extensions

[tea_and_toast]

Hi,

 

I was wondering if anyone could advise me on a couple of extensions that I'm looking for.

 

1. I really want to have a section on my site dedicated to each class in the school. You would click on your class and then you would see some documents (stories, poems) that this class had made. Like a little showcase area for each class. Is there an extension that will allow teachers to log in and upload their documents into their classroom space? And then display all the documents in a simple list for parents to click on and download? And something simple because our staff can be quite illiterate with new ICT things. I also need it to be able to added to each class and not just be a central area for the whole school.

 

2. I would like to add a photo gallery to the same classroom section. Each class would have their own photo gallery on their page. Teachers could log in and upload their photos to the gallery.

 

I've been looking through the extensions but I just feel a bit overwhelmed with them all. Thanks for the help!

[SimpleSi]

The Latest News module can be set to display articles from a specific section or category.

 

So for instance, create a section called pupilwork and then categories for each class. (Just start off doing one class at first)

 

Create a "welcome to our class" simple article in each category.

 

create menu links to each class "welcome" article. (This can overwhelm your main menu so you need to either create a sub -menu or copy the lovely method RTi did with OpenDNS

 

Then for each class, create a Latest News module that only shows articles from the relavent class (have to find out each class category id as the module isn't webmaster friendly )

 

Enable the module and change it so it only appears on the menu you want it to.

 

TBH - this is theoretical has none of my schools has produced enough articles to warrant their own section so I just have one Latest News module that displays all pupilwork

 

 

But the principal is then that teachers create articles and "all" they have to do is make sure it goes into the right category and it will be automatically displayed

 

I use this for a gallery

Joomla! Extensions Directory - Simple Image Gallery (in content items)

 

(the non-pro version)

 

My main problem is finding a editor that isn't flaky/works in IE6 IE7 and Firefox and allows uploading and easy selection of images from the front-end.

 

I've found JCE to be too flaky/buggy (and designed for people with 2000x2000 screen resoution ) and I only let ICT confident people use it. I'm currently trying out JoomlaFCK for teachers (which works but doesn't seem to preview images so people have to "remember" which pic00001.jpg type file is the image they want to display

 

Basic technique is for you to create a folder for each class and then the teachers create a subfolder for the specific gallery within the class folder.

 

They then upload their photos to the sub-folder and then insert

 

{gallery}class3\egyptians{/gallery}

 

in their article (a bit geeky but not too bad)

 

regards

 

Simon

[tea_and_toast]

Thank you, Simon. That was a really useful reply, will give it all a go and let you know how I get on!

[tea_and_toast]

I've tried to use the simple image gallery and I've come across a problem I just can't seem to fix. I've put a folder in images/stories called photos and have put some photos in there. In my content items page I've put {gallery}photos{/gallery}. But when I view the page it is just displaying the code {gallery}photos{/gallery} instead of the photos. I've looked through lots of support forums and as a result have chmod all the folders to 777 but this has also made no difference. Any ideas what I could try?

[SimpleSi]

Is the plugin enabled? Check via Extensions/Plugin Manager

 

regards

 

Simon

[tea_and_toast]

I'm really sorry to be a pain! I can't find extensions / plugin manager. But I did find SIG in the mambots section and it says published. Is that the right thing? Sorry!!