User talk:Chris Davenport

What was the reason my edits were removed?

Linking to external sites is classed as "self-promotion". If you wish to contribute videos (or any other resource) then they need to be hosted on our infrastructure. Ideally they will also be JEDL licensed, although we will consider material under other open licenses as long as the license terms are clearly shown. I look forward to seeing your videos. Just send them to me and I'll arrange to put them in an appropriate place. Thanks. Chris Davenport 03:43, 12 December 2008 (EST)

basic template tutorial

You removed the warning notice I added to the tutorial, IMHO it is better to warn people that the basic tutorial will *not* give them a working template than letting them wonder why the template manager refuse to install their template. This notice should stay until someone fix the tutorial. For example removing the reference to the optional background.png from the xml because joomla will complain about a missing file and refuse to install the template. The xml example ought to be coherent with the outline of folder/file structure. Adding some mention of the role and importance the thumbnail file is another thing worth mention among the errors I had to fix for the template to actually install.

I removed your comments because they were not constructive. If you encountered a specific problem with the tutorial you should describe the issue in enough detail that someone would be able to reproduce it and then be able to amend the tutorial. You should also do that on the Talk: page rather than on the page itself. Better still you could amend the tutorial yourself; we welcome additions or amendments that improve the documentation. Chris Davenport 08:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This revert thing is gonna get old quick. I can easily return the compliment and say I undid your removal because it's not constructive either, that If you encountered a specific problem with my editing, you should tell me about it in details on my talk page or point that warning readers that the tutorial is broken is improving the documentation, and the first step of actually fixing it. You should know better than what you did, I don't have the required knowledge and time to fix it myself. If you wanted to reproduce the issue, you just have to follow the tutorial step-by-step, better yet you can read the tutorial and you'll notice that it cannot work as is, or maybe just read what I wrote above and you'll see I did exactly what you asked me. On a related note don't invite someone to do something them block their account to prevent him from doing so, act stupid and treat people badly and they will act stupid too and behave as you expect them too. IMHO it's not smart to fight over such a ridiculous thing, but if you want me to waste both your and my time I'll take you on your challenge, so unless you're willing to block the whole ip range I'm using, I'll come back and do it again. This is the kind of behaviour you usually get from relying on http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/HardSecurity first and not trying to communicate instead of http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/SoftSecurity. see you soon from another ip. While at it also read http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/CriticismIsFeedback

All I am asking is that you edit the page in such a way that others can see the problem you encountered and can correct the information given. Simply saying that "...will end up in a few various errors..." does little to help us. What errors did you encounter? What version of Joomla were you using? What platform are you running Joomla on? Just stating that there are errors is like submitting a bug report that does nothing more than state that there is a bug in 1.6. Your hostile behaviour is uncalled for. 07:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Templates

Hello I wanna ask, who can edit the Template Namespace in this Wiki? It would be cool, if a "normal" user could add some templates, cause I got a permission denied message --Bembelimen 20:17, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that it was restricted. What page/template are you trying to edit/create? Chris Davenport 21:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter which one i try to edit or create. I get everytime this message:

Permission error

You do not have permission to edit pages, for the following reason:

You do not have permission to edit pages in the Template namespace.

--Bembelimen 21:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I moved you to the Editors group. Try it now. Chris Davenport 23:36, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

works now, thank you --Bembelimen 23:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

J1.6 Help system

I read that all will be different for Help in 1.6. Can you please point me to plans for Help 1.6? Tony Davis 06:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Help for Joomla 1.5 and prior versions has traditionally been served from pages on http://help.joomla.org, which is itself a Joomla instance. In fact, the help system implemented in all Joomla versions up to 1.5 is hard-coded to require that the help server be a Joomla instance (probably not intentionally, but that's the way it worked out). That caused a couple of problems:

1. When we moved the focus of the documentation effort to a wiki, it made sense to construct the help screens on the wiki too. However, this meant that we had to copy-paste the help screens from the wiki to help.joomla.org and whilst this is straightforward in theory, it is actually very labour-intensive and there is a lot of manual "fixing-up" that had to be done.
2. It didn't solve a problem that had always existed with the help screens: clicking on a link in a help screen causes the next page to be loaded to appear with the full Joomla template, including headers, footers and modules, when it would be better to have just the help screen content display.

The first of these problems is addressed by serving the help screens directly from the wiki. However, this requires some minor code changes in Joomla itself. There is a patch to enable 1.5 to access non-Joomla help servers, but I believe it needs tweaking for 1.6 and I haven't had chance to do that yet. The second of these problems is addressed by serving the help screens via a proxy instead of directly from the wiki. The proxy is a Joomla instance running a small component and is already set up and running at http://help.joomla.org/proxy. It uses the wiki's web API to pull data from the wiki and because it has a stripped-down default template, it doesn't deliver any headers, footers or modules that are not intended.

As for the help screens themselves, the user interface for 1.6 is not yet fixed so it probably not wise to start writing the help screens (which generally involve a lot of screenshots) until it is. It is expected that the UI will be fixed when the first beta is released, so that should be the starting point for writing help screens. Of course, there's nothing to stop anyone starting before then, you just need to be aware that changes are very likely to happen.

The other area which is still "up for grabs" is a new key reference scheme. The help system works by having a "key reference" embedded in the code. This is then used to construct a URL from which the help screen is pulled. You can see the traditional naming scheme here: Help screens. However, with 1.6 we have the opportunity to completely revise this scheme if we want to. For example, we could add a namespace to the key reference, giving us "Joomla16:Config" instead of "screen.config.16", say. I'm not saying we should do that; I'm just illustrating the point that we have a great deal of flexibility and with 1.6 we don't have to worry about backwards-compatibility as there won't be any even if we stick with the current naming scheme.

In 1.5 (and before) the Joomla version number was appended to the basic key reference automatically. With the new help system, we can construct URL's with a lot more flexibility and we can make use of the following variables:

• keyref

  The basic key reference itself

• major

  The major part of the Joomla version number.

• minor

  The minor part of the Joomla version number.

• maintenance

  The maintenance part of the Joomla version number.

• language

  The full language code (eg. "en-GB")

• langregion

  The region part of the language code (eg. "GB").

These variables can be used anywhere within a help system URL to construct the page name to be retrieved.

Hope that helps. Chris Davenport 09:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC) Thanks for that Chris.

I take it from the above that one decision (or obvious thing) is that 1.6 Help will be a Joomla based system. Which leads to the question - Should the documentation be similarly based? I see it all being of a piece - the Help Screens being the descriptive part of the User Manual but there also being Introductory texts, Tutorials, Videos, Recipes (a lesser form of Tutorial to encourage folk to write them). It will be accessed either contextually - as a Help System - or like a Cookery Book or like a programming tutorial text. Is this totally daft?

I have built a whole heap of wiki pages and have learnt loads. see the root I am concerned about controlling it. Could you look at Amy's Ning in two places bottom of this page and this post asking for volunteers.

All advice gratefully received. Tony Davis 22:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I follow what you mean when you say that "1.6 Help will be a Joomla based system". The English help screens for 1.6 are going to be served from the wiki, although they are going through a proxy that happens to be running Joomla (I could just as easily have written some standalone PHP to act as a proxy, or if I knew how, a Drupal instance). The fact that all the documentation will be in the wiki, including the help screens, means that we can share content between the help screens and other forms of documentation. For example, I hope that the new 1.6 help screens will include links to more task-orientated pages. I wouldn't include the help screens as such in the User Manual as they mostly just describe what you see on a particular Administrator screen. I think that the User Manual (or Administrator's Manual as I prefer to call it) should be more task/goal orientated. I made a start at the sort of material I thought was appropriate on this page: Administrators. This is not to say that we cannot share content between the help screens and the User Manual though, but including an entire help screen in the User Manual is probably not very helpful.

I haven't had chance to read the Ning pages thoroughly, but I think Amy is right when she says that we should not expect authors to be wiki experts. We need to encourage people to write the raw material that can then be shaped by others into the modular, context-independent form that is the life-blood of a single-source, modular documentation system. Chris Davenport 23:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Vulnerable Extensions Updates

I noticed you are in process of updating the page. I am wondering if your update might contain any new information regarding Zoom Media Gallery (a now dead project), or Ice Gallery (Zoom's replacement project, which may also be either dead or in serious limbo). Ice Gallery, it seems, has a serious vulnerability, and is not yet listed here. In any event, Ice should be added, and Zoom entry should be updated as well. I have the info, and can do, if you don't. --Riverside 00:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not involved in maintaining that information. Please email vel@joomla.org to report vulnerabilities. Thank you. Chris Davenport 00:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was looking at the wrong history page (talk, instead of the main page ~ so apparently it wasn't you editing it), but I will send what I've found there. Thanks. --Riverside 18:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Templates for 1.6

Chris, Just wondering if you got my email regarding chunks and templates for the 1.6 help screens. I'd like to be editing and updating a lot of these screens but I'm not going to do anything until we can figure out a good way to handle chunks. Would appreciate a response. 219jondn 01:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Terminology

I note that you removed the material I put on the evaluators page about terminology. Could you clarify your reasons please ? Vernonr 10:27 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you linked to material on your user page, which is not a good idea as all material should be in one of the main namespaces rather than in personal areas. Plus, your user page contained references to external sites which could be construed as self-promotion (see Wiki_policy. Although the links are acceptable on user pages, they would not be acceptable on main documentation pages. You can fix it easily by writing directly in the Evaluators page and not linking to external sites. Chris Davenport 19:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

OK. How can one create a new page in the main namespace ?

I think it would make more sense to have an introductory page about terminology than to try and fit the material into the Evaluators page, and there could be other pages in the main namespace that should have the link. Would I be right in thinking that noting the authorship of articles is allowed under Wiki_policy i.e. a link to the user page Vernonr 10:20 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You don't need any additional permissions to create pages in the main namespace, so just go right ahead. It is not necessary to note authorship in the pages themselves as all pages have full version history automatically recorded, including links to user pages (just click the "history" tab on any page). Chris Davenport 21:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Change permission of content

Hi. I would ask permission to move pages from the template namespace which are actually in course descriptions and pages that have links pointing to them. I have as main objective the wiki organization and redesign the landing pages.

Thanks, WGViana

Hi WGVianna. Can you give me some examples of the changes you are proposing? Moving templates needs to be done with care and I want to make sure that what you are proposing fits with our overall objectives. Thanks. Chris Davenport 14:39, 8 September 2011 (CDT)

Hi Chris. List pages => [1], there are pages in this namespace that are in my view should namespace description such as:

• Template:Beginner_profile
• Template:Framework
• Template:Model-View-Controller
• Template:Upgrade_Package
• Template:Upgrade-test
• Template:Version_Control_Software

WGViana 12:00, 9 September 2011

Hi Wgviana. I agree they should not be in the Template: namespace. However, I think they should be moved to the Chunk: namespace rather than Description:. The Description: namespace was set up specifically for class and method descriptions in the API Reference. I have added you to the Editors group so you should be able to make the changes yourself now. Thanks for volunteering. Chris Davenport 16:15, 12 September 2011 (CDT)

Minor Spelling Issue

Hi Chris, Top of the protected page:Vulnerable_Extensions_List "Jnuary" is probably "January" with an "a". Thank you

Translations into french

Hi. I'm a french speaking Joomla enthousiast ;) I'd like to port Security Guide into French, as this seems to be a main concern for some french speaking users. I could of course host that on my personal page, or as a guide on the french forum about Joomla, but I think that the best way should be to start a translation of the Wiki into french. Do you think it could be possible to have a subpage like the ones available for the brochure ? Is there something specific to do ? Is it a good practice or not ?

Elnikoff 03:25, 30 November 2011 (CST)

Help25

What are those changes you did with Help25?? oc666 17:04, 25 December 2011 (CST)

Help25 is a new namespace for the Joomla 2.5 help screens. So far I have just copied across all the Joomla 1.7 help screens and amended all 1.6/1.7 references to 2.5. I'm just now trying to work systematically through all the toolbar sections. If you have some time and you'd like to lend a hand, just dive straight in, or let me know if you need some pointers. Chris Davenport 17:10, 25 December 2011 (CST)

Define default name

What should be the correct nomenclature? manager or management

[▼] Extensions [►] Components [►] Components/en [►] Extension development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension development/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension Installation  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension Installation/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension Installation/it  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension Management Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension Management Help Screens/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extension Management Help Screens/ru  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extensions Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extensions Help Screens/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Extensions Help Screens/ru [►] Languages  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Languages/en [►] Modules  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Modules/en [►] Plugins  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugins/en [►] Plugins/zh-tw [►] Templates  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Templates Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Templates/fa  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Templates/hr  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Templates/zh-cn  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Third Party Extensions  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Update  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Update/ar  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Update/bn  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Update/en

[▼] Components  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Beginner Development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Beginner Development/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Beginner Development/zh-tw  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Component Development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Component Development/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Component Development/zh-tw [►] Component Management [►] Component Management/en [►] Component Management/es [►] Component Management/ru  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Components Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/de  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/es  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/et  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/fr  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/it  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/nl  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Smart Search/pt

[▼] Languages  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Language Development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Language Development/en [►] Language Management  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Language Management/bn  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Language Management/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Language Manager Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Language Manager Help Screens/en

[▼] Modules  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Development/en [►] Module Management  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Management/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Manager Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Manager Help Screens/de  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Manager Help Screens/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Manager Help Screens/it  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Module Manager Help Screens/ru

[▼] Plugins  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Development/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Development/zh-tw [►] Plugin Management  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Management/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Management/ru  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Manager Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Plugin Manager Help Screens/en

[▼] Templates  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Management  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Management/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Management/fa  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Management/it  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Management/et  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Management/zh-tw  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Overrides  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Overrides/en [►] Template Development  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Development/en [►] Template Development/zh-tw  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template FAQ  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template FAQ/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template FAQ/zh-tw [►] Template Help Screens  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Help Screens/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Reference  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Template Reference/en  <span style="color:#C0C0C0;">►</span>  Overrides/el

I believe we should create the following categories:

• Language
  • Language Management

and organizer:

• Extension Management
  • Component Management
  • Language Management
  • Module Management
  • Plugin Management
  • Template Management

--Wgviana 14:49, 25 March 2012 (CDT)

I think that "manager" would refer to the component whereas "management" would refer to the process. Personally, I think "management" would be more appropriate in the category names. Chris Davenport 16:20, 25 March 2012 (CDT)

External links come automatically with signature

Hello Chris,

Not to complain, but just to inform you why the link to my site appeared on [[2]] (and possibly make someone change this wiki automatisation): It's because I put 3 tilda's there to let everyone know which user said this (as I thought was appropriate because it was rather a editing note and not joomla specific knowledge). So, maybe the 3 tilda's should be changed somehow in this wiki? Because after all, I'd still want that link to exist in my User info.

Cheers (No reply needed, you can immediatly delete this if you want)

Hmm, okay. I usually use 4 tildas, so this is a test with 3 tildas. Chris Davenport (talk)

So for me using 3 tildas just adds links to the user's local profile page and profile talk page. Ahh, I wonder if you have a link in your signature. Please check the signature field in your user preferences and remove the external link if there is one. Thanks. Chris Davenport (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2012 (CDT)

Apperently it had everything to do with my signature. I originally thought that had nothing to do with the tilda's, but it has. E-motiv (former E-builds) (talk) 15:01, 21 September 2012 (CDT)

Thanks. Chris Davenport (talk) 03:32, 22 September 2012 (CDT)

Deleting page sends mail "created page" ??

Hello again Chris,

I got a mail from the wiki saying you just created the page http://docs.joomla.org/Using_a_custom_image_in_the_Menu_Bar_title. I guess this is some template or other wiki misconfiguration, since you just deleted it. I didn't know where to put this comment, so here it is. Feel free to forward to someone responsible, able or willing to fix it. :-) E-motiv (former E-builds) (talk)

It's a "bug" that's been in MediaWiki for years. The notification emails are identical whether a page is amended or deleted. I'm so used to it now I just don't notice it any more. Chris Davenport (talk) 14:25, 4 October 2012 (CDT)

CodeExamples en categories with ::

Hallo again, Chris, Weren't you the guy that included CodeExamples in this wiki?
If not, any idea who is or who is the wiki-responsible to talk to?
If so, read on..

I tried to help people by giving this CodeExample CodeExample:JHtml::stylesheet, but it doesn't show up in the JHtml::stylesheet.
On inspection of some of those pages, I noticed that a lot of (if not all) categories that have a "::" in them, show up as red (as if they don't exist), but they do. so I was wondering if that wasn't also the reason for my code-example not to show up. E-motiv (former E-builds) (talk) 12:26, 4 October 2012 (CDT)

The CodeExample extension is currently broken following an upgrade to the MediaWiki software. I keep meaning to try to fix it, but workload keeps getting the better of me. If you're a developer and you'd like to take a look then please drop me a line. Chris Davenport (talk) 14:25, 4 October 2012 (CDT)

I don't think that I will have the time, but you can send me the php or template or whatever so I have it when I find the time and "power" ;-) E-motiv (former E-builds) (talk)

Mediwiki Spam a better way to manage it

Hello Chris,

Looking thru the Recent Changes it seems like a lot of bogus wiki accounts are made and then used to spam the wiki. Has anyone looked at installing the Extension:ConfirmAccount and instead of requesting a 50 word biography for the request form only ask for about 5 words to prove they are human that then can be rejecting or accepted? The intent being to reduce the amount of time currently spent chasing and deleting the spam pages and is not to get a real bio only to see if it is a real person who is not planning just to spam the wiki.

The request wording: Are you a human, and not just signing up to spam our wiki? One of the Joomla! people will read what you write here and then confirm your account. Sorry for the inconvenience, but reducing spam on the wiki makes this step necessary...

• Q:Why do you want a login? (plain text only):

Since we would need to examine all user registrations in order to accept or reject them, your proposal would, I think, involve more work rather than less. Although there are a lot of spam registrations, only a few confirm their email addresses and the present rate of at most a handful of spam posts per day is manageable. Thanks for the suggestion though. Chris Davenport (talk) 19:39, 29 October 2012 (CDT)

Your Welcome.. Cadrlp (talk) 01:29, 31 October 2012 (CDT)

Delete Page

Hi Chris, You just deleted the user who created this spammy page - but not the page itself :P Link:Need_To_Read_Shed_Buying_Suggestions best, George --Wilsonge (talk) 11:30, 21 February 2013 (CST)

Yeah, I got interrupted. Thanks for the reminder. Chris Davenport (talk) 14:10, 21 February 2013 (CST)

Missing Platform 11.4

Hi Chris

Was there a reason platform 11.4 icon was not uploaded?

Thanks -- Tom Hutchison (talk) 08:05, 26 February 2013 (CST)

spam common words

Hi Chris,

I replied to Sandra97 on her User talk page (because she revoked my edit on some page and left an explanation on my user page).

On that my reply I received a warning that I was auto-marked as a spammer and I was advised to contact a wiki sysop before resubmitting my edit and being whitelisted.

Could you please handle that?

I'm new here and have really urgent things to do rather than spend hours trying to insert one important sentence in Joomla docs. :)

Thanks! Best wishes!