How to create a Menu Module

You must first rememeber what a module is. They are the boxes you find either on the left or right side of the site. If you want a menu with various links inside it, then you must create that menu first. Follow these steps to create the module.

1. Create the section by going to Content>Section Manager
2. Click New, and label your section. (For example, all sites need a Main Menu.)
3. Now you create the menu. Go to Menus>Menu Manager
4. Click New, and label the menu you want to create.
5. Now you create the module that associates with that menu.
6. Go to Extenstion>Module Manager.
7. Click New>Menu>Next>Give it a title, and on the right, select the Menu Name
8. You also want to pay attention to the Position drop down. It defaults to left, but if you want the module to show on the right side of your site, then change it to such. You can also decide what the access level is. If you have it set to Public, then anybody who comes to the site will see the module and everything in it. If you have it set to registered, then it will only show up when somebody is a general registered user on the front-end of the site. If you have it set to special, then only those who are registered and have access to the back-end of the site will see the module. Those who are only registered for the front-end will NOT be able to see the module if it is set to Special.

Once you have finished those steps, the module will be visible. To add menu items within the module, then please read the posting labelled "How to add menu items in a module."

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SMS Functionality

We did manage to use PHP to send sms using WAMP Joomla Server. For those who are interested, we use a facileform to create the joomla interface, I define phpSerial class in the facileform.process.php which can be called by the created form. You can create your own extension if you feel like it :). and you can get the phpSerial class that I use here => phpSerial

On form submission we run this chunk of code :

//Define String to send, use chr(13) for line feed
sms = "title".chr(13)."description";

//Require php Serial Class
$serial = new phpSerial;

//Open up connection to the GSM Modem
$serial->deviceSet("COM5");
$serial->deviceOpen();

//send command to GSM Modem, chr(26) is carriage return where the message ends.
$serial->sendMessage("at+cmgs=\"+6598776625\"\r\n",1);
$serial->sendMessage($sms.chr(26));

//release and close the device
$serial->deviceClose();

That's all for sending sms in Windows, you can retrieve data from database and put it into the string to send as sms too.
As for receiving sms, we fail to execute it in Windows using phpSerial. Instead we use Java to retrieve the sms and store to the joomla content database. Take a look here => http://smslib.org

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Free Joomla Template 3 - Joomlabasic Charity

Finally an update!! Recently, my schedule is packed with schools and work stuffs. Enough with the unnecessary issues :)... At last, I can find some time to make a quick conversion from the previous charity HTML template.

Joomlabasic Charity modules consist of:
user1 module
top module
right module

Remember to place the mainmenu at "top" position with "flat list" styling.

As usual free free to post suggestions. Thanks and enjoy.
You can get the template --> here

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HTML Charity Template

This month we are building a site for charity and here is the html web template. This template will be converted to Joomla 1.0 template, check back for updates.

You can get the html template here

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Joomla useful Extension

After playing around with a number of freely available Joomla extensions, I find some pretty useful ones when developing joomla sites.

1. JCE ~ pretty much an upgrade from tinymce wysiswyg editor, recommended.

2. Simple image Gallery ~ display pictures in thumbnail formats (viewable in original size slideshow) from a folder, as the name says it's simple and it works well :). I suggest using this for a gallery page.

3. mosModule ~ show a module in a content, useful.

4. denVideo ~ play flashs, videos, musics in your content or modules, another useful one.

5. Fireboard ~ install this component if you want to have a forum in your site.

6. Virtuemart ~ Good shopping cart systems, but pretty complex if code modification is required. Use it as it is.

7. Community Builder ~ let the user members feel to be part of your web community! Uploading profiles and stuffs are nice features.

8. Facile Form ~ I love this addon, it is able to create simple to advanced web forms. Sometimes virtuemart order flow will be much of a hassle for a simple customer order and hacking the code will be too much of a work. This form builder will be able to sort it out :).
this is not install and go addon, but learning how to use it will be very useful.

All these extensions are great, one problem I find is that there is rarely any support in their forums anymore.
If there's anymore Joomla extensions that you find useful and simple, do add on :).

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Sending command to GSM Modem using php Settings

the php_serial class sets the com port line by line. Windows seems to not be able to get the correct settings this way. Whenever I set the data bit to 8 the parity bits goes back to even. All these have to be done in one command line. So we have to modify the php_serial class to run the command in a single line and it solves the problem, for now.. :)

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Sending command to GSM Modem using php

I have a project on integrating sms module into Joomla interface. I found a php_serial class that enables sending command through serial port by using php. I have tested it through hyperterminal and it works perfectly well, but when I tested it with GSM Modem, the AT command seems to be not working. Anyone has an idea of how to use the php_serial to send AT command to GSM Modem? If you have any clue on how to send AT command using php_serial, please inform me :) Thanks
Here's my code

include "php_serial.class.php";

// Let's start the class
$serial = new phpSerial;

$serial->deviceSet("COM1");
$serial->confBaudRate(115200);
$serial->confCharacterLength(8);
$serial->confParity("none");
$serial->confStopBits(1);
$serial->confFlowControl("xonxoff");

$serial->deviceOpen();

$serial->sendMessage("at+cmgs=\"+6583569765\"\r");
$serial->sendMessage("hello".chr(26));

$serial->deviceClose();

?>

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