Joomla Programmer: Clone Sobi Using Windows

Sobi2 business index is a powerful database program for Joomla programmers and hobbyists. Recently I used Sobi2 to create a Pet Lost and Found database.  This worked well but got confusing when I wanted to add an Adoptable Pets database. The tool provides one form with customizable fields, but some fields are not the same across Lost Pets and Adoptable Pets. I needed two forms. The only way to get that is to clone Sobi2.

Sigsiu wrote a Sobi2 cloning tool for Unix. Short of downloading cygwin, this tool doesn’t help Windows people.

Following, then, are instructions for how to clone the Sobi2 component for multiple installations using a Windows machine. The original forum post on Windows Cloning is here.

Unzip the com_sobi2 installation into a fresh directory com_sobi2. Copy that to the target directory, com_sobi2lost.

Using a bulk file renamer like File and MP3 renamer, rename all files in com_sobi2lost so that any instance of “sobi” is replaced with “sobilost.” You are editing file names in this step, not the contents of the files.

Using a grep search and replace tool like Actual Search & Replace:

Find all instances of “sobi” lowercase in com_sobi2lost contents. Change those instances to “sobilost”

Find all instances of “SOBI” uppercase in com_sobi2lost contents. Change those instances to “SOBILOST”

Edit the installation xml file sobilost2.xml

Find the administration/menu node.

Change the node’s value to a unique value such as Lost Animals

ZIP the com_sobi2lost directory to com_sobi2lost.zip

Install the com_sobi2lost.zip

The new description shows up as your menu item under components.

Joomla Programmer

Getting a chronoforms form submission land on a paypal page which then automatically submits to paypal.

Chronoforms form membership includes field mtype. mtype contains a donation value for paypal. Submit the chronoforms membership mype to mod_php paypal form. Fill in the mod_php paypal form amount field with the mtype value. Automatically submit the mod_php paypal form to paypal. Automatically return to a thank you page.

1. System cache settings must be off to garner $_POST['value']s. Otherwise you get cached values from previous submissions of chronoforms to mod_php.
2. Create the mod_php paypal form. Place it in user position “membership_dues”
   
3. create a content article, the text of which is: {loadposition membership_dues}
4. In a dummy menu, create an Article layout menu item pointing to the membership_dues content. In this example the resultant address is index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31
5. Chronoform membership form method must be POST. GET will screw up SEF links.
6. Set the chronoforms FORM URL submit URL to:

http://fulldomainhere/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31

7. Do NOT have a form target (the default is target=”paypal”) in mod_php paypal form. This creates a popup condition which is quietly suppressed by any browser with popup blocker. It looks like the form submit is not working. Test in IE to see a better error message than in Firefox:
   <form action=”https://www.paypal.com/en/cgi-bin/webscr” method=”post” name=”mform” id=”mform”>
8. Return the donator to your thank you page. Whether or not you tell PayPal to return a Post, it will return a GET. So create an HTML page for the return/thank you. If you put a Joomla page as the return, PayPal will send back garbage to index.php, and it will not redirect to the page you specify.
   <input type=”hidden” name=”return” value=”http://fulldomainhere/thankyou.htm” />
9. Fill in the PayPal amount from the submitted form via a POST variable in mod_php paypal form.:

<img src=”http://www.animalallies.org//images/stories/pawani.gif”><br>Amount $: <input type=”text” name=”amount” size=”4″ maxlength=”10″ value=”<?php echo $_POST['mtype']; ?>” style=”text-align:left;” />

10. Do NOT name the submit button “submit” in mod_php paypal form.  It clashes with the javascript form submit.

<input class=”paybutton” type=”image” src=”http://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-butcc-donate.gif” name=”submitb” alt=”PayPal secure payments.” />

11. auto submit the mod_php paypal form
    <script language=”javaScript” type=”text/javascript”>
    document.mform.submit();
    </script>

chronoforms membership application:

<h1>YourWebsite Membership Application</h1>
<table>
lots of other form values omitted for this example...
<tr><td valign=top nowrap>Membership Type</td><td><table>
<tr><td><input type=radio name=mtype value="15">Individual</td><td align=right>$15</td></tr>
<tr><td><input type=radio name=mtype checked value="25">Friend</td><td align=right>$25</td></tr>
<tr><td><input type=radio name=mtype value="50">Sponsor </td><td align=right>$50</td></tr>
<tr><td><input type=radio name=mtype value="100">Patron</td> <td align=right>$100</td></tr>
<tr><td><input type=radio name=mtype value="500">Benefactor</td> <td align=right>$500</td></tr>
</table></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan=2><input type="submit" value="  Submit  "></td></tr>
</table>

mod_php paypal form is positioned at membership_dues user position and assigned to “all” menus

<div style="text-align:left">
<h4>Thank You for Joining YourWebsite</h4>
<strong>Please complete your membership payment here</strong>
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/en/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" name="mform" id="mform">
<input type="hidden" name="image_url" value="http://www.fulldomainhere/templates/rhuk_milkyway/images/logo.gif" />
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations" />
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="yourpaypalemailhere" />
<input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://www.fulldomainhere/thankyou.htm" />
<input type="hidden" name="undefined_quantity" value="0" />
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="YourWebsite Membership" />
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD" />
<input type="hidden" name="charset" value="utf-8" />
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1" />
<input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="http://www.fulldomainhere/" />
<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0" />
<img src="http://www.fulldomainhere//images/stories/pawani.gif"><br>Amount $: <input type="text" name="amount" size="4" maxlength="10" value="<?php echo $_POST['mtype']; ?>" style="text-align:left;" />
<input class="paybutton" type="image" src="http://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-butcc-donate.gif" name="submitb" alt="PayPal secure payments." />
</form></div>
<script language="javaScript" type="text/javascript">
document.mform.submit();
</script>

Joomla Programmer

Removing Joomla 1.5 Web Link Category and Hit Counts

Joomla 1.5.9 leaves out a control parameter to avoid showing the “how many do you want to display” select dropdown when displaying a Web Link category.

To get rid of the Display # dropdown:

Go to components/com_weblink/category/tmpl/default_items.php

Remove

echo JText::_(‘Display Num’) .’&nbsp;’;
echo $this->pagination->getLimitBox();

To get rid of the category counts:

Go to components/com_weblinks/views/category/tmpl/default.php

Remove

&nbsp;
<span class=”small”>
(<?php echo $category->numlinks;?>)
</span>

There’s also no way to remove the category counts from the Web Link category listing.

To remove the category counts:

In components/com_weblinks/views/categories/tmpl/default.php

Find

<a href=”<?php echo $category->link; ?>” class=”category<?php echo $this->params->get( ‘pageclass_sfx’ ); ?>”>
<?php echo $this->escape($category->title);?></a>

After that remove:

&nbsp;
<span class=”small”>
(<?php echo $category->numlinks;?>)
</span>

Even if you turn off hits in the menu item pointing to the Web Links the hits will display anyway. Perhaps due to cache, I’m not sure, the system ignores the Table Headings set to Hide parameter in the menu item pointing to the Web Link category.

To remove the table permanently (the administrator menu parameters will now not work at all though):

Go to Go to components/com_weblink/category/tmpl/default_items.php:

Find:

<?php if ( $this->params->def( ‘show_headings’, 1 ) ) : ?>

Change this to:

<?php if (false) : ?>

Find:

<?php if ( $this->params->get( ‘show_link_hits’ ) ) : ?>
Change this to:

<?php if (false) : ?>