What? Is not that simple as place a <href="index.php">Home</a> and you're done?

Yes and no... The Joomla routing engine is smart enough, to redirect all such above links to the default menu item in most cases. But using the core multi-language engine in Joomla 1.7+ has created a little-bit different situation. Let me explain!

In several previous tips(like Turn caching on!, Caching reloaded, Give a boost to your Joomla site and couple of others) I urged you to turn caching on wherever is appropriate. Recently one of my readers had criticized me, because he tried to follow the tip, but on several modules he used simply he didn't found the option to turn cache on (or off) in module settings.

Indeed, this might be a problem, since some modules does not have this option! this little detail don't need to stop you to do so!

You just finished a development of a new component/module/plugin, which has multilanguage support, or just finished a translation of such a Joomla addon and want to doublecheck the result, and don't know how to do it? Don't look further, Joomla supports some useful debugging mechanisms that can make it easier to locate untranslated strings and diagnose problems with language translations in installed extensions.

Sometimes it is necessary to include specially formatted fields within a string to be translated. This usually happens where numbers are involved but can occur for dates and times or when precise formatting instructions are required.

Joomla is a great piece of software, and the developers are deserved allready full support for keeping it evolving. One of the easy methods are to keep those Powered by Joomla texts and messages in place, and visible. But what if - with good reasons - you want to get rid of those? For example to make less obvious for Joomla-hackers to identify your site as a possible next target - to name only one of possible multiple reasons. (Read also this article about how to remove the Generated by Joomla! tag!) Or you may want to keep it, but a bit tweaked, to reflect better your contribution to that site of yours. The same questions are arising: where that footers are coming from?

Despite claims to the contrary Joomla 1.5 does have an ACL system. It may be rudimentary but when fully understood can be very useful.

I'm a multilanguage guy, you might allready know that Living in a multilang environment, I use on daily basis at least 3 languages, and I have contributed to internationalization of many open source (and not only) software packages - so naturally I am in the multilanguage site development from the start.

Joomla is a truly international application and supports the translation of all strings contained within it. Templates are no exception on this. They are a bit neglected, but a little extra time spent here will ensure that the strings used in your templates are translatable will pay back - and will give you an edge over your competitors.

The Joomla ItemID-related management of modules is a powerful tool, but sometimes you need to show/hide parts of your site on two special cases not covered by this tool: when you need to show/hide things regardless of the active ItemID - for example on all detail listings page of a given component, or when you need to deal with a component which have poor support of ItemIDs - as VirtueMart, which is notoriously misbehaving in this regard.

When a registered user adds a new entry in your SobiPro powered business directory in your Joomla site you might want to add a link pointing back to his Community Builder profile. Sounds simple... but the powerful templating system of SobiPro might be cryptic even for advanced users. And you might not have a membership in SobiPro club - BTW, worth every penny!

Here is one way you can do this!