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- Written by: Matthew Murphy
- Category: How-To Guides
- Hits: 778
Upgrading 1.5 from an existing 1.5x version
It is risky to upgrade a live site without testing the upgrade process first. So before upgrading the live site you need to set up a test site which is as close as possible to the configuration of your live site, then test the upgrade on that. When you are happy with the process you can apply it to the live site (having taken a fresh backup of the live site first, of course).
You interested in having your Joomla 1.5.x site automaticly updated for you? If so check out this
Step 1: Download the patch package
To download the most recent patch package and to obtain the MD5 hash:
- From the joomla.org home page, click the Joomla! 1.5.x download link
- On the Joomla! 1.5.x release page, click the Joomla!1.5.xupdates link in the left column.
- Click the word Files in the blue bar to expand the list of patch packages available.
- Locate the row that matches your current installation version.
- On that row, select the patch package (zip, tar.gz and tar.bz2) that is most convenient for you.
- Verify the download using the MD5 hash listed in the right column on the same line as the package you selected.
If you have questions about these instructions, read the Additional Information below this table.
Additional information:
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What is a patch? |
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Which package format should I use? |
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How do I use the MD5 hash to check the package? |
Step 2: Make a copy of your live site
Ideally this should be on the same platform (operating system, PHP and database version) as the live site, but don't worry if this is not possible. Making a working copy of a Joomla! website involves copying the files and the database (these are separate activities). You will then need to amend the configuration.php to reflect the new location. Check that your test site is fully functional.
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How to copy a Joomla! website |
Step 3: Install the patch package on the copy site
There are different ways of installing a package file depending on your particular circumstances. If you have difficulty with one of these methods, then simply try another.
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Unpacking a package file |
- Alternative 1: Unpack the package file on your local computer then use an FTP client to upload them to your site.
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Using an FTP client to upload files |
- Alternative 2: Use an FTP client to upload the package to your site, then use a terminal session (eg. SSH) to connect to your site and unpack the files there.
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Using a terminal session |
- Alternative 3: If your hosting provider gives you access to your site via some sort of web control panel like CPanel or Plesk, you can use the control panel file manager to upload the package, then use a terminal session (which might also be available via the control panel) to unpack the package file and overwrite all changed files on the server.
- If you are using CPanel, there is specific information on Uploading and extracting an archive file with CPanel.
Step 4: Test thoroughly
Check out as much of the functionality on your test site as possible. If there are any problems that will affect the way that you will need to handle the live upgrade then make a written note of them for later.
If you find errors you might check out the following possibilities:
- Ensure that all of the files were properly transferred. There have been verified reports of some FTP clients not properly transferring files across to a server without notifying the user of such a problem. One possible cause of this problem is that under certain circumstances the web server locks the files it is using and the FTP-server can't update those files. If this is the case you might try taking the site offline shortly during the FTP transfer.
Step 5: Backup your live site
Take a full backup copy of your live site immediately prior to upgrading. You may want to take your site offline prior to doing this so that updates are not lost.
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How to copy a Joomla! website |
Step 6: Install the patch package on your live site
There are different ways of installing a package file depending on your particular circumstances. If you have difficulty with one of these methods, then simply try another.
|
|
Unpacking a package file |
- Alternative 1: Unpack the package file on your local computer then use an FTP client to upload them to your site.
|
|
Using an FTP client to upload files |
- Alternative 2: Use an FTP client to upload the package to your site, then use a terminal session (eg. SSH) to connect to your site and unpack the files there.
|
|
Using a terminal session |
- Alternative 3: If your hosting provider gives you access to your site via some sort of web control panel like CPanel or Plesk, you can use the control panel file manager to upload the package, then use a terminal session (which might also be available via the control panel) to unpack the package file and overwrite all changed files on the server.
- If you are using CPanel, there is specific information on target="_blank" rel="nofollow"Uploading and extracting an archive file with CPanel.
The alternative selected may be different from that used in step 3 if the hosting platform for the site is different.
Step 7: Make any other changes required
Referring to your notes from step 4, make any other changes that are required to bring the site into operation following the patch installation.
Step 8: Check your live site to make sure it is working correctly
Don't assume that the upgrade will work flawlessly just because the test upgrade worked. Check to make sure that nothing untoward has happened. It could be that differences between the live site and test site platforms will bring out a problem that you did not notice during testing. If you find a problem and it cannot be resolved quickly you might have to rollback the upgrade using the backup copy you created in step 5.
Hopefully all will be well and you can relax
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- Written by: Matthew Murphy
- Category: How-To Guides
- Hits: 960
One of the goals for Joomla! 1.5.4 was to build consistency for Joomla! Component Page Titles for each of core template. Overall, the project was very successful except for the appearance of "double titles" on the Article Layout due to both the Page Title and the Article Title printing on the Web page. The reason for this quick release of Joomla! 1.5.5 is to resolve this problem.
Page Titles will appear on Articles only if each of the following three conditions are true:
- The Article is presented using the "Article Layout" Menu Type.
- The "Page Title" parameter has a value.
- The "Show Page Title" parameter option is "Yes."
Articles that are navigated to by clicking the "Read more..." from a Blog, or clicking an Article Title from a List, no longer print the parent Page Title on the Article Web page.
As a reminder: the "Show Article Title" Global, Menu Item, and Article parameters continue to govern the display of the Article Title. That did not change with the Page Title consistency work and it has not changed with this fix, either.
Thank you to the Joomla! community for your patience and support, for helping one another, and for testing the patch to ensure it resolved this problem.
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- Written by: Matthew Murphy
- Category: How-To Guides
- Hits: 3170
The above is the only logical correct solution but if you are one who likes to use old software or stuck in the'its to hard to upgrade' mindset (mind you I have the slowest, cheapest DSL you can get at home, and it took me 24 seconds to do the 1.5.4 upgrade to 1.5.5
We have found 2 solutions, Please review below to determine best fix method for you. (theirs actually 3 ways to fix this, but one requires you to edit every single article, and if you have over 400 articles like us, thats really not a solution)
Fix #1
If you have this problem, Go into Articles Parameters under Article Manager and select no for Show Titles. They are going to show no matter what. This must be a new bug introduced to 1.5.4 having it selected to show Title will show title twice. Submitting a bug report now
Fix #2
Another solution. Go into Menus, Main Menu, Click on Home,
- The Page Title parameter, which is a text field. In this example, the Page Title parameter value contains the legendary "Welcome to the Frontpage" greeting.
- And, the Show Page Title parameter, an option field allowing choices of "Yes" or "No."
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- Written by: Matthew Murphy
- Category: How-To Guides
- Hits: 749
Unfortunately, the Google Sandbox now has two levels. Yes, you still need a lot of trust to get your pages ranking. But before you start worrying about that, you need to worry about getting your pages indexed in the first place.
Because, of course, you’re not really indexed if most of your pages have gone supplemental!
What happened? Well apparently the Google Indexer got tired of her nickname “Loose Louise”, she’s born again and now very choosy thankyouverymuch about who she lets enter. Rumor has it she’s only interested in trusted sites that are after a whitehat, long term commitment.
“What exactly is that supplemental index again?”
I won’t parrot the quasi-official Google answer here. (In fact, I can promise that I will never give you the “official Google answer” on Tropical SEO.) Take your pick:
- The Google Supplemental index is the Siberian work camp for web pages.
- The Google Supplemental index is to the normal index, as Scoreboard Media is to Tropical SEO.
- The Google Supplemental index is where they put web pages with little trust.
- The Google Supplemental index is where they put web pages that aren’t going to rank for anything important.
Got it? Cool.
Now, assuming your site is supplemental, here are five tips to get it out of Supplemental Hell.
1. Give each page a unique title. This is so
basic it kills me but sometimes people still aren’t doing it. There is
absolutely no reason not to do this, as a unique title also helps
SEO-wise, it helps accessibility-wise, gets higher clickthroughs in the
SERPs, etc.
2. Give each page a unique META DESCRIPTION. Remember when we all thought META tags were dead? Well, Google’s gotten funny about that. Let’s not waste time wondering why. Just give every page a unique META DESCRIPTION, even if it just matches the title tag.
3. Make sure each page has a good amount of unique content. This problem can rear its ugly head in a few different ways. Most commonly, a particular piece of content is being served at multiple URLs. This is usually a CMS or shopping cart issue, and the fix will be unique to whatever system you use. Also pretty common is the existence of very thin pages (a lot of large, hollow/empty web directories have this problem). My rule of thumb (and it’s not authoritative, just what I go by), is that a page should have at least 100 words of unique content at a minimum.
4. Get some more trusted links. Link building is all about trust these days. A few links from older, already-ranking domains will do wonders towards convincing Google a newer site deserves to be trusted. I also like to get a few higher-PageRank links in there (sitewide? even better). Yes, I know that tip is going to bring out the haters (insert “PageRank is dead!” comment here). But it appears that “overall link weight” seems to matter again in Google, if not in terms of rankings, at least in terms of indexing.
5. Get some links to internal pages. This is all about convincing Google your site doesn’t have “hollow shell syndrome”–when a site has, say, 20 pages, and a few dozen backlinks, but 100% of those backlinks are pointing to the homepage. Most often, the homepage of the site is in the normal index but all of the internal pages have gone supplemental. I usually go “brute force” at one internal page and get 3 or 4 links to it (giving this one internal page so much link weight that Google pretty much has to index it); normally, GoogleBot revisits the entire site and re-crawls and indexes the other internal pages, too (up to a point: if the site has hundreds or thousands of pages, you’ll need to rinse+repeat this a few times).
That about covers it. Usually the bottleneck & hardest part is building the trusted links: for help with that, see my link baiting guide.
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- Written by: Matthew Murphy
- Category: How-To Guides
- Hits: 963
Sections VS Categories
People commonly do not understand what sections are vs categories.
Imagine your a Law Office, You have 15 Filing Cabinets you want to keep order so your legal team can find clients files quickly.
Each section is a filing cabinet, each category is a drawer, or lets get a little more orgnized
Each Section is a Drawer and each Category is a Folder in that Drawer, You don't file Roberts Case under M, you put Roberts under R
Now lets take a look at how we do things. Sections named Joomla 1.5 and MyBlog
Inside Joomla 1.5 I have several Categories. The Guide Menu above is Article Blog View for the Section Joomla 1.5 then each of the 3 sub menus are child items Article Blog List View which are linked directly to each categorie
Above image is All Categories My Blog is the only Category outside of Joomla 1.5, It belongs to the Section MyBlog