User talk:Tom Hutchison

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Barnstar and a few bits and bobs

Thankyou very much for the barnstar!! One thing I've noticed whilst doing the help screens is that when you press the help buttons in Joomla 2.5 is that there are [edit] links next to each section. But these links take you to a blank page - so is there any way we can drop the edit buttons?

Also I noticed one of the help buttons earlier today took you to the Joomla 1.6 help page instead of the 2.5 (when pressed in Joomla 2.5). It was one of the menu items - but typically as I'm writing this I've completely forgotten which - not sure how easy it will be to check up on this!

Thanks again, George

No problem! You deserved one, you've done a lot of work on the 2.5 Help Screens and other articles over the past week!

The link itself is nulled out by the proxy. The [edit] link used to be regex'd out but since the MW 1.16 to 1.19 update, something must have changed in 1.19. We are looking at that. Another thought was to use __NOSECTIONEDIT__ to remove the [edit] links from the page. Makes it harder to update them, but once the Help screen is done it should not be necessary to update them. At least not a regular task, just a bug fix or small tweak here and there.

Was the link in the pop-up window's address bar something like ...help.joomla.org/proxy/index.php?option=com_help&keyref=Help16 or just the page contained information of a 1.6 Help Screen? The first would be a bug, second is a possibility. The next version released Help screens are dumped into the new namespace and content of page links are changed to reflect the new namespace for the new release. I know there are a couple of 1.7 Help screens using pure transclusion to show the 1.6, something like:

{{:Help16:The_name_of the_1.6_HelpScreen}} is the only content so it may have just been put into the 2.5 screen.

Let me know if you can remember if it was content or address and I'll see if I can track it down.

--Thanks again! Tom Hutchison (talk) 20:42, 9 February 2013 (CST)

Found another link issue whilst trying to find that Joomla 1.6 link:

External URL page - Page takes you to: http://help.joomla.org/proxy/index.php?option=com_help&keyref=Help25:Menus_Menu_Item_Manager_Edit instead of the external URL page http://docs.joomla.org/Help25:Menus_Menu_Item_External_Url

Cheers for the information!

--Wilsonge (talk) 02:38, 10 February 2013 (CST)

Thanks George! I knew this problem existed in Joomla! 3, but didn't have a chance to check 2.5. Assumed it did. It actually is everything under, System Links in Menu selection. The other two Help Screen pages are 'red links' still, but they will have the same issue. I filed a tracker here: Tracker 30091.

I also had to filed another tracker for Module Manager - Edit - (Blank page):

• Select Site -> Control Panel (Landing page when first logging on to administration)
• Select Help -> Joomla Help Click link in left sidebar: 'Module Manager - Edit'
• View a blank page, ref to source on docs.joomla.org which does not exist.

This is actually causing a 404 error, need to address this right away as it is a "Top 10" requested Help Screen page for all Help Screens. Some of the issues in 3.0 are 2.5 used a modal window and now 3.0 has an actual page. These might not be corrected till the release of 2.5.10. I'll look into it.

---Thanks again! Tom Hutchison (talk) 09:30, 10 February 2013 (CST)

Nice one with the trackers. The link was an address by the way for the 1.6. But I went through all the menu items I edited his w/e and I can't see it. So I'm not sure where it was now. Will have to go on a hunt!

Cheers! --Wilsonge (talk) 02:47, 11 February 2013 (CST)

Thanks for confirming the one, I pushed them to a couple of bug squad members to address. In the meantime, I will fix the one I can with a redirect and new page. The 404 bothers me a lot! You might have noticed, starting work on JDOC projects too. A bit earlier than I was going to, hope there is interest. --- Take care Tom Hutchison (talk) 10:30, 12 February 2013 (CST)

No worries. I'll test the other one and confirm that as well tonight. Yes I'm happy to help whereever possible with the JDocs. I think it's a really good idea! Should allow nice separation of the Joomla 2.5/3.0 stuff as well like we discussed before. Done almost 50% of the help screens now. Although running out of the ones that are give or take finished - having to create most from scratch --Wilsonge (talk) 16:17, 12 February 2013 (CST)

Hi George, making progress on getting the Help screen errors corrected. Adding Help25:Extensions Module Manager New and will use Help25:Extensions Module Manager Edit to redirect to it. I'll take a look at the system ones for Menus which are red linked in the table. I will probably just grab 3.0 content for them and then change everything to reflect 2.5. I built the missing 2 screens in 3.0 from scratch. Another thing while I'm at it and your edit count is high, have you noticed any anomalies while editing on the wiki? I've been getting session loss notices. The last few days I've also encountered a few edit saves, but the page not reflecting it for a few minutes. ---Thanks for all your hard work! Tom Hutchison (talk) 05:42, 14 February 2013 (CST)

Hi Tom, Nice one with the help screens progress. Something I've picked up on is what to do for help screens with the options. For example, there is a page for the Content Article Manger Options - but not say for the Contact Component ones - which are holed up at the contacts page here. Personally I think having a separate help screen for each component is a much better idea. However I guess this will need to be integrated into the CMS. Any thoughts? Sounds good with the 2.5 missing help screens. I'm slowly working my way through the 2.5 help screens - think I'm about 50% of the way through them all now. Although it's getting slower now as most of them haven't been started so I'm writing lots of it from scratch! Several of the menu items are just Joomla 1.5 screenshots with a line of text. No I've not had any issues with the pages updating or session losses etc. Once or twice I've timed out or something - but I've just logged in and gone back to the page and pressed submit again! Kind Regards, --Wilsonge (talk) 06:00, 14 February 2013 (CST)

Hi George, I created the Text Separator help screen. I see you beat me to the Alias one. I'm holding off on the Extension Module Edit(New) screen till I Skype later today with the PLT member/Bug Squad coordinator. The issue, the New Screen itself (2.5 or 3.0) is really like a Menu select type pop up screen. There isn't a 'Help' button, in fact only one button - 'Cancel.' The extension group Help screens were put together a bit different, Plugins even more so. Need to hash it out, but will probably go with something more generic, like Help30:Menus_Menu_Item_Manager_Edit, which shows a Single Article Menu Item type. I actually need to go back and integrate in this Help30:Content_Article_Manager_Edit#Toolbar into the Menu Item Maganer Edit screen. It was my solution to Edit vs. New. In 2.5 or 3.0, creating a new or editing a Module(or anything) adjusts the Toolbar buttons accordingly.

Good idea on the Options! The issue is they really are just a Modal pop up window in 2.5, no Help button to click in the pop up. In 3.0, they are now a dedicated options screens instead of the pop up which are available in certain component views, e.g. Help30:Content_Article_Manager_Options. Definite improvement over 2.5. Problem is, 3.0 is not constructing the Help screen URL for Options and pushing it back to a set landing page. Language Keys control the construction of the URL to the Help screen, JHELP_ name of help screen. Might have been because menu items can be added by extensions, the Help screen Language Keys are not in the master file, but created on the fly from the meta data of the specific menu item. I wasn't around for those discussions. The system menu items must be lacking that meta data, just a guess. The new Options screens in 3.0 will probably have to be done this way too, because add-on extensions can have options too.

I think that's about the point I am on the 3.0's, 50% done, maybe a bit over. I found it was easier to cut and paste in the generic markup from similar items then change it. It is a painfully slow process and I know how hard it is. Yes, a lot of them never were even updated from 1.5. This is why I'm so thankful you have done so much with the 2.5 screens. It would be nice when 3.1 is released to say, 2.5 and 3.0 Help Screens are complete. My plan is too transclude as many Help Screens from 3.0 into 3.1 as possible, then same for 3.2, etc. Need to stop re-inventing the wheel every release.

Thanks for letting me know about the session losses. I found, just hitting the preview button again, then save recaptures the session. Should not be happening, looking into it. Thanks again! --- Tom Hutchison (talk) 09:51, 14 February 2013 (CST)

Module and Template Development

Hi, I saw your post on my discussion page regarding the tutorials. It has always been the intention to move these articles out into the global namespace. The primary reason the tutorials currently live in my user namespace is three-fold:

1. I didn't want the code in the articles to diverge from the code in the repository as I have seen happen numerous times in other tutorials. People have a habit of updating tutorial pages and not the source code packages which ultimately create a lot of confusion. 2. I wanted to test them out for a while to rule out bugs. (I consider this phase to be completed) 3. Since the release of 2.5 I have been meaning to find the time to remove a bit of deprecated code to make it fully "2.5" compliant.

As I have not had time to perform the last step yet, they have remained in my user namespace. I also started on a basic module and template tutorial that I have not had the time to finish.

That being said, I would be happy to help maintain the tutorial code for developers as far as my time allows and this may also help me jump-start my own effort in this area. I have previously suggested adding a "joomla-tutorials" project under the "joomla" organization in GitHub but regardless of how this is deployed I think it would be a very healthy approach to the management of tutorial code.

Rvsjoen (talk) 14:31, 11 February 2013 (CST)

That's great Rvsjoen! I didn't even know you had a MVC tutorial in your user pages. I'm trying to pull together the docs, improve them and get the devs involved again. If we move them, I will mark them as incomplete so they can be checked against code on pages vs. code in zips. Something I agree with, they need to be the same and maintained as such. This is why there is interest in moving it all to GitHub. We should maintain a version specific structure. 2.5 is easy and 1.6 and 1.7 should be dropped. 3.0 is already out, but I would like to see it as 3.x because eventually it will become a LTS version 3.5. Git will also allow to see the progression of code change too. I am still working to pull this all together. Thanks so much for your interest!

--- Tom Hutchison (talk) 16:15, 11 February 2013 (CST)

The MVC tutorial in my user pages is a complete update/rewrite of the original 1.7 tutorial mostly created by Christophe, it has at some point also been reviewed by several people in the JBS. It is currently 100% up to date with the code in the zip packages as far as I know.

Also I noticed that a joomla/jdoc-examples repository has been created for this purpose on GitHub. I do not know if these two "projects" are related but if they are I would encourage whoever responsible to put a folder structure in place for storing more than just tutorials. For example something like...

• Tutorials
  • Component
  • Module
  • Plugin
    • System plugin
    • User plugin
    • Etc..
  • Library
  • Template
• Extensions
  • Example extension 1
  • Example extension 2
  • Etc...
• Code snippets
  • Code snippet 1
  • Code snippet 2
  • Etc..

I submitted a pull request on GitHub which implements this idea, so i'll just wait and see whether it's pulled or not. Pull Request #1

--- Rvsjoen (talk) 06:44, 12 February 2013 (CST)

Rune, I saw your pull request. I'm working on getting you write access to this folder right now. I would like to see the devs control it. Currently there is a MVC for 2.5. Another user put in work last Aug/Sept to bring the 1.5 up to 2.5. Case in point on why there should be a specific wiki project by devs for dev Tutorials. I don't know if you have seen it, but it starts here, Developing_a_Model-View-Controller_Component/2.5. Here is the project site Developer Tutorial Project, I'm trying to get more devs involved with this. It really is to any devs's benefit as it will help maintain a correct tutorial, allow new devs to succeed as a Joomla dev and improve the Docs wiki.

--Thanks again Tom Hutchison (talk) 10:30, 12 February 2013 (CST)

Joomla Platform

Hi Tom,

One of the things I've noticed on here - is that all the documentation for 2.5 points at platform 11.1 - but Joomla 2.5 uses platform 11.4. Platform 11.1 is for Joomla 1.7.

I've always been slightly unsure as to why there is the platform functions on here - as it all seems to be on the Joomla API page now anyhow. But if we are to host this kind of documentation on here - we should probably upgrade from 11.1 to 11.4 - to represent the fact its a STS rather than LTS release!

Finally help screen update - finally got the 2.5 help screens upto where the 3.0 help screens are - luckily a lot of the component screens seem to be largely done - although slightly struggling with the banners component as I've never had to use it before! But hopefully can get through them quickly and onto the Extensions Menu and Module Manager Module Types. I remember you said you wanted Joomla 3.0 and 2.5 out (hopefully by the time Joomla 3.1 is out - when is this exactly - I know its sometime next month - but not exactly sure when!)

Regards,

George

--Wilsonge (talk) 03:30, 22 February 2013 (CST)

Hi George, great work on the 2.5 Help screens! I'm getting ready to dump some more Help screens into 3.0 for all the option pages. The CMS code has a patch suggested to take care of the J3.0 pages not being a modal pop-up window. Hopefully, it makes it into the 3.1 release. 3.1 is scheduled for March 2013, no specific date. I'm trying to get the actual date, Sept 27 was 3.0 so I'm hoping it is towards the end of the month as 3.0.

11.1 is probably just a leftover from 1.7. I'll have to check further, but 1.7 pages were probably updated to 2.5 CMS with the 11.1 references left in place. Dealing with the API issues is a long term goal for the wiki. The pages were created with an intent to use the PHP web site as a model, class, description, proper use, examples of proper use... I will be investigating SMW as an integration into an API project. SMW would allow for more flexibility in recording classes with property values and extend the use of MW making it more 3 dimensional. Quickly as an example, pages for developers could show a class, use, platform version intro, still valid, deprecated and when, replacement class, CMS version, and examples. Throw in SMW's external data and use of import export formats and it could be possible to integrate it all into a one stop resource for developers. We would stop having to create a class page for every platform and CMS version, just use SMW properties to mark it with version properties as an entry point.

--Thanks! Tom Hutchison (talk) 08:19, 22 February 2013 (CST)

Broken Help Screen link

Hi Tom, another one to submit a bug report for. The contact categories help screen goes to Contacts Categories instead of Contact Categories the categories edit page is fine - it just seems to be this one link.

Thanks George! Good catch, I've corrected by moving the page. Based on title of component page, it probably should have been Contacts. Maybe something changed between 1.7 and 2.5. The contact edit page and contact manager page were ok, but the Contact edit/new was pointing at Contact not Contacts too. I tested with an install of 2.5 and I see the proper help screens now. Thanks again. -- Tom Hutchison (talk) 18:26, 6 March 2013 (CST)

Cheers Tom :) Wasn't sure whether to rename it or bug it to the CMS team! --Wilsonge (talk) 06:04, 8 March 2013 (CST)

No sweat George, good catch and it just jogged my brain again. 3.0's are wrong too! Every release was just dumped forward so it snowballed right on with each release. I'll adjust them now. Tom Hutchison (talk) 06:13, 8 March 2013 (CST)

Hi Tom, Just noticed there wasn't any help screens on the list for the new language installer part of the extension manager - so added it onto both 2.5 and 3.0 lists. If there's anywhere else I need to add it please let me know! --Wilsonge (talk) 17:49, 18 March 2013 (CDT)

Good catch George! I uploaded some screenshots for 2.5 screens tonight. I couldn't get the Language switcher module to work in the front-end for a screenshot though. I should have just skipped it and moved on to others. Might need to ask someone else, I personally have never used it. I couldn't get the options of what languages were installed to show and I added 4 additional to my localhost install of 2.5.

Do you still have the link to the Google Doc for the new screens? You should be able to edit it. I am going to add another column for tracker fixed so I can make sure they are all put into the code and available on the the admin side. --Thanks! Tom Hutchison (talk) 21:28, 20 March 2013 (CDT)

Joomla 1.5 Template Tutorial

Hi Tom, I've just moved the JA Purity Template Stuff into the 1.5 namespace (however nearly all of the 39 subpages have stub tags - and so I was wondering if we could archive the page (I can't work out how to do that - not sure if I have the permissions) so that if someone looks at pages that need completion they do a relevant page rather than one that's miles out of date! This is the link to the main page: J1.5:Customising_the_JA_Purity_template

Cheers, George