Book Image

Learning Joomla! 3 Extension Development - Third Edition

By : Timothy John Plummer
Book Image

Learning Joomla! 3 Extension Development - Third Edition

By: Timothy John Plummer

Overview of this book

Joomla 3 is the first of the major open source content management systems that was meant to be mobile friendly by default. Joomla uses object-oriented principles, is database agnostic, and has the best mix of functionality, extensibility, and user friendliness. Add to that the fact that Joomla is completely community driven, and you have a winning combination that is available to everyone, and is the perfect platform to build your own custom applications. "Learning Joomla! 3 Extension Development" is an integrated series of practical, hands-on tutorials that guide you through building and extending Joomla plugins, modules, and components. With Joomla having been downloaded well over 35 million times, there is a huge market for Joomla extensions, so you could potentially earn some extra cash in your spare time using your newly acquired Joomla extension development skills. We will start with developing simple plugins and modules, and then progress to more complex backend and frontend component development. Then we will try our hand at ethical hacking, so you will learn about common security vulnerabilities and what you can do to avoid them. After that we will look at how you can prepare your extensions for distribution and updates, as well as how you can extend your components with various plugins and modules. Finally, you will end up with a fully functioning package of extensions that you can use on your own site or share with others. If you want to build your own custom applications in Joomla, then "Learning Joomla! 3 Extension Development" will teach you everything you need to know in a practical, hands-on manner.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Learning Joomla! 3 Extension Development
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Zip it up and install your plugin


Now that you have created all the code for the Click to Call plugin, you need to test it in your Joomla! site to see if it works correctly. We will start out with a way that you might get this running on your development site, then, we will zip it all up into an installable file that you could distribute to other people.

Before we do that, you will need to add some phone numbers in your articles that we are going to turn into Click to Call links, so that we know the plugin works. Add some phone numbers in 1234-5678 or 1234 5768 format.

In your Joomla! 3 development website, find the /plugins/content/ folder and create a new folder clicktocall.

Copy into this folder the files you have created, clicktocall.xml, clicktocall.php, and index.html.

Now in your Joomla! Administrator, navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager, and select the Discover view at the left side. Click on the Discover button and you should see the Content - Click To Call plugin appearing....