Jeremy Roberts. A Blog

When a new version of a Joomla! extension becomes available, you usually have to un-install the current version, download and then install the new version. This will often make you lose any saved parameters for the extension being removed.

However, with two words, extension developers can save you all this heartache, resulting in an upgrade process of simply, download new version and install, upgrading your existing version of the extension.

How you ask?

Simple. In the XML installer file, declare the install tag in the following way

<install type="component" version="1.5.0" method="upgrade">

The method is the key! When set to upgrade, Joomla! will simply overwrite any files being installed. Of course, these files need to be writable either by the web server, or the FTP user in order for the install/upgrade to be successful, but it will let you know about that.

You can use this attribute when doing a clean install of an extension too, it’s not restricted to upgrades only!

Extension developers, please start using this feature! It makes keeping a Joomla! site up-to-date much easier and keeps the whole process simple for end-users!

Ever wanted to use a menu item to link to a particular article or component, but don’t actually what that menu item to appear on your site?

First, create a new menu from the Menu Manager in your Joomla! Administrator area and call it something like ‘hiddenmenu’.

Now proceed to add new menu items to this ‘hiddenmenu’ and be sure they are Published. You will likely want them to be publicly accessible too. This allows you to set menu specific parameters for items like content articles, contacts, components and more, without actually showing the menu item on your website.

Basically, that’s it. Using the JCE editor for Joomla!, edit or create an article. To add a link to the ‘hiddenmenu’, select the text to link and click the ‘Add Link’ button. The JCE editor will popup a window allowing you to select an item to link to. Select the ‘Menu’ option to display the available menus. Then, expand the one you created earlier called ‘hiddenmenu’. Finally, select the menu item you created and click on the Insert button.

Save your article and take a look.