General questions about the Joomla! CMS
What is Invest the World.org
Invest the World was started years ago based off of an old blog of the same name. Its purpose was to document the authors’ passion for overseas travel and investment. Though we never stopped traveling, we no longer took the time to use the blog, and for a few years, it just laid dormant. Recently, due to a popular forum shutting down, we’ve dusted off the site a bit and are using it as a landing pad for members of that forum to come and share their thoughts. If it’s well used, we’ll take the time to clean it off better and spruce it up a bit.
What is an Uncategorised Article?
Is it possible to change A Menu Item's Type?
You indeed can change the Menu Item’s Type to whatever you want, even after they have been created.
If, for instance, you want to change the Blog Section of a Menu link, go to the Control Panel->Menus Menu->[menuname]->Menu Item Manager and edit the Menu Item. Select the Change Type button and choose the new style of Menu Item Type from the available list. Thereafter, alter the Details and Parameters to reconfigure the display for the new selection as you require it.
My MySQL database does not support UTF-8. Do I have a problem?
No you don’t. Versions of MySQL lower than 4.1 do not have built in UTF-8 support. However, Joomla! 1.5 has made provisions for backward compatibility and is able to use UTF-8 on older databases. Let the installer take care of all the settings and there is no need to make any changes to the database (charset, collation, or any other).
What is the FTP layer for?
The FTP Layer allows file operations (such as installing Extensions or updating the main configuration file) without having to make all the folders and files writable. This has been an issue on Linux and other Unix based platforms in respect of file permissions. This makes the site admin’s life a lot easier and increases security of the site.
You can check the write status of relevent folders by going to ”Help->System Info” and then in the sub-menu to “Directory Permissions”. With the FTP Layer enabled even if all directories are red, Joomla! will operate smoothly.
NOTE: the FTP layer is not required on a Windows host/server.
Questions that users migrating to Joomla! 1.5 are likely to raise
Where did the Mambots go?
Mambots have been renamed as Plugins.
Mambots were introduced in Mambo and offered possibilities to add plug-in logic to your site mainly for the purpose of manipulating content. In Joomla! 1.5, Plugins will now have much broader capabilities than Mambots. Plugins are able to extend functionality at the framework layer as well.
Where did the Installers go?
The improved Installer can be found under the Extensions Menu. With versions prior to Joomla! 1.5 you needed to select a specific Extension type when you wanted to install it and use the Installer associated with it, with Joomla! 1.5 you just select the Extension you want to upload, and click on install. The Installer will do all the hard work for you.
Where is the Static Content Item?
In Joomla! versions prior to 1.5 there were separate processes for creating a Static Content Item and normal Content Items. The processes have been combined now and whilst both content types are still around they are renamed as Articles for Content Items and Uncategorized Articles for Static Content Items.
If you want to create a static item, create a new Article in the same way as for standard content and rather than relating this to a particular Section and Category just select Uncategorized as the option in the Section and Category drop down lists.
Only one edit window! How do I create "Read more..."?
This is now implemented by inserting a Read more… tag (the button is located below the editor area) a dotted line appears in the edited text showing the split location for the Read more…. A new Plugin takes care of the rest.
It is worth mentioning that this does not have a negative effect on migrated data from older sites. The new implementation is fully backward compatible.
What happened to the locale setting?
This is now defined in the Language [lang].xml file in the Language metadata settings. If you are having locale problems such as dates do not appear in your language for example, you might want to check/edit the entries in the locale tag. Note that multiple locale strings can be set and the host will usually accept the first one recognised.