Archive for December, 2010
Split Views using Nooku Framework
Split View showing the boats list in Harbour, our example component
A month ago Martin asked a very interesting question on Twitter.
Possible to load a detail view & it’s related list view besides each other in the tab of a third view with the “H” of HMVC?
Short answer, yes offcourse ! Luckily our blog doesn’t have a 140 char limit so I can also show you how. In this tutorial I will explain:
- How to create a Ajaxed Split View.
- How to render that Split View from a module.
We will use the overlays we learned about in my previous blog post, and apply this to create the Split View.
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MySQL Query Cache
As some would be aware we have been working on a multi-site installation of Joomla! that is running in excess of 130 sites for the Belgium Police. Needless to say performance is paramount hence we have spent a considerable amount of time researching and deploying the right server technologies. This has included the use of Nginx rather than Apache, APC for opcode caching and a little gem in MySQL called query_cache.
Query cache is something that to my knowledge only existed in MySQL until Oracle released 11g. It’s not the same as the caching historically found in Oracle and Microsoft SQL, both of which would cache the method/procedure but not the result set.
MySQL’s query cache is a must have configuration which is as simple to configure as to allocate it with some memory. To see if you’re already running it try this in command line…
Nooku Jam Stockholm
Nooku joined forces with the The Swedish Joomla! User Association to bring the first Nooku Jam to Stockholm on the 5th of February 2011. The Swedish Media Association has kindly offered their venue to host the jam. With two main rooms and multiple smaller break out rooms the venue really breaths creativity and can easily host 50 participants. Ideal for a Nooku Jam!
Nooku Framework is considered by many as one of the most interesting developments in the Joomlasphere of the last year. Not only because of the spectacular code reduction (up to 80%), but also for the many features that were previously unavailable to Joomla developers:
- Near-zero-code HMVC
- REST support
- Object Relational Mapping
- Out of the box security features
- Extensibility through CoC, DI, Mixins …
- Extreme re-usability
If you are a Joomla or PHP developer looking to learn how to build better Joomla extensions faster you don’t want to miss this. To cover our expenses for food and drinks we are asking a very small entrance fee. Don’t wait and register now!
Project Deployment with Assembla
Assembla FTP build configuration
For the best part of a year we have been using Assembla for all of our Nooku development. The first public example being the Nooku Developer Portal. Assembla is not only a great tool for our Nooku developer portal, we also use it for all our client projects. Assembla itself has a plethora of features, two of which are methods of deployment, a Build Tool and a FTP Tool.
The build tool utilises Capistrano and boasts some rather heavy duty capabilities. I have been testing this with Nooku Server, deploying to my own cloud server and whilst the setup is far more complex than a simple FTP deployment I can immediately see the advantages. For example the ability to run server side scripts allows for database updates to be run.
Putting Nooku Server on a diet
Development of Nooku Server is blazing ahead. Integration of the multi-site features has started. If all goes as planned we should be able to demo a first workable version on our upcoming Nooku Jam in Rotterdam this weekend.
At Nooku we pride ourselves by doing more with less. And when we mean less we mean a lot less, as Stian nicely demostrated in his latest blog post.
Joomla 1.5 counts nearly 300k lines of code. That’s a lot of code ! Before we start improving Nooku Server, we would like to cut away any unused features.
To do that we need your help. We are curious to find out which Joomla core extensions you are using, and more importantly what features you are not using. If you have a moment please fill out our little form below and let us know. Thanks !
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How I became a Nooku contributor
Christian Hent aka Captain 'H'
After a longer break, I re-joined the Joomla community about a year ago and was first shocked, then a bit confused. Johan, lead developer of Joomla 1.5, had left Joomla and was now working on a new project called Nooku. After the initial shock and confusion, curiosity followed. I signed-up for the mailing list and before I knew it found myself inside of a community, full with friendly and helpful developers.
Eagerly I began to explore the possibilities of Nooku Framework and played with com_harbour, Nooku’s sample component. I love demos that just work and help me to understand how a framework is intended to be used and com_harbour is just that. It works.
Harbour is a simple component build on Nooku Framework which manages something like a harbour dictionary. It supports BREAD, searching, letter indexes, pagination, ordering, SEF, various possibilities to limit the displayed data by relations, a nice dashboard plus a lot of trifles. The whole component is deliberately kept simple.
After three months of learning and playing I had some ideas on how to improve it. So I took the bold leap and asked if I could help maintain it and add new features to it. To my surprise I got the job as lead maintainer and have been working on it since.
Nooku Server, Joomla on steroids
Our partners, from the first participants to latest newcomers, each have played a role in the growth of Nooku. Not only have they contributed to build our project; they embody the philosophy of Joomla and Open Source: to choose collaboration over competition, to choose innovation over commerce, and to contribute to the benefit of everyone.
Over the past 3 years the combined efforts of our partners allowed us to build innovative Open Source technology: First Nooku Content, for multilingual management, and later Nooku Framework, a new brain for Joomla. Today, together with the Belgian Police we are taking a next step.
The Belgian Police and Joomla
Belgium being the small country it is counts no less then 190 police zones. Each of those 190 police zones has it’s own website, running different (proprietary) systems. After the release of Joomla 1.5 in 2008 most zones took the plunge and migrated their sites to Joomla 1.5. At the moment 130 zones are using Joomla.
Until recently all of those installations where hosted separately on one dedicated server. To increase the usability, ease of maintenance and continued growth, the Belgian Police asked us to help them to build a multi-site platform. And off course we said yes !
AJAX Widgets with Nooku Framework
We have been claiming for quite a while now that Nooku Framework helps you to write less code. A lot less! So time to put our money where our mouth is and show you a little example.
Today’s topic: Building an AJAX widget with just a few lines of code, actually just one line. We will be using a new simple technique called overlays. You don’t believe me? Watch and learn!
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