:<class-name>]] to the end of the page. All pages forming part of the API Reference will also be added to the Framework and Development categories (by adding [[Category:Framework]] and [[Category:Development]] at the end of the page.