The H1 tag has been utilised by Google since its beginning advent, it is the element that defines the title for a article. This may confuse some people who understand SEO (search engine optimisation) and use blogs thinking that 'title tags' and H1 are two different things, sure they are; but we need to step back a few years to get and understanding.

Does anyone one here still remember the concept of 'tables', it was a method used prior to css and tablesss layout? Am I giving away my age here? :) No seriously I know we still use tables today and a lot of sites depend wholly on them, however a Joomla site owner may not; some of you who have only every designed a site in Joomla may not have even come across tables. Heres what a typical table would look like:

Tables would have column and rows, these rows would have cells; within each cell you would write your content. So you could have a whole column with 15 - 20 cells each with its own unique content, each of these content 'articles' would need a title; these titles would be wrapped in the H1 tag to make them look bigger and bolder and dinstinguish between each content. Google decided to give weight to the H1 tag for the reasons metioned above, of course if the primary keyword is included in this 'title' for the content it gives Google a better and clearer understanding of what the rest of the content is about.

Joomla however was not created with the search engines in mind, in fact it is quite the opposite; you can not just pop Joomla out of the box and have a wholley search engine friendly site. More then likely you have to tweak core files or utilise 3rd party extensions that will do this for you. In order to get H1 tagging you would have to go through this process also. The main content headings in Joomla are wrapped in the proprietary class ‘contentheading’, therefore H1 tags are not assigned. This could be done manually but I have provided a process that does this automatically but also applies css, thus making the H1 tag smaller and more appealing to the eyes.

\components\com-content\views\frontpage\tmpl\default_item.php
\components\com-content\views\article\tmpl\default.php

Please ensure that you make a back up of this file **you have been warned** prior to making any changes. What you are looking for within the file is the tags with the class contentheading, you would simple wrap this tag in the<h1><h1> to get the desired affect; however this will look extremely ugly and big.  So what I propose is that you add the css also:

 <h1 style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 5px 10px; font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(161, 123, 165);"></h1>

This kind of css styling makes the title look presentable and appealing, you of course can choose any color or styling that you want.
To make things simpler for you I have added a modified version of this file to this post, all you would need to do is a search for the string of css styling above in the file and make the neccessary styling changes that reflect your site; save and upload..

H1 Hack download link here.

• 2 Comments

Here at WowJoomla we believe that 1.5 is not just a cleanly coded product of genious minds, but rather a new way of thinking for all Joomla developers, the shoulders upon which we can stand and grow.

For many end users, there's not much difference between Joomla 1.0 and Joomla 1.5. But believe me, 1.5 has a strong unrevealed yet potential which will play an important role in Joomla's taking over of CMS market in the following years. And the foundation of the anticipated success of Joomla 1.5 is the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architechture it was built with.

Here's how Trygve Reenskaug, the inventor of MVC, described the concept back in 1979:

1. Models

   Models represent knowledge. A model could be a single object (rather uninteresting), or it could be some structure of objects.

   There should be a one-to-one correspondence between the model and its parts on the one hand, and the represented world as perceived by the owner of the model on the other hand.

2. Views

   A view is a (visual) representation of its model. It would ordinarily highlight certain attributes of the model and suppress others. It is thus acting as a presentation filter.

   A view is attached to its model (or model part) and gets the data necessary for the presentation from the model by asking questions. It may also update the model by sending appropriate messages. All these questions and messages have to be in the terminology of the model, the view will therefore have to know the semantics of the attributes of the model it represents.

3. Controllers

   A controller is the link between a user and the system. It provides the user with input by arranging for relevant views to present themselves in appropriate places on the screen. It provides means for user output by presenting the user with menus or other means of giving commands and data. The controller receives such user output, translates it into the appropriate messages and pass these messages on to one or more of the views.

Long story short, Model stores and manipulates state ("hands"), whereas View renders it to a user ("looks"). Controller receives user input and routes it to a corresponding Model ("brains"). It also decides what View to use

Next time we'll create a simple Joomla component with MVC. In the meantime, enjoy the funny MVC tune, written by James Dempsey! :)

After you have dugg this post, please click this link to check if you qualify to receive a free copy of Digg Motivator!

• 1 Comments