Introducing Colour Shift
Colour Shift is a clean, crisp and colourful Joomla template that uses media queries to deliver a responsive design that scales to suit your visitor's screen size. Colour Shift joins our growing catalogue of other Responsive Joomla templates (Platform and Responsive).
Crucial info ...
If you haven't seen it yet you can see it in on the live demo. Otherwise you can see a list of the features, read through the documentation or download the template now.
We were late again ...
You may have also noticed that this is slightly late (well quite a bit late), so in keeping with our policy of supplying you with any joomla templates that you were entitled to during the term of your subscription but were not released during your subscription, if your subscription ran out between the 1st December and the 14th January then please drop us a line via the contact form and we will supply you with the Colour Shift files.
January Joomla Template
Work is well underway for the January Joomla template and we are aiming at releasing it by the end of this month. The next design is another stunning offering from David Vuu that I'm sure you will agree is simply beautiful. You can see a full screenshot on David's Dribble profile.
The bamboo working bee
While I recognise that most of the visitors here are more than likely facing winter at the moment, Australia has just started to warm up and that generally means getting out into the garden and cleaning up some of the debris that has built up over the last few months - (well more than a few months if I'm honest).
Cleaning up ...
I'd like to extend the summer vibe to all of our Joomlabamboo members and enlist your help to clean up the debris here at Joomlabamboo. I tend to be an enthusiastic typer - often using more letters than needed for a word - and while the spell check on OSX works ok, I sometimes miss crucial typos in the rush to hit the publish button.
Harvesting fruit ...
As an incentive for pointing out where my fingers have gone wrong on the keyboard, each typo found will add an extra day to your membership. These typos can cover our template language files, extensions, demo sites, docs etc (not the forum though).
Spraying for bugs, picking the flowers ...
If you are feeling super summery you can also help to spot unknown bugs in the extensions and templates too. Each confirmed bug will add a week to your subscription and just to show you how appreciative we are of your time, if you include the fix we are going to be super generous and add an entire month to your subscription.
Where to start ..
You can drop your bugs and typo's into the Working Bee Forum if you spot something awry.
Just add the details there with a clear definition of the issue (if it's a bug) or a provide a link to the page with the typo.
If the typo or bug hasn't previously been listed then at the end of the week this will go towards your tally and days, weeks or months will be added to your subscription.
Resizing images with Zentools
The Zentools module uses our own image resizer that can be found in the JB Library plugin and the Zen Grid Framework plugin. It is a powerful resizing tool that has the ability to resize and cache images and is used extensively in the zentools module.
10 Joomla headlines you won't see in 2012
2011 has been a big year in the Joomla world.
The year that was ...
With the rise of Joomla template frameworks and Joomla CCK's, a new release cycle, two new Joomla versions, and download numbers hitting a staggering 27 million, Joomla's position and reach in the competitive open source CMS market hit new heights and the Joomla ecosystem itself became richer and even more diverse.
What's not in store for 2012 ...
So in the spirit of predicting and forecasting for the year ahead - here are ten Joomla headlines that you are not likely to read on blogs and press releases in 2012.
Special mentions
With thanks to Steve Burge, TJ Baker, Corey Webb and Michel van Agtmaal for helping to curate and refine the list.
A bright Joomla template to end the year
To end the year off on a bright note the December Joomla template release is going to be a very colourful number. The Colour Shift theme - or Shift as a working title - has been on the drawing board since September 2010.
It's one of those designs that I have toyed with off on and on over the last 12 or so months - just waiting and hoping something might come of it. Thankfully though I managed to find some time recently to refine it and the screenshots below show the end result.
We are aiming to get this one out the door by December 31st so please keep an eye out during the end of year break (if you are taking one) for the release.
Introducing Platform - A responsive Joomla template
Well after a considerable delay, I'm very happy to announce the availability of the November template.
But it's December?
I described in the Bamboo state of the union post some of the reasons for the delay in the release of this theme and I hope to be able to elaborate some more next week once we clear the decks of some other outstanding things on the todo list.
Subscription expired in between now and November 1st?
If your subscription expired in between the 1st of November and the 22nd December then you are entitled to a copy of this template. Please make contact with us via the contact form and we will give you the files for this Joomla template.
Download, documentation and demo
In the meantime if you are a member already go on over and download Platform. And if you haven't seen it yet - check out the Platform demo site. For the run down on how to use Platform please ensure you read the Platform documentation.
Overview
Platform is a responsive Joomla template that features the new zentools module, that in the case that you missed the announcement, is a mult-tasking responsive module for for Joomla that is capable of creating some simply amazing galleries, slider, carousels, slideshows and more.
Screenshots
You can see a selection of screenshots below that highlight the way that this theme will morph / respond to your screensize.
Bamboo christmas coupon
It's that time of the year again where we get to say thanks to all of our members for their support throughout the year.
The coupon "christmas" will add a 25% discount off any new subscription. In addition to this current members can add another 20% off that reduced price when they use the member coupon "jbrenewal". If you are a lapsed member you can also use the coupon "jbrenewal2" and add 10% to the reduced price.
You can see a list of plans on offer on our subscription page.
Platform is coming ...
In other news I hope to release the Platform template later on today and the aim is to have the December template available by the end of December.
Once we have Platform released I will give you all a thorough overview of why we have been so heavily delayed with the November template, but for now I'll keep my head down and keep working on releasing the Platform theme.
Introducing Zentools
For some time now we have been working on streamlining our workflow and in particular consolidating some of our core code base. The unified Zen Grid Framework Plugin we released along with the Responsive Joomla template were the first wave of the consolidation and I am happy to say that stage two is now here.
The Zentools module is a flexible (read responsive) Joomla module that can deliver some stunning content and image galleries from a range of content sources.
Check out the demo here or grab yourself a copy.
Responsive layouts
The beauty of the Zentools module is that it is 100% responsive. All of the layotus whether it be a slideshow, carousel, list, grid or accordion will respond to the width of your template and if your template permits to the width of the browser.
This means that you can now use a slideshow in your content that will scale beautifully on mobile platforms (if your template supports it). Check out the Slideshow demo and resize the browser to see whta I mean.
Drag and Drop
It features a super simple drag and drop interface which controls the various content elements available in the module. This gives you unprecedentated flexiblility when it comes to determining how and where items in your gallery will be laid out.
Dynamic Parameters
Gone are the days where you had to sift through acres of settings in order to control your content. The Zentools module dynamically populates the relevant settings in your module based on your layout selection, content source and element selection. So if you are using Joomla as your content source then you wont see any settings that relate to K2 and vice versa.
Images from a directory as a source
One of the limitations of the current stock of modules has been that we haven't had a simple way to populate a slideshow from images in a folder and then attach it to your content. Slideshow3 certainly has that ability but the Zentools implementation makes this almost effortless.
A unified Joomla 1.5 and Joomla 1.7 module
In keeping with all of our recent releases the Zentools module will install on either Joomla 1.5 or Joomla 1.7 from a single package with no trouble.
Recently expired members can get a copy
I spoke last week about the various interuptions to our development process over the last month to six weeks and as a way of making this up to recently expired members, we are going to make this module available to you. So if your membership ran out from the 1st November to today just send us a note via the contact form and we will pass a copy of the module on to you.
Zentools Roadmap
After we get the next theme out the door - which I hope will be available by Friday - the plan is to retrofit all of our old templates and quickstart packages with the Zentools module.
And then once that is done I will be adding support for some more content sources such as flickr, twitter and perhaps some more Joomla ccks.
Also on the cards is the addition of some new layouts to choose from such as content tabs and another variation on a slider.
We are certainly keen to here what you would you like to see in the module? So if you have some ideas - let us know in the comments.
How to add a default menu item in Joomla
After years of using Joomla it's easy to lose sight of the simple things. We get asked a lot of the same questions on our forum about how to use Joomla and by far the most popular is the one concerning the Joomla menu item id issue that we covered a while ago.
Last week we were asked how to create a default menu item in Joomla and so I have just posted the tutorial for creating a blog category menu item and setting it to the default menu in Joomla 1.7.
Over the next few weeks we will be populating the Using Joomla section of our knowledgebase in the hope that we cover a good portion of the questions that new users have when they first start using Joomla. So if you have any questions that are screaming out to be answered let us know and we will add them to the list.
The Bamboo state of the union
As some of you may have noticed it's now December and we are yet to release the November template. November has been a funny month for us with some staff changes, a design that didn't quite come into it's own until quite late in the piece as well as needing more time than anticipated to bring a new module to the table. All of this has lead to us being incredibly late with the next template ... but please don't despair there is some good news ahead.
The Platform Joomla Template
The good news is that the November template - Platform - is almost ready and it is stunning. It's a clean full width template that uses Masonry to create complex (but easy to control) layouts in a non-traditional blog format. It is also a responsive design and will scale to suit your iphone, android, ipad device as well small screen and large screen monitors. Check out the full width screenshot here.
