Moving a Joomla Website
Over the years I have built a lot of websites, a lot of them surprisingly enough is with Joomla. Exact numbers, I am not sure of as I type this article but I know it is more than 15 a year. None the less the one thing that constantly surprises me is the amount of people, articles and forum posts asking about how to move a joomla based website. Granted a lot of these are now dating back 6 years but they are still relivent today.
DIY Websites what are they worth?
Over the past couple of years especially there has been significant increases in improvements to technology within the website sphere. These changes have been a positive for both developers and end users. For end users it is now becoming easier and easier for them to build their own websites, at the same token it is becoming easier for developers to build plugins and designs with some cool effects thanks to the implementation of HTML 5 and CSS.
About Nultz
Personal History
My name is Neil McNulty and I am a website developer located on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. I have been using computers since I was about 5 years of age when my best friend's parents had bought a XT computer for their family to use. At that time the XT was about the best computer available at the time with its 8 colour screen, keyboard, a 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disk drives. It didn't even a megabyte of RAM. Infact most modern day phones are more advanced than this computer was. After developing an interest in computers my parents decided to buy a 286 computer which was for its time quite a high end machine. It came with 1MB of ram, 40MB Hard Disk Drive, a 3.5" and a 5.25" floppy disk drive. From that point my interest in computers really took myself and my best friend to a whole different world. We were learning how to write basic batch files right through to playing computer games.
In 1994 my parents decided to make the move north from Moe, Victoria to Queensland's Sunshine Coast. Not long after coming to Queensland I started going to a computer club and from there I learn't alot of things and met alot of interesting people. One of which taught me how to build computers and in turn helped me get in to the IT Industry. Some 6 years later I had left school and started working in the IT Industry full time as a programmer and network support person for a small software development company.
Professional History
Since 2000 I have built computers, developed websites and intranets as well as managed web servers for storing websites. All of which has been both exciting and challenging. In 2005 I started doing work with an experienced website owner developing websites and working with various hosting technologies including the first of the commercially available and viable virtualisation technology. One thing that we did do differently to alot of other website developers at the time was working with setting up websites using an open source software package called "Joomla".
Joomla is an open source project that originally stemmed from a project called "Mambo" which was founded by a Melbourne based company called "Miro". This project has grown so big that it is said to now be the base platform for approximately 2.7% of the internet's websites. It has gained alot of support from companies like Google, Ebay and Microsoft. This system is very powerful and flexible while maintaining the simplicity that most would expect so that they could keep their website up to date. By 2007 we (myself and good friend Andrew) had got in to the web development marketplace here on the Sunshine Coast and had developed a reputation for being the people to see when it came to building custom templates and websites in Joomla.
In 2010 Andrew stepped away from building websites with me to continue on his original plan of doing his own websites, meanwhile I continued to develop and host websites for our existing clients. To this very day I am still doing the 2 things I do love as a hobby and I plan to do in to the future.
About Nultz.com
Over the years of working in this challenging but exciting industry there have been so many changes that I care to remember. One thing I have learn't though is that there is very little information shared about what we do and how we do it. I figured that my personal site/blog should be about what I love to do and something where I can share information on how to do things within this ever changing industry.
While I do not claim to be an expert in website development and hosting. I do have lots of experience in the industry which I believe enables me to help people who are wanting to get their website built at a level which alot of other "developers" cannot achieve with the prices that they charge. This site will hopefully help people who want to establish a successful online presence that promotes or sell's the products and/or services that they offer to the market.
If you do not see a particular topic or information on a particular issue you are having drop me a line and I will see what I can do to help you. If you have some suggestions on things that you would like to see on the website please let me know as I am sure it will help others.
I hope you enjoy the website!
Ajax username and email address checker - virtuemart
FILE: administrator/components/com_virtuemart/html/checkout_register_form.phpLine 23 : CHANGE THESE LINEs $missing = vmGet( $_REQUEST, "missing", "" ); if (!empty( $missing )) { echo "<script type=\"text/javascript\">alert('".$VM_LANG->_('CONTACT_FORM_NC',false)."'); </script>\n";} REPLACE WITH $missing = vmGet( $_REQUEST, "missing", "" ); ?> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> function getUsername(){ var form = document.adminForm; var unam = form.username.value; if( !$('username_ticker') ) $('username_input').innerHTML = $('username_input').innerHTML + "<div id=\"username_ticker\" style=\"padding-top:10px;\"></div>"; $('username_field').value = unam; if( form.username.value.length < 3 ) { $('username_ticker').innerHTML = '<span style="background:#FFFFCC;border:1px solid #CC0000;color:red;font-weight:bold;padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;">Username : This input value is not valid.</span>'; } else { $('username_ticker').innerHTML = "<img src=\"<?php echo JURI::base()."images/wait.gif";?>\"> Checking"; var url = 'index.php?option=com_virtuemart&tasked=chkuserinfo&format=raw&what=uname'; url = url + '&uname=' + form.username.value; new Ajax(url, { method: 'get', onComplete: function(x){ if(x == 1) { $('username_ticker').innerHTML = '<span style="background:#FFFFCC;border:1px solid #CC0000;color:red;font-weight:bold;padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;">This username is already registered.</span>'; } else { $('username_ticker').innerHTML = '<span style="border:1px none transparent;color:green;padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;">The username \''+ $('username_field').value +'\' is free for registration: you can proceed.</span>'; } } }).request(); } } function getEmail(){ var form = document.adminForm; var eadd = form.email.value; if( !$('email_ticker') ) $('email_input').innerHTML = $('email_input').innerHTML + "<div id=\"email_ticker\" style=\"padding-top:10px;\"></div>"; $('email_field').value = eadd; if( !(/^\w+([\.-]?\w+)*@\w+([\.-]?\w+)*(\.\w{2,4})+$/.test(form.email.value))) { $('email_ticker').setHTML('<span style="background:#FFFFCC;border:1px solid #CC0000;color:red;font-weight:bold;padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;">Email : This input value is not valid.</span>'); } else { $('email_ticker').setHTML("<img src=\"<?php echo JURI::base()."images/wait.gif";?>\"> Checking"); var url = 'index.php?option=com_virtuemart&tasked=chkuserinfo&format=raw&what=email'; url = url + '&email=' + form.email.value; new Ajax(url, { method: 'get', onComplete: function(x){ if(x == 1) { $('email_ticker').setHTML('<span style="background:#FFFFCC;border:1px solid #CC0000;color:red;font-weight:bold;padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;">This email is already registered.</span>'); } else { $('email_ticker').setHTML('<span style="border:1px none transparent;color:green;padding:5px 5px 5px 5px;">The email \''+ $('email_field').value +'\' is free for registration: you can proceed.</span>'); } } }).request(); } } </script><?php if (!empty( $missing )) { echo "<script type=\"text/javascript\">alert('".$VM_LANG->_('CONTACT_FORM_NC',false)."'); </script>\n";} FILE: administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/ps_userfield.php LINE 390 :AFTER THESE LINES case 'password': case 'password2': echo '<input type="password" id="'.$field->name.'_field" name="'.$field->name.'" size="30" class="inputbox" />'."\n"; break; REPLACE WITH case 'password': case 'password2': echo '<input type="password" id="'.$field->name.'_field" name="'.$field->name.'" size="30" class="inputbox" />'."\n"; break; case 'email': echo '<input type="text" id="'.$field->name.'_field" name="'.$field->name.'" size="30" class="inputbox" onchange="getEmail();" />'."\n"; break; case 'username': echo '<input type="text" id="'.$field->name.'_field" name="'.$field->name.'" size="30" maxlength="25" onchange="getUsername();" class="inputbox" />'."\n"; break; FILE: /components/com_virtuemart/virtuemart.phpLINE 21 : INSERT THE CODE BELOW AFTER THIS CODE "global $mosConfig_absolute_path, $product_id, $vmInputFilter, $vmLogger;" $tasked = JRequest::getVar( 'tasked' ); if($tasked=="chkuserinfo"){ $database = & JFactory::getDBO(); $email = JRequest::getVar( 'email' ); $uname = JRequest::getVar( 'uname' ); $what = JRequest::getVar( 'what' ); $usercount = 0; $emailcount = 0; if($what == "uname"){ $database->setQuery("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM #__users WHERE username='$uname'"); $usercount = $database->loadResult(); if($usercount) echo "1"; else echo "0"; } else if ($what == "email") { $database->setQuery("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM #__users WHERE email='$email'"); $emailcount = $database->loadResult(); if($emailcount) echo "1"; else echo "0"; } die();} FILE: /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/html/shop.registration.php after this: if( empty($auth['user_id']) ) { INSERT THIS: vmCommonHTML::loadMooTools(); template css#register_stretcher {height: 954px !important; }
