tutorial

Fixing “JFolder::files: Path is not a folder” Joomla

A rather strange error that can crop up in the menu manager of Joomla.

This is simply a case of Joomla looking for a folder that is not there, in this case it’s the folder images / stories, Joomla looks for this folder for the menu images and if it cannot find it, or it has incorrect permissions, it throws this error. Read more…

Preventing direct access to certain functions in your Joomla component controllers is essential. This tutorial demonstrates a simple method to prevent direct access to “helper” functions that may be in your component’s controller.

Strictly speaking, the only functions you should have in your controller are ones that deal directly with users’ requests and either alter the data or pass it on to the respective models. However, occasionally the controller may need to contain functions that will not be required to receive data to process, for example, from a form. A really good illustration of this instance would be the _sendMail function in the Joomla user component. Read more…

Something that seems to be poorly documented is how to get and set session variables in Joomla. I distinctively recall hunting high and low for some vital guidance on this when Joomla 1.5 first came out (all those moons ago!) and having no luck. Hopefully this article will help someone, at some point, with something. Read more…

The all-nighter is something that many people (particularly creatives and nerds) find themselves having to contend with. I prefer to work at night; I find I get more done in the hours of 12pm – 5am than I will most days. No phone calls, no emails, no meetings. Silent. Bliss. Having pretty much mastered the art of the all-nighter over the last few years, I figured I’d share some pointers. Here’s my Official All-Nighter Survival Checklist: Read more…

Removing the dotted line around links in Firefox

Firefox has an annoying habit of adding a dotted line around links during the “focus” (when clicked) stage of the link. This is due to Firefox’s standard CSS having the following line:

:-moz-any-link:focus {
outline: 1px dotted invert;
}


Thankfully it’s easy to deal with… Read more…

Not much to this one, and I don’t use access often, but it’s something that had me stumped for a little while so thought it worth posting. In (normal) SQL whenever you need to do a basic search in a field, the syntax is:

select * from exampletable where field1 like ('text%')

The % are used as the wild cards but not in Access!!! Read more…

This post covers how to edit the php.ini file on a Unix based server using SSH. It’s important to alter the php.ini file on any new server; most are set up for very generic use and can sometimes pose a security threat to your site. A classic but simple example of this is the “Show Errors” setting. Having this active on a live site can give people serious insight into how your site works and, by forcing errors, can give away information that you don’t want them to have. Read more…