Joe LeBlanc

Session: Joomla! Development Tools and Tricks [Joomla Track, Intermediate Level]

This session is for people who go beyond the administrative interface of Joomla and write PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or other custom code as a part of their daily work. Many inexpensive or free tools exist to help you track your work, debug, test your user interface, explore your markup, and generate code. However, many solo programmers have not heard of these tools or know how to use them.

Most importantly, you must use a version control system to track your code. This helps you explore your code history and also eliminates the need for ugly .bak files. Version control gives you the freedom to make changes without worrying about losing your original code.

Modern websites increasingly use JavaScript to power frontend user interfaces. However, you often need to test a certain portion of your UI that only displays after a sequence of clicks. After a couple of times, this testing process becomes cumbersome. Have Selenium IDE watch you go through the clicks once, then use it to skip ahead later.

Both Firefox and Safari have built-in debugging tools you can use to explore the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript controlling your page. Use these tools to test changes before hard coding them.

Finally, when developing code, you spend a lot of time typing things in. Do less typing by getting an editor that checks your syntax, keeps frequently used code at hand, and talks to your other tools.

About Joe LeBlanc

Joe is a freelance Joomla! developer developer based in the Washington DC area. He's the author of the book Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development,as well as the video series Joomla! Essential Training at Lynda.com. When he's not biking, writing, or making a mess in the kitchen, he can be found pontificating at DC PHP Developers Group meetings. You can learn more about him on his site or stalk him on Twitter @jlleblanc.