Hot Joomla Tips

Here is what I learnt as I got the latest version of Joomla functioning:

Problem: Your admin password is changed and & bull and bullets are all over your site.

Heres what to do to fix it: There are 3 ways possible.

Method 1. If you remember the admin email, just use "email lost password" to find out what it has been changed to.

Method 2. Open up the MYSQL database and change the password directly for the administrator. The password is stored as a MD5 hash, so you need to insert an appropriate value into the password field.

use: admin = 21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3.

Make sure you only insert the '2123..' value. This means "admin" in MD5 hash.
Now both your login AND password are 'admin'.

Method 3. Still uses the MYSQL database: Run the following query. Note that it works on 3 tables.
It creates a new super administrator, called admin2, whose password will be 'admin'.

INSERT INTO `jos_users` VALUES (340, 'Administrator2', 'admin2', 'my-email@domain.com', '21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3', 'Super Administrator', 0, 1, 25, '2005-09-28 00:00:00', '2005-09-28 00:00:00', '', ''); INSERT INTO `jos_core_acl_aro` VALUES (341,'users','340',0,'Administrator2',0); INSERT INTO `jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map` VALUES (25,'',341);

If the query won't work, change the value 340 to one that is not used in the id field of the table. Notice that it is used twice above, in the jos_users AND jos_core_aro tables.

Also change the value 341 to a value not already used in the table if that one won't work. It is in two tables also - jos_core_acl_aro, and jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map.

It may take you a few tries to get unused values for both tables. But keep working, you get it if you work at it.

Once you have the values inserted, go login at the Joomla Admin part as 'admin2' password 'admin'. Thats the hardest part done! You should be able to get in. Make sure you change your passord straight away.

Now how to get rid of the &bull and bullet points everywhere:

This is just a setting that has somehow been changed. Just go to Global Configuration - System - Debug Settings, and set them both to 'No'. That is: Debug System - No, Debug Language - No. Now save and you should be good to go!

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Unable to write entry error : php50x.php on line 66

This was the error I got at the end of the install.
The site just showed a white screen and the message:

"No configuration file found and no installation code available. Exiting..."
I tried lots of things, as this was the second install of Joomla (the first on another server). I fixed the error by changing the permissions for the joomla root directory in the file manager. Until I did this I could not even do basic things like delete files with the media manager. Then you should be rocking! Enjoy your Joomla Site!! If it's still not working make sure you have set up a user for the site in mysqladmin in the admin area of your site.

Changing background color:

Are you having trouble changing the main background color in Joomla?
The color tag is called "whitebox". It is a Div down in the templates section. I was using the milkyway skin, so the entry I had to change was down in the directory:
templates/rhuk_milkyway/css/template.css

And that should save you looking as long as I did.

Use a site such as hexday.com to choose the color number you want, then just change the number in the whitebox DIV and you are done!

Changing the "Welcome to the Frontpage" message

This was not easy to find. It actually down in the menu control. Go to MENUS/MAIN MENU*
Then click on the HOME entry, then on the top right of the screen there are 4 items, choose the bottom entry PARAMETERS(SYSTEM). There it is at the top.

Polls:

I have created my poll, but it won't show on the frontpage. How do I get it to show?? You need to go into the COMPONENTS and publish the Poll. Then go to MODS/Polls and choose the poll to display from the dropdown list on the right hand side.

Then you should be good to go!

Changing the text in the top boxes 'latest news' and 'popular':

The css file for these is not TEMPLATE.CSS, like for the main page color. The control for this is found in the css file for the color scheme you are using. I was using the BLACK color scheme, so the tags i changed were in the BLACK.CSS file: a:link, a:visited { color: #fff; }