Joomla pop-up logins

I think it's all the rage now-a-days to have fancy pop-up login screens. It means it doesn't take up any 'real-estate' on the home page.

Here's a few free plugins for Joomla which can do it:

• Q Login Popup
• requires registration to download
• as it took a while to get the validation
• adds itself as a module
• you just have to "publish" it and put it in a position
• also, put you want it to appear on all pages
• colour didn't match, so I re-did the button. Placed it in 
• /modules/mod_qloginpopup/images/login.png
• YJ Pop Login
• downloaded without registration
• it adds a module
• you just have to "publish" it and put it in a position
• also, put you want it to appear on all pages
• It just showed all of it (not just the button). Javascript must have a conflict somewhere

Joomla free Image Gallery and slideshows

So, thought I'd look into image galleries in Joomla.

Found a few free extensions. The one I ended up trying was "Simple Image Gallery" because I wanted to try the 'low' end first and see how easy it was.

So, also found this page which is the simple instructions:

1. download and install plugin
2. enable plugin (wasn't written in the instructions but I worked it out)
3. create a folder in "images" folder using Media Manager
4. Put your images in here
5. Make a new article
6. somewhere in the article put :
1. {gallery}name_of_your_folder{/gallery}
2. it has to be curly brackets!
7. done

Quite simple really.

I notice they do a pro version as well. Looks like the pro is better, having descriptions and different styles. I'll have to look into how to do this.

Phoco Gallery looks like a good alternative, and has slideshow capabilities

Just seen this site version of it which:

• Phoca templates
• Phoca extensions
• VirtueMart extensions
• Phoca Theme for VirtueMart (software extensions for CMS Joomla!)

 Looks amazing!!


As for slideshows, found DJ ImageSlider which looks and works brilliantly. It has its' own slide management system with slides and categories, but also includes a custom module!! Brilliant

OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory login Extension Manager doesn't load

Well, what do you know. I updated from Dreamweaver version 11.0.0 to 11.0.3.4964 using AdobeDreamweaver-11.0-All-Update.dmg. Seems to work nicely now, I see a splash screen and next it tells me Adobe Extension Manager needs to load to finish the update.

Of course now this "Extension Manager" has the same problem DreamWeaver had. It just pops up and sits there not doing anything. But it does let Dreamweaver finish loading and lets me use Dreamweaver. The only real downside is that I get this message every time I load dreamweaver. In console I get about 20 similar error messages:

27/07/2011 15:04:35 Adobe Extension Manager CS5[3434] *** __NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x210a5f0 of class NSView autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking

Pretty funny: "no pool" and "just leaking"

On a quick search I found this post. Someone mentions a problem with Adobe Air but might be refering to a Windows problem. I shall update just in case.... updated from 1.5 to 2.3, which doesn't solve the problem.

I'll try loading this up using a local account, maybe it updates files on the Hard Drive, or maybe it updates files on the Users Home Drive?

Loaded it up on a local login to find that extension manager is a manager which helps control updates! I wish it could be easier, why another program? It updated Dreamweaver just fine. I think all it had to do was to log down that an update had been carried out.

It appears this Extension Manager runs on a "per user" basis, and hence does keep coming up on Active Directory logins until the process is complete. So if I don't want to see the error message again I'd have to fix the Extension Manager problem.

As a work around, I could copy whatever files it creates in a local users library to the active directory users library which might work, but it might create special codes.

OS X 10.6.6 Active Directory login Dreamweaver doesn't load

On trying to load Dreamweaver up on an Active Directory account running OS X 10.6.6 Dreamweaver trys to load but stops almost straight away with no error! It still runs but doesn't even load a splash screen. When logging in on a local account Dreamweaver works a charm.

A quick search drew up a few posts, heres an example. Most point to permissions issues on the "Configuration" folder in /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver CS5. This was mainly caused by FileVault which is obviously more common then people using Active Directory logins. The only solution of which is to switch FileVault off! Of course we can't just switch off Active Directory logins though!

I do have NHR installed, and with the Caches folder being relocated to the local drive I know it is not this. I figured it might be another folder dreamweaver tries to use. Here are the other files:

• /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver\ CS5
• /Library/Preferences/Adobe\ Dreamweaver\ CS5\ Prefs

there's also a plist file in the Preferences folder but I deleted it and it has not been recreated. Something like

com.adobe.dreamweaver

I've also been having a few issues with the Application Support folder, which occasionally doesn't let me write files or folders to it, which causes problems like these. I originally thought it was this which caused the problem, but since rebooting I can now access the App support folder and dreamweaver still doesn't work.

Just playing around with NHR. I've adapted the script so that it creates a symlink for /Application Support/Adobe rather then some of the folders inside. Should be simpler. Didn't solve the problem though.

An error does keep appearing which is related to the file used in /Library/Preferences. Called:

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Prefs

Whenever I load Dreamweaver up (or try to) this appears in Console

27/07/2011 14:04:59 Finder[2463] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.

I've tried to create an alias of this file on the local hard drive which doesn't seem to make any difference. My only guess is this always comes up.

I shall endevour to locate any other files Dreamweaver may use. Upon loading dreamweaver on a local login I found a lot more files in the Configuration folder in Application Support. I also found that the "Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 Prefs" file had more text in, so I copied these over to the networked account to see if it would change anything. Nope.

If anyone has any other information I would be glad to here it. I'm going to have to revert to a local account to use Dreamweaver until then!!

Well, what do you know. I updated from Dreamweaver version 11.0.0 to 11.0.3.4964 using AdobeDreamweaver-11.0-All-Update.dmg. Seems to work nicely now, I see a splash screen and next it tells me Adobe Extension Manager needs to load to finish the update.

Of course now this "Extension Manager" has the same problem DreamWeaver had. It just pops up and sits there not doing anything. But it does let Dreamweaver finish loading and lets me use Dreamweaver. The only real downside is that I get this message every time I load dreamweaver.

I'll try loading this up using a local account, maybe it updates files on the Hard Drive, or maybe it updates files on the Users Home Drive?