Wednesday 22 January 2014

How to setup ReCaptcha in Joomla 3.0

ReCaptcha is a very popular captcha plugin. It is in use all across the web, and is not just limited for use in Joomla 3.0. In addition to being a very high quality tool, there are several interesting facts about ReCaptcha that you may not be aware of.
In this Joomla 3.0 tutorial, we'll show you how to setup ReCaptcha.
Configuring ReCaptcha for Joomla 3.0:
  1. Log into your Joomla 3.0 admin
  2. In your Global Configuration settings, set ReCaptcha as your default captcha plugin (located in the Global Configuration settings under the Site tab).
  3. While still in your Joomla 3.0 admin area, in the top menu go to Extenstions » Plugin Manager.
  4. Using the filter feature at the top of the page, type in recaptcha. Click on the result Captcha - ReCaptcha
    click-captcha-recaptcha
  5. On the Details tab, ensure that Status is set to Enabled.
  6. Click the Basic Options tab. Fill in the Public Key and Private Key, which you can get by registering your site here.

    Another basic option you can set is the Theme. The following themes are available: Clean, White, BlackGlass, and Red.

    After setting all options, click the Save button in the top left.
  7. Be sure to test ReCaptcha to ensure it is working! You can do this by visiting your user registration page. At the bottom of the page, you should see ReCaptcha, as it appears in this screenshot:
    recaptcha-in-action

    If ReCaptcha is working correctly, you should see the following message after trying to register:

    Message
    Your account has been created and an activation link has been sent to the email address you entered. Note that you must activate the account by clicking on the activation link when you get the email before you can login.

Tuesday 21 January 2014

How to change the URL alias of Joomla 3.1 articles

we have created a new article and published it to the front page. When we visit this new article in our browser, the url becomes:
http://domain.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/1-this-is-my-first-test-article
As we set the title of the article to, "This is my first test article", Joomla used the article's title as the alias. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to change this alias. The steps below walk through this process after you have already published the article, but you can easily set this option while you're writing the article for the first time.
Setting an article's alias in Joomla 3.0:
  1. Log into your Joomla 3.0 dashboard
  2. In the top menu, click Content and then click Article Manager.
  3. In the list of articles, click on the title of the article that you would like to change the alias for
  4. In the top menu, click Publishing Options. You will then see the Alias shown. Make the adjustments that you would like, and then click Save in the top left menu.
    change-alias-under-publishing-options

    When you visit your article again by navigating to it from your Joomla 3.0 homepage, you will see that the URL has changed. In our testing, we changed the alias from this-is-my-first-test-article to new-alias-goes-here.
    http://domain.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/1-new-alias-goes-here

How to write a new Article in Joomla 3.1

In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the steps for writing a new article in Joomla 3.0. There are many settings you can configure for your new content, however we're only going to review the minimum requirements.
To create a new article in Joomla 3.0:

  1. Log into your Joomla 3.0 dashboard
  2. From here, you have two options:
    Option 1 - use QUICK ICONS Option 2 - Use the top menu
    In the right menu under QUICK ICONS, click Add New Article.
    click-add-new-article
    In the top menu, click Content and then click Article Manager. Then, click New in the top left.
    click-new-article
  3. On the article editor page, enter a Title for your article and choose a Category next to that. Then, enter the content for your article beneath. Refer to our screenshot below:
    enter-content-for-first-article
  4. When finished writing your article, click the Save button in the top left menu. You should receive the following message:

    Message
    Article successfully saved

    You won't be able to see your article yet on your website, but in our next tutorial we'll show you how to feature this article on your Joomla 3.0 homepage so you can see it.