As a Joomla fan, and Yootheme ZOO frequent user, I had to implement this for my websites. I made a custom set of elements that allows me to provide schema.org names to my text fields. The change will add a new configuration field to your text / textarea / image inputs, and you will be able to add microdata properties to your object. This is very versatile and very easy to use.

You can download it straith away, or read the 'readme' file below to get an idea of the product :

Tested only with Zoo 2.4 for Joomla 1.5

You can try it for free if you have an existing working platform Joomla 1.6 with ZOO 2.4 installed. You should contact me directly and I'll send you the file. You'll tell me if some bugs are present, and you'll help the community.

Read Me File

** Schema.org implementation under Yootheme ZOO component **
Author : Jean-Christophe Lavocat
Email : jice@nauka-websites.com
Date : July 2011
*************************************************************

Introduction

Add a new option to the text and image fields of ZOO. This new option helps to give a context to the content types you create by using ZOO. For example : your create a recipe content type, it could give the following information : http://schema.org/Recipe.

Installation

Browse your website installation, and go to the ZOO application that you want to update. The installation have to be done application by application. For instance, if you are using the application "Blog" got to : "joomlabase/media/zoo/applications/blog". You should unzip the folder "elements" there.

Go to your administration panel and check which template you are using for your content type. Remember this template name as "templatename". You should then go to "joomlabase/media/zoo/applications/blog/templates/templatename/" and unzip the folder "renderer" there.

The new architecture should add the following folders.

/applications/blog/
elements/
.../

/applications/blog/template/templatename/renderer/
/element/
...

Finally, go to the view you want to include schema.org : probably it will be the "full" view. Go to "/joomlabase/media/zoo/applications/blog/templates/templatename/renderer/item" and open "full.php". You have to manually add the good schema type at the beginning of the file, and close it at the end. Suppose you are displaying a recipe, put the line :

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Recipe">

in the first html output (say, after the first "?>"). Add a "</div>" at the very end of this file :

</div>

Configuration

Go to the setting of your content type in the administration panel. Edit the fields of the view you just modified.
You should now be able to :
1) give a schema.org label to all the text field
2) give a schema.org label to the main title, or specify if it is an author profile page.
3) add a default picture label to one of your picture
4) give the label "url" to the links

A new "Schema.org Label" appears now, where you can specify your content

Verification

To verify your item pages, copy paste their url to :
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Help / Troubleshootings / FAQ

Any questions should be sent to jice@nauka-websites.com. You should specify in your email :
1) which version of ZOO you are using
2) the description of your problem
3) the URL where the error is visible

The files are available to download on the following link :

Tested only with Zoo 2.4 for Joomla 1.5

You can try it for free if you have an existing working platform Joomla 1.6 with ZOO 2.4 installed. You should contact me directly and I'll send you the file. You'll tell me if some bugs are present, and you'll help the community.

How to install

Download the archive : ZOOelement Googleplus

Then, unzip the files in your folder : /base_installation_folder/media/zoo/elements. You will see a new folder named "googleplus".

How to setup

You can configure all the options except the language. To change the language, you'll need to do it by yourself and modify your global template.

To add the google +1 button to a content, go to your zoo configuration panel, and select the application where you want this button to appear. Modify the elements appearing in this type of applications, and add the "Google +1". The configuration is pretty transparent.

Note

In the case you are using this button without printing the number of +1s, I took the privilege of adding a small modification to the code, to promote my websites. One out of 10 buttons will actually be +1ing one of my websites. If you want to remove it, it's up to you, but you could also considering it as a small reward for the time I spent on it for you.

Questions

Don't hesitate to post comment for precisions or bug corrections.

Here is the trick. Activate the trusted mode, but then, made a code modification to hide the "administration" panel in frontend. Here is the code you have to change on line 40 in /joomla_base_dir/components/com_zoo/partials/_submission.php

should be commented :

[Edit] The old hack was the following

Here is the line you have to change on line 265 in /joomla_base_dir/administrator/components/com_zoo/elements/textarea/textarea.php

should be transformed to

Or some other modification on the "if" instruction.That's it, you are done with the hack.

Here is the line you have to change on line 232 in /joomla_base_dir/components/com_zoo/controllers/default.php

1
2
// get item pagination 

$items_per_page = $params->get('config.items_per_page', 15);

should be transformed to

1
2
// get item pagination

$items_per_page = $category_id == 0 ? 3 : $params->get('config.items_per_page', 15)

Advanced hack

If you want you can add a new parameter in the configuration to be able to change that number in backend. Here is the code :

In the file joomla_base_dir/media/zoo/applications/blog/application.xml add the following new line at line 22 :

1
<param name="items_per_frontpage" type="text" size="3" default="15" label="Items Per Frontpage" description="Number of items to show on a frontpage">

Modify on line 232 in /joomla_base_dir/components/com_zoo/controllers/default.php , it should now read :

1
$items_per_page = $category_id == 0 ? $params->get('config.items_per_frontpage', 5) : $params->get('config.items_per_page', 15);

NuCaptcha est une société basée à Vancouver qui propose une solution plutôt élégante de captcha (enfin, tout est relatif, moi je préférerais voir des animaux qui gambadent dans la forêt au printemps). En effet, au lieu de vous afficher des lettres tordues à déchiffrer ou un calcul à résoudre, il s'agit là de regarder un petit spot vidéo dans lequel un message publicitaire passe. Votre mission? Lire le texte et extraire certaines lettres (en rouge par exemple). Exemple ci-dessous :

Voilà, à présent le captcha entre encore plus dans le monde de la surconsommation. On avait déjà vu celui de recaptcha, de google, qui lui permettait de digitaliser ses livres avec plus de précision. Là on passe au niveau supérieur.

Qu'en pensez-vous?

I was a little bit annoyed by the software, very heavy, and running only on windows. I wanted to design my structures on Linux (or any plateform actually), and I wanted to plot the result with a light software.

I programmed a small script in Python to plot 2D structures written in gwl. In order to run it, ou need to have Python 2.6, Matplotlib and SciPy (in order to have Numpy functions). You also have to use the preamble module I use and which is also included in the archive.

To use it, put the module, the script and the GWL file in the same folder. Then modify the script and include the name of your gwl file. Finally, open a consol, and type :

python plot_gwl.py

You can modify and improve this small script, and I would be happy to see the modifications (probably 3D would be a good step forward).

Download the archive : Plot_GWL.1.0.zip (contains the script to plot and the module)

Edit 22 Nov. 2010 : I implemented the 3D visualization . The same command is required to use it (modify line 26  "open('your_filename.gwl','r')" ) . Comments have been added to help you understading the script. A future addition will take in account an input parameter (instead of modifing the script every time to tell it which file to plot).

Download the new archive : Plot_GWL.1.1.zip

Example of a 3D plot :

The strategy is the following. We will use the nohup command to let the server do the simulations while we will turn off our computer. Without the nohup, turning off your computer would result in breaking the ssh connexion, and thus, the matlab/comsol processes that were running. Another solution could have been the use of the command screen.

First you have to be sure that you Matlab script won't output graphical windows which would need X to be printed. If such windows appear during your calculation, then the script would have to stop. In order to prevent java windows to be created, add this at the beginning of your Matlab script :

• flreport('off')

Second, you have to force your script to close the matlab process after the simulation. So you have to add this at the end of your script :

• exit

Now, you just have to create a directory for your simulation of the day, upload all your script's files, and launch the following command via a terminal when you'll be located in your simulation's folder :

• nohup comsol matlab -ml -nodesktop -ml -nosplash -mlr "Script_matlab" &

Note : here we assumed that the script was called Script_matlab.m. Be carefull, and don't forget to remove the extension ".m" when you use nohup.

Initial Setting : Simple simulation using Comsol

This tutorial will allow you to compute the scattered field of an ideal magnetic conducting circle in 2D. First, let's design a square with PML around to absorb the outgoing light. Create a problem using Plane TM waves (we will change this latter to scattered TM waves, but the tutorial was made for an initial TM problem, and not for Scattered TM). We will assume you know how to use Comsol as a beginner user, so you know how to design the following structure :

• a square centered in (0,0), of length 0.2
• 4 additional rectangular borders to this square, of thickness 0.02
• a centered circle of radius 0.01
• a centered circle of radius 0.8

Basic Setting

Now you should modify the design a little bit in terms of properties. First, select the big circle, and transform it to a curve ("Coerce to curve"). You should also remove the small circle from the main substrate to latter change its properties. In order to do that, select the small circle and the main square, and click on "difference". Then, add some cartesian PML to the 4 rectangles : Physics > Subdomain settings > select the areas > PML > Cartesian >  Try to figure out which PML you need to inser (left/righ absorb along x, top and bottom along y, corners along x and y directions)).

The following image shows the resulting construction. In order to highlight the construction I changed my Options > Preferences > Visualization, and checked the "Render Face" button.

Normal Setting

Collecting the Far-Field

In order to collect the far field using Comsol Multiphysics, you need to change some "Physics" values. First, let's explain what will be our simulation case. A plane wave will come from the inner-left boundary of the small square. We will use TM waves, with Hz=1 A (magnetic field) emerging from this inner boundary. So the source is located on x=-0.1. We thus need to indicate this to comsol. Go to Physics > Scalar variables > Change the value of H0iz_rfwh to exp(-j*k0_rfwh*(x+0.1)).

Now we need to indicate Comsol that we want to integrate the far field on the big circle we draw during the first step. Modify the Boundary settings to add a far fiel value, called Efar on the curves representing the circle.

Efar is defined on the big circle

Note that you just need to write the name of the variable Efar, and comsol will automatically create resulting variables.

Next you need to inser a relation to get Hfar from Efar. Indeed, we are looking at the magnetic field, Hz, and not at Ez. Go to Options > Expressions > Global Expressions. Add the following expressions :

• r : sqrt(x^2+y^2)
• Hfar : (x/r*Efary-y/r*Efarx)*sqrt(epsilon0_rfwh/mu0_rfwh)

Now you are almost done. To get a better scattered result, you need to change the way comsol solve the problem. go to Physics > Properties > change Field type to Scattered TM.

You can finally start the solving process.

Visualizing the scattered far-field

You can now visualize the scattered field in the Plot paramaters > Surface section (Scattered Magnetic Field, z component). Nevertheless, the great feature is that you can now plot an angular far field plot using matlab.

First, in Comsol, Postprocessing > Domain Plot Parameters > Line/ Extrusion > select the big circle's curves. In the y-axis data, change the expression to abs(Hfar). In the x-axis data, select "Expression" and inser the following expression "atan2(y,x)". It is used to display the data along the circle, using an angular representation. Clik Ok, you should get something similar to the following.

Hfar using comsol

In order to visualize this with Matlab, click on th ASCII button, and save the plot data on your computer. Let's call it scat_circ.txt. Open Matlab. Import this data : File > Import Data > select scat_circ.txt (then Next , then Finish).

Now, just use the following command lines :

• scat_data=sortrows(scatt_circ);
• rho=scat_data(:,2);
• theta=scat_data(:,1);
• polar(theta,abs(rho))

You should get the resulting :

Hfar of a scattering circle using Matlab

To follow : You can also compared the resulting field with a theoretical diffracted circle. In the following article, I will explain how to compute the scattered field of a circle theoretically.

Le but d'un multi-sites est d'avoir un seul répertoire contenant le code de base, et plusieurs répertoires de petite taille comportant les éléments particuliers à chaque sites. Ce procédé est intéressant si vous construisez souvent vos sites à partir d'un même système de modules (exemple la même galerie, le même composant de forum, etc.). Les avantages concernent la mise à jour qui devient centralisée et plus rapide par conséquent.

Le principe

Imaginons que votre répertoire de base est /www. Tout d'abord, il est nécessaire de créer un répertoire /www/drupal qui contiendra les fichiers d'installation de base (dézipper le contenu du fichier téléchargés sur le site de Drupal).

Imaginons que vous ayez à créer deux sites web : site1.com et site2.com. Avant de continuer la configuration, ilfaut rediriger vos noms de domaine vers deux dossiers spécifiques à ces sites. Par exemple, /www/site1 et /www/site2 Ensuite, pour chacun d'eux, il est besoin de créer un lien symbolique vers le répertoire drupal de base. Ainsi, nous allons d'abord supprimer les dossiers crées plus haut, puis les envoyer symboliquement vers notre répertoire de base.

rmdir /www/site1

ln -s /www/drupal /www/site1

A présent, il faut créer un répertoire dédié à chaque site dans votre installation de drupal. Le moteur de Drupal est assez fort techniquement, et se base sur le nom de votre dossier pour comprendre quel URL appelle quel dossier. Créez donc les dossiers /www/drupal/sites/site1.com et /www/drupal/sites/site2.com. Copiez, dans chacun de ces répertoires le fichier /www/drupal/sites/all/settings.php, et renseignez-y les informations concernant votre base de données.

La lecture du fichier settings.php vous apprendra qu'il est possible de partager des informations entre les différents sites. Vous pouvez par exemple avoir la même base concernant les users, ce qui permettra à vos utilisateurs de ne s'inscire qu'à un seul de vos sites!

Après cela, il faut simplement se connecter à votre site1.com, et le script d'installation se chargera du reste de l'installation.

La suite

A présent, voilà comment fonctionne Drupal. Les thèmes et modules à gérer en commun sont à placer dans /www/drupal/sites/all , et les thèmes ou modules dédiés sont à placer dans /www/drupal/sites/site1.com (pour le site1.com par exemple).

Afin de bien démarrer sous Drupal, je vous propose de lire l'article suivant, qui vous donne 11 steps indispensable après une installation de Drupal : http://timonweb.com/the-11-most-important-things-to-do-after-you-install-drupal . Il recense juste des modules assez indispensables. A vous de les placer dans /www/drupal/sites/all, mais de ne les activer sur vos sites que lorsque vous en sentez l'utilité. C'est en anglais, mais vous pouvez le traduire avec google translate si vous n'êtes pas anglophone.

But, obviously, it gets a little bit trickier when you have to add several links to an image. Moreovre, people are nowadays using a lot of  Content Management Systems (CMS) to help in developping websites. I personnaly use Joomla a lot, and this article will explain how to add an efficient Search Engine Friendly (SEF) Image Map navigation system for Joomla.

Creation of Image Map

In order to easily create image maps with Joomla, I installed a plugin for TinyMCE. You can find it on it's google project's page a version for :

• Tiny MCE
• FCK

In order to use it, just follow their instructions for installation, and, when you edit an image, click on the new button that has been created. It will open the imagemap plugin.

Creation of a menu system

In order to have a coherent navigation system with Joomla, I mean, to have a coherent SEF strategy, you have to create a unique link for each page.  In order to have a unique link for your content, the only solution is to use Joomla's menu system. If you need to create two links for the same item, use an "alias" for the second one, in order to prevent duplicate URLs.

You could have avoided this menu creation if you don't care about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but my recommandation would be to follow the following steps.

This trick (of always using Joomla's menu system) will allow you to publish coherent and working breadcrumbs. You won't have the famous menu vs category dilemma.

Creation of links from article to Joomla content

The creation of SEF links with google when the SEF option is activited is not always obvious. The first trick that came in mind is to use the research tool, or to copy a link from a menu. But these options fails if our navigation system is an image and not a menu. If you unpublish the menu, the link won't appear. If you change an alias for a menu-item you will loose the link you put in your article.

The only solution is to put a link which is not SEF. So you could unable the SEF option, copy/paste a link and activate the SEF option again. But it's quite annoying for a hundreds of links isn't it? So, we will use a famous plugin for that. This plugin allow you to create a link to articles in your Joomla! site when you are creating content. This plugin is called LinkR.

To use it : after the installation, when editing your article, you'll see a new button bellow your article (click for a demo).

IMPORTANT : In order to use the trick of "menu system", when you create a link with LinkR, don't select an artcile (by clicking on "Article") , but instead, the menu item you created (by clicking on "Menu"), and which is linked to the article.

Make everything working smoothly

So, you have everything installed and tested? Right, let's go for the creation process!

• First, create your page with the image which will be your navigation system. Make a link from the menu, in order for it to be accessible.
• Second, create your content, and for each page, a link from the menu. It could be an hidden menu, so your visitors will only see the navigation image (in my case I put everything on the main menu, but the template doesn't show more than one sub-menu hierarchy). But, when you create your content, be careful and use the "child property", to get SEF URLs like "http://www.mysite.com/parent-menu/parent2/item".
• Third, come back to your article with the image, and create (temporary) text links to your content, by using LinkR, and pointing to the menu items, and not the article items. Copy the URL that has been created. It should look like : index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=30 and nothing else.
• Edit your image, create your links map, and for the link, use the URL you just copied from the (temporary) text links.
• Finally you can choose to keep the text links or to remove it. I choosed to keep them to help my visitors who can't see images. And it's a safety measure in the case your image won't show up.

Enjoy

It's done. You can check that your image maps to SEF Url, that the links are going to your articles (specified by the menu), and that, if you change the menu link alias, the URL of your article will change coherently.

Moreover you can use breadcrumbs

A demo on one of my website : http://www.corsica-windsurf.com/fr/windsurf/spots-corse

Don't hesitate to comment to ask precisions.

In addition you can use a very powerful extension, but probably not easy to use for a large amount of links : HTMLMap manager