2024 July Product Updates

Welcome to our July 2024 product updates! We’ve been hard at work enhancing our Joomla extensions to provide you with new features, important fixes, and improved functionalities. This month’s updates include exciting additions and crucial improvements to our Joomla product suite.

If you missed our previous updates, check out the June 2024 and May 2024 Product Updates to see the full range of enhancements. Stay with us as we detail this month’s advancements, all aimed at enhancing your Joomla experience.

Convert Forms

Added Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA

We are excited to announce the Cloudflare Turnstile integration in Convert Forms.

Cloudflare Turnstile is a user-friendly, GDPR-compliant reCAPTCHA alternative that helps protect your Joomla Contact Forms from spam and abusive use. Turnstile is easy to use, provides a variety of themes and sizes, and operates invisibly in the background without requiring users to solve puzzles.

Like all our antispam solutions, Turnstile CAPTCHA is available in the free version. For detailed instructions, visit Setup Cloudflare Turnstile to your Joomla Form.

For more information on preventing spam and making your forms more secure, check out our blog post, How to Stop Contact Form Spam in Joomla.

Enhanced Options with Rich Text Editor

We’ve upgraded the appearance options in the Email and Content App by integrating a rich text editor. Previously, when creating an Εmail Νotification or a Joomla Article, you had to use plain textarea, making it difficult to style your content. With the rich text editor, you can customize your content easily without writing HTML.

If you are unaware of this, you can create Joomla Front-End Article Submission Forms using the Content App. In addition, you can Set Up Form Notification Emails in Convert Forms and notify customers or employees when forms are submitted through automated emails, among other things.

Smile Pack

Our Gallery Module in Smile Pack is gaining traction and is used by many people daily. We’ve made several important fixes to ensure a smoother user experience.

• Custom Temp Folder Issue: We addressed an issue where the gallery was not properly saved when a custom temp folder was set in the Joomla configuration. This fix ensures that all galleries save correctly regardless of your custom folder settings.
• Regular Labs Advanced Module Manager Compatibility: We resolved an issue where the gallery was not saved using the Regular Labs Advanced Module Manager extension. Users can confidently use this extension without any problems affecting their gallery.
• Non-Latin Filenames: We fixed an issue where non-Latin filenames uploaded to the gallery were not preserving their names and were instead stripped out. All non-Latin characters are converted to their respective Latin characters, ensuring proper file name preservation.

The Gallery Module has various layouts to suit your needs, including masonry, grid, justified, and slideshow. These layouts offer flexibility and a visually appealing way to display your photos. Whether you prefer the structured look of a grid, the dynamic flow of masonry, the balanced alignment of justified, or the dynamic transitions of a slideshow, the Gallery Module provides excellent options for creating a standout Joomla Photo Gallery.

Google Structured Data

This month, we’ve enhanced our Google Structured Data extension by adding a crucial missing schema property related to the author's URL. Previously, this property defaulted to the current page's URL, which could cause issues with the generated structured data in some cases. With this update, you can customize the Author URL for the following schema types: Article, Book, Recipe, and Review.

This improvement ensures that your structured data is more accurate and reflects the information you want to present, enhancing the quality of your rich snippets in search results. Properly configured structured data can significantly improve your Joomla SEO, making your content more appealing to search engines.

Advanced Custom Fields

This month, we’ve rolled out several important fixes for the Advanced Custom Fields extension to enhance its functionality and user experience:

• Articles Field Placeholder Issue: We resolved an issue where the Article Custom Field did not display the placeholder text when the “Maximum Articles” was set to 1. This fix ensures that placeholders now appear as expected, improving the field's usability.
• Video Field Self-Hosted Videos: We addressed a problem with the Video Custom Field where self-hosted videos with relative URLs were not saved correctly. With this update, your self-hosted videos will be saved properly, regardless of URL type.
• Country Field Compatibility with YooTheme Pro: We fixed an issue with the Country Custom Field in YooTheme Pro, where a single country selection caused problems when Multiple Country Selection was enabled. This update ensures smooth functionality when using these settings together.
• Handling Non-Latin Characters: We’ve improved the handling of non-Latin characters in the File Upload and Gallery fields just like we did in Smile Pack.

Since Joomla 3.7, custom fields have become a core feature, making third-party CCK extensions obsolete. With Joomla’s built-in custom fields, virtually any content scenario is possible. Start creating amazing content with our custom fields collection for Joomla and take full advantage of this powerful feature.

EngageBox

For June, we have addressed a specific but important fix for EngageBox. We fixed a rare issue with the Conditional Content Shortcode that caused errors when the content contained the word “if” and an odd number of quotes. This update ensures that your conditional content functions correctly, even in these unique scenarios.

EngageBox’s IF shortcode is a powerful tool for creating personalized content. With this feature, you can show or hide content based on various conditions, such as the current date, the visitor’s country, the visitor’s referrer URL, or their IP address. This allows you to tailor your Joomla Popups to different audiences, enhancing user engagement and improving the overall effectiveness of your campaigns.

Upcoming Sponsored Joomla Events

We are dedicated to supporting and nurturing the Joomla community, and we’re excited to announce our sponsorship of the following upcoming Joomla events:

• Germany, Austria & Switzerland JoomlaDay: We are thrilled to sponsor the upcoming conference in Hamburg on September 20–21, 2024. This event will bring Joomla enthusiasts and experts from the DACH region together for two days of learning and networking.
• Spain JoomlaDay: We are also excited to sponsor the event in Oviedo on October 4–5, 2024. This event promises to highlight the Joomla calendar in Spain, offer valuable insights, and foster meaningful connections.

Featured Interview on Joomla Magazine

Want to know more about the man behind the Tassos extensions? If you don’t have anything better to do (and let’s be honest, who does? 😂), check out this interview I gave to the Joomla Magazine in July. Get a glimpse into my journey, my thoughts on Joomla, and maybe a few laughs along the way!

From Our Blog

Stay updated with the latest insights and tutorials from our blog. We’ve recently published several articles to help you enhance your Joomla experience:

• How to Send Email in Joomla using the Gmail SMTP Server: Learn how to configure Joomla to send emails using the Gmail SMTP server for reliable and secure email delivery.
• How to Send Email in Joomla using the Outlook SMTP Server: A step-by-step guide to setting up the Outlook SMTP server for sending emails from your Joomla site.
• How to Send Emails to Multiple Recipients from a Joomla Contact Form: Discover how to configure your Joomla contact form to send emails to multiple recipients, ensuring that important messages reach the right people.

Write a Review on Trustpilot

We’d love to hear about your experience with our products! If you have a moment, please share your thoughts by writing a review on Trustpilot. Your feedback is invaluable as it helps us refine and enhance our Joomla extensions, motivates our team to continue innovating, and assists others in discovering the benefits of our tools.