Since I first started using Joomla
 years back, I've always felt that with a little knowledge of html and css making a template is quite simple - all you really have needed to know is where you want which blocks to be displayed on your site.

In fact, you've been able to do a lot with Joomla templates, and now with 1.5 can do even more - in making dynamic interfaces for websites which handle data in creative ways.  Without getting to deep into the topic, I know there are a bunch of folks who are attempting to build sites with Joomla that don't really know any html and shy away from 'code.'  For them, some neat tools are coming out like Joomlashack's Template Builder . 

Basically, Joomlashack's created a tool to allow their customers to easily reconfigure color options of their templates by hitting up this website, changing some options in a form and previewing the result, then pasting the output code into their Joomlashack-bought Template Builder-compatible template.

I don't think this tool revolutionizes Joomla theming but its a nice step forward for commercial vendors catering to Joomla sites; though Joomlashack may pitch it as saving time and encouraging creativity, I feel its a service tool that all template sellers should offer their customers. 

After just having a chat with my brother about the growth of Joomla usage, and overall size/scope of Joomla's user-base I came across the following screenshot which Johan posted on flickr :

A while back I posted something about how Joomla is a great platform for not only blogging, but developing a website that does more than just a traditional blog.

Now that Joomla 1.5 is out , I've been considering how to go about relating my observations and impressions about it and I think picking up the thread on blogging w/Joomla is the way to go...

One thing you'll notice when you fire up Joomla 1.5 and jump into the content editing interface is that everything looks cleaner - gone are the comically large diskette, checkmark and red 'x' of yesteryear; moving around and getting things done happens more easily and quickly in 1.5 - two key components of blogging.

If you are reading this and currently maintain a blog using say, Wordpress, you'll understand when I say that uploading images, categorizing content and so on is cumbersome - confounded further by the fact that the editing interface is seperate from your nice templated front end.  Personally, I think that if the people publishing on a blog are offered the same interface as their readers, there's a higher chance their communication will be clearer (sort of like how a dinner party is always more fun when the host has an open kitchen and can talk to their guests whilst cooking... well, I'm not that great at the subtle art of metaphor but methinks you probably get it :) ).

Asides from more easily posting to a website, Joomla 1.5 has gotten better and letting you work solely in the front end.  Seen in the screenshot above, now you can choose both the section and category to place your content in front the front end interface.... That's pretty snazzy - and means that you can move posts around your site if need be.

In my next post on blogging with Joomla I'll get technical and walk you through the basics of how to blog well with Joomla - things like how you setup your content sections/categories can really affect both the administration of your blog and its navigability - plus, I'll review some new features in Joomla 1.5 like its improved media handling and interface. 

For a long long time I've been sending out email newsletters - for both personal projects as well as clients.  A few years back it became worth spending the time to code elegant html-formatted newsletters because most people had formatted-email reading ability offered through gmail/hotmail/etc or their local email client applications.

There are tons of issues to concern yourself with when considering how to send an html newsletter via email and the biggest issue I've found is that when using 3rd party senders like Groundspring , the sent from and reply to addresses are usually different - especially when you have email click-through stats enabled (so that the clicks can be traced through the 3rd party sending domain).

Well, I just noticed that sometime in the past year Campaign Monitor has solved this riddle by adding SMTP authentication - so you can use your own domain to send email through! Nice... 

Happy New Year everyone!

To those of you who have been wondering why this blog hasn't been posted to in so long, the answer is simple - I've been waiting for Joomla 1.5 to be ready to start talking about... I've been excited about this complete overhaul of Joomla for some months and have played with a few versions of the Beta release but until people could actually start using the software to make a website, I thought I'd keep my lips shut, or fingers from typing or.. whatever!

Alas, I'm tired of waiting to really play with 1.5 and am going to cross my fingers, hope that the core team gets this 4th Release Candidate sorted and has a stable release out there before February.  I'm rolling up my sleeves and going to take a look under the hood of this exciting software later today.

Let the blogging begin!!  Expect some posts through this week as I explore 1.5 and relay my observations on what's new and cool with it...