Joomla Jumpstart

Sometimes finding documentation for Joomla features is like searching in a darkened home for that illusive flashlight. Even if you find what you're looking for, it may be no help at all (are these batteries dead?). Likewise, documentation on Joomla is often difficult to locate and when you discover something in the area where you're looking, the thing you need is missing. There is a well-lit, often comfortable place where you can find anything you're searching for -- the Joomla source code. Using a powerful text editor like jEdit, you can often quickly and easily locate the information that you need.

If you do a minimum Joomla! install, many of the common extensions will not be activated (Who's Online, Syndicate, etc.) or listed in the various managers (Module Manager, Plugin Manager, etc.). To install them manually, you need to modify the XML descriptor files. Here I'll show you how.

Here is a small chunk of code added to the Administrator interface of the com_contact component that will parse raw text into separate contact fields.