Tech articles
Automatically Adding items to a Joomla Menu
Occasionally there are times when it is useful to automatically create a menu when adding an item and keep it synchronised with any changes such as title updates.
Although Joomla makes it easy to create a menu item and link it to almost anything using the administrator interface, by automating this process you reduce typos and keep Menu Assignments synchronised if you are using them.
Techniques to help plan for and ease the migration of a database schema.
The key aspects in any successful schema upgrade are planning, testing and contingency.
The example here is an upgrade from dbmail 2.2 to 3.0-rc3 with a MySQL database schema change though the techniques here are applicable to other applications with a substantial database and a requirement to update a database schema using almost any sql based database including PostgreSQL, Oracle, MS Sql Server etc.
Read more: Techniques to help plan for and ease the migration of a database schema.
Magento and the Toy Safety Directive
Child safety is important and the Toy Safety Standards in the European Toy Safety Directive 2009/48/EC helps ensure that warnings are available at the point of purchase. Although Magento commerce can handle these warnings, consistent naming of the attributes and a small modification to the front-end design can improve the user experience and communicate these warnings more effectively without distracting from the product offering.
The technique offered here can be used for different types of warnings and messages whilst still using the existing Magento Attribute mechanisms.