User Documentation

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Content plugins

About Plugins

Introduction

Plugins are Joomla! extensions that do something behind the scenes in response to a trigger. There are about 160 core plugins in over 20 groups. Third party developers provide many more. The following image shows the start of the plugins list with the list length set to 5 for the convenience of the screenshot.

Plugins list

Plugin Types

In the plugins folder of your site you will see the types. For example, you will see a content folder, which contains plugins that manipulate content, and a user folder, which contains plugins to do with users. You can filter the list by Type or by Element, such as contact, which may include several Types.

Plugin Parameters

Plugins may have few or many parameters. For example, the Content - Email Cloaking plugin offers a choce of two cloaking methods wheras the Editors - TinyMCE plugin has a long list of optional parameters. All of the plugins have suitable defaults. Often all that needs to be done is Enable or Disable a particular plugin as need arises.

Plugin Execution

Plugin execution is triggered by an event. For example, the code that assembles an article for display has events named onContentAfterTitle, onContentBeforeDisplay and onContentAfterDisplay. They are used to position any user-defined fields in the selected locations.

Individual plugins

Very few of the individual plugins are documented here. They are covered by Type in the Help page of each plugin.

Joomla! Update Notification

Icon and Task

There are two plugins with similar names:

  • Quick Icon - Joomla! Update Notification
  • Task - Joomla! Update Notification

The first checks for Joomla updates and notifies you when you visit the Home Dashboard page. It has one parameter: the Group of this plugin (this value is compared with the group value used in Quick Icons modules to inject icons).

The second periodically checks for the availability of new Joomla! versions. When one is found it triggers a task to send an update reminder email to Super Users. The email can be customised via System → Mail Templates.

The emails sent by the Joomla! Update Notification System plugins are intended to help keep the software up to date, which helps the website stay secure. Updates should be installed as soon as possible after release.

Plugin Status

The two separate plugins may each be Enabled or Disabled.

  • With Quick Icon ... Disabled the Home Dashboard Checking Joomla ... icon remains inactive, although you can select it to go to the Joomla update page.
  • With Task ... Disabled: the task to send an email is not triggered.

Task Parameters

From the Administrator menu go to System / Scheduled Tasks and select the Update Notification item from the Scheduled Tasks list. There are a number of parameter and information tabs there to view and change if appropriate.

Frequency of Notification Emails

The frequency of task execution is set to 24 hours by default. That means the Joomla website will check for an update to core and all extensions, plugins, modules and templates installed at 24 hour intervals. A value of 0 would send an update email every time the site is accessed. 0 is for testing only!

Note that the task is triggered by site activity. If you are the only user it will be triggered at your next visit if that is a lapse of more than 24 hours.

Super User Emails

The email notification is sent only to users who have the Super User privilege. This field allows you to select which Super users will receive the email notifications.

  • If left blank, all Super Users of the site will receive the update notification email.
  • To limit which Super Users receive the update notification enter the email addresses for the Super Users here. If there are multiple Super Users email addresses use a comma to separate them.

Email Language

The notification can be sent in any language you are using in your website.

  • Auto (default) sends the update notification email in the default site language.
  • Selecting a language other than Auto (default) forces the update notification emails to be sent in this specific language.

Tips

  • To turn off Joomla! update email notifications simply disable the plugin.
  • The email Subject and Body text can be modified via the System / Email Templates list. Select the Joomla: Update Notification item. In a multi-lingual site it will be in the currently selected language.
    • Subject Note the {SITENAME} – {URL} placeholders are substituted when the message is sent.
    • Body More placeholders there too!