Essential Extenstions…

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  • scotty Friend
    December 13, 2008 at 4:38 pm #136224

    I have a few extensions that I put on all Joomla sites regardless of what kind of site I am making. In my opinion these extensions should be part of the core install. I was just wondering if anyone else has any extensions that they simply can’t live without and would recommend.

    Mine include…

    1. JoomlaPack

      2. The single most important extension. Creates full backups of your Joomla root directory and database that are easy to restore and make moving site a piece of cake. Backups can be used to install sites the same way you would a Quickstart.

    2. JCE Editor

      3. Enhances in many ways the TinyMCE editor that is pre-installed in Joomla. Advanced File Manager, Uploader, and Link Editor. Allows you to see your template CSS inside the artice editor. Will not strip certain HTML tags from the code the way TinyMCE does. Make sure to include JCE Utilities with the install. This ads a lightbox feature and link popup module much like JA Highslide.

    3. JoomlaWatch

      4. Allows you to watch your website visitors and bots in real-time from the administration menu. Specially their IP addresses, countries they come from, which pages they are viewing, their browser and operating system. It creates daily and all-time stats from this information plus unique, pageload and total hits statistics. Furthermore, you can block harmful IP addresses and see blocked attempts stats.

    All of the above extensions are free. Anyone got any more to add to the list?

    4 users say Thank You to scotty for this useful post

    1. cjmicro
    2. questbg
    3. sfpkent
    4. gtrew
    jay973 Friend
    December 13, 2008 at 7:23 pm #282804

    These are my 3 must haves:

    Joomlaupdater (V1.4.0 free)

    This component will update Joomla core from the official Joomla website to its final version with just a single click. The user can also provide a link for the update zip file. The component will fetch the file either from Joomla server or from the link the user has provided. The zip file will be extracted on the current joomla installation and will upgrade it to the final version.

    MetaMod (Free)

    Suggested uses:
    * make modules appear at certain times of the day, or give them start and end publishing dates
    * show a different module for users who have been registered for more (or less) than a certain time period
    * control modules such as FacileForms (show a different form based on where in the world someone is connecting from, etc)
    * display different modules on different pages in VirtueMart / JReviews / many others – e.g. show a specific module when a particular VirtueMart product or category is displayed
    * show different modules depending on the Section / Category of the main article on the page
    * show a completely different menu based on the front-end language the user has selected
    * make a module disappear once someone has logged in (there’s no standard way to do this in Joomla!)
    * use different modules depending on the user’s browser & browser version
    * use different modules depending on the language of the user’s browser
    * and many, many more!

    Missing Metadata module (Free)

    The Missing Metadata module adds a panel to the Control Panel of the Joomla Administrator interface that lists any published articles that have empty metadescription or metakeys fields.

    Anyone else have any?

    5 users say Thank You to jay973 for this useful post

    1. cjmicro
    2. questbg
    3. scotty
    4. wooohanetworks
    5. sfpkent
    cjmicro Friend
    December 13, 2008 at 9:32 pm #282810

    I always install Extplorer for file editing.

    then, i’m with Scotty, Joomla Pack, JCE editor!

    Great idea for this thread, and I am definitely checking out some of those others from you and Jay973

    Have either of you ever done a basic set up then saved it and used it again on another site? I read somewhere you can install the components you want, then take a full backup and then use that to install the same configuration on a new site.

    I’d like to know how to do this and if it works!

    Cheryl

    3 users say Thank You to cjmicro for this useful post

    1. scotty
    2. wooohanetworks
    3. sfpkent
    ShannonN Friend
    December 13, 2008 at 11:04 pm #282821

    Good thread, I have always had probs using Joomlapack on large sites I know the latest version was supposed to fix this but it never seemed to stop it freezing up. I have never had to restore a site from the backup but its just a quickstart pack basically so shouldn’t be hard.

    Has anyone found a stable (future) event calendar while most I tried worked they didn’t look that crash hot
    Shannon

    1 user says Thank You to ShannonN for this useful post

    1. wooohanetworks
    questbg Friend
    December 14, 2008 at 7:09 am #282834

    Great Thread! Currently downloading JCE Editor (Thanks Scotty!) and the Missing Metadata Mod (Thanks Jason!).

    My needs were fairly specific as I have ‘Premium Content’ on the site which can only be viewed by people who have paid for a subscription.

    I used two extensions from JoomSuite:

    JoomSuite User
    Allows me to customise the User Registration form and add more field for extra data I wanted (country, age, profession, etc.), and also has a built-in captcha security feature. 19 euros for lifetime licence.

    JoomSuite Member
    Allows me to manage site subscriptions and payment gateways. Also ‘protects’ certain sections, categories or articles so that non-subscribed users are unable to view content. Multi payment gateways, stats, reports and more. Did just what I needed. 59 euros lifetime licence.

    You can download trial 30-day licences for both components.

    I have to say, tech support has been fantastic and I was helped through the installation and config of both. Tech support even give you the telephone numbers and Skype address of the developers of each component!

    Not free, but highly recommended.

    2 users say Thank You to questbg for this useful post

    1. cjmicro
    2. wooohanetworks
    questbg Friend
    December 14, 2008 at 7:47 am #282837

    <em>@jay973 95321 wrote:</em><blockquote>Missing Metadata module (Free)
    </blockquote>

    Really weird. I just downloaded and installed the module. Install was OK and received the info about the module (“This module displays a list of all articles that have either missing metadescription or metakeywords fields”).

    I checked the list of modules and there it is mod_missingmeta by Dan Rahmel.

    However, when I go to ‘Module Manager’ it doesn’t appear in the list so I can’t enable it!

    I uninstalled and reinstalled. Same thing! Very odd. :((

    Shame, that would have been real useful.

    Cheers
    Chris

    questbg Friend
    December 14, 2008 at 8:36 am #282838

    Update. My fault :-[

    Didn’t read the instructions on the site!

    “Don’t forget that when you select Module Manager from the menu, by default it displays all of the Site modules. You will need to click on the Administration link below the manager title to display the Administrator modules.”

    As usual, I was clicking when I should have been reading :-[

    Works well, now I’ve got 125 articles to include meta data in 😉

    Cheers
    Chris

    scotty Friend
    December 14, 2008 at 11:54 am #282860

    MetaMod sounds really useful, Thanks Jay.

    And I agree with Cheyrl, exTplorer is a brilliant extension.

    jay973 Friend
    January 9, 2009 at 8:44 pm #285704

    LazyBackup (Free)
    Send a daily backup of the database in a zipped file to one or multiple emails. The easiest backup method for joomla. This plugin will save you LOTS of time, when it backs your whole database up, once a day. And its easy to restore via PhpMyadmin.

    Excellent plug-in for the forgetful among us…

    2 users say Thank You to jay973 for this useful post

    1. scotty
    2. cjmicro
    scotty Friend
    January 9, 2009 at 8:51 pm #285706

    Definitely going to try that out.

    wooohanetworks Friend
    January 9, 2009 at 9:17 pm #285710

    <em>@questbg 95354 wrote:</em><blockquote>Great Thread! Currently downloading JCE Editor (Thanks Scotty!) and the Missing Metadata Mod (Thanks Jason!).

    My needs were fairly specific as I have ‘Premium Content’ on the site which can only be viewed by people who have paid for a subscription.

    I used two extensions from JoomSuite:

    JoomSuite User
    Allows me to customise the User Registration form and add more field for extra data I wanted (country, age, profession, etc.), and also has a built-in captcha security feature. 19 euros for lifetime licence.

    JoomSuite Member
    Allows me to manage site subscriptions and payment gateways. Also ‘protects’ certain sections, categories or articles so that non-subscribed users are unable to view content. Multi payment gateways, stats, reports and more. Did just what I needed. 59 euros lifetime licence.

    You can download trial 30-day licences for both components.

    I have to say, tech support has been fantastic and I was helped through the installation and config of both. Tech support even give you the telephone numbers and Skype address of the developers of each component!

    Not free, but highly recommended.</blockquote>

    Did you get that managed to work with VirtueMart or do you use other ecommerce solutions? As I could not find any information if this will work with VM I use CB with VM.

    wooohanetworks Friend
    January 9, 2009 at 9:21 pm #285712

    It matters how you may be concerned about your site’s security when it comes to Hacks, PHP and MySQL Infusions:

    JoomDefender is one of the JoomSuite Extensions that shall avoid attacks on Joomla sites. Regardless the fact it also costs only 19€ and other solutions cost maybe 100 times more, I will want to give it “a try”. Will probably see if it works, whether that a site is hacked or the attack was prevented and I see it in my server logs or no one will ever attack my sites.

    When anyone uses this extension, feel free to share if it is a good for that cheap price.

    Thanks!

    questbg Friend
    January 10, 2009 at 4:46 am #285739

    Hi woohanetworkds

    <em>@wooohanetworks 105156 wrote:</em><blockquote>Did you get that managed to work with VirtueMart or do you use other ecommerce solutions? As I could not find any information if this will work with VM I use CB with VM.</blockquote>

    I’m not using VM, I use ‘SimpleCaddy’ for ecommerce. Not as fancy as VM, but much easier to install and configure!

    You should e-mail support at JoomSuite to see if these extensions work with VM, they have a good support team and fast response.

    <em>@wooohanetworks 105158 wrote:</em><blockquote>JoomDefender is one of the JoomSuite Extensions that shall avoid attacks on Joomla sites.
    When anyone uses this extension, feel free to share if it is a good for that cheap price.
    </blockquote>

    I’m using this on two sites. Neither has been hacked so far so maybe it’s worth the 19 euros!

    You could always down load a ‘demo’ licence which lets you run it for a month free of charge.

    1 user says Thank You to questbg for this useful post

    1. wooohanetworks
    questbg Friend
    January 10, 2009 at 4:58 am #285742

    Here’s a neat little plugin I found yesterday:

    http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/external-contents/video-channels/3659/details

    One of my journalists telephoned yesterday and said she wanted to embed a YouTube video into an actual article. Found this plugin, downloaded, enabled and five minutes later she had the video playing in the article!

    wooohanetworks Friend
    January 10, 2009 at 12:24 pm #285764

    <em>@questbg 105189 wrote:</em><blockquote>Hi woohanetworkds

    I’m not using VM, I use ‘SimpleCaddy’ for ecommerce. Not as fancy as VM, but much easier to install and configure!

    You should e-mail support at JoomSuite to see if these extensions work with VM, they have a good support team and fast response.

    I’m using this on two sites. Neither has been hacked so far so maybe it’s worth the 19 euros!

    You could always down load a ‘demo’ licence which lets you run it for a month free of charge.</blockquote>

    Thanks for the info, I will see what they say, but when it can be done with simple caddy, there may be a way to let it work with VM too. Problem is the cheap sign up and account management of VM and the bridge between CB and VM in only good with VM 1.0 so customers still have to use the old sign up when purchasing etc.. And to JDefender, I have purchased it already, but as I worked further on the site I simply must find the package on my computer again to install it, was like 2 / 3 months ago already and want to install it as soon the site goes live…

    Thanks again.

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This topic contains 34 replies, has 11 voices, and was last updated by  didima 15 years, 4 months ago.

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