Since the release of Matukio 4.2 we had many minor releases and three major ones, which brought some nice new advanced features and some cool additions. In this blog post we are going to give you an overview about the changes.

Let's start with the biggest addition Matukio now has three new cronjobs for recurring automatic tasks (cli/matukio.php):

With Matukio 4.3 we introduced some new time-dependent features, like automatic cancellation or confirmation of events X days before the start or automatic invoices X days after it. For these recurring tasks with PHP you need cronjobs. Cronjobs just execute a script or programm in a fixed rythm, in our case the Matukio cronjobs should be executed only once a day, but you can also set cronjobs to run every X minute or just once every week.

Please note: Windows offers something similar with Windows Task Scheduler, but in this post we are going to focus on Linux systems.

Depending on your environment there are different ways to setup cronjobs. In Joomla! installations cronjobs are normally stored in the /cli folder and they are mostly normal PHP files implementing the Joomla API.In this first part I am going to show you how to setup cronjobs in an Linux vServer / Rootserver environment. There are, depending on the extension, different approaches for that, we are going to focus on the direct PHP execution.Simple cronjob on a Linux server with direct PHP execution:Login into your server with SSH - you shouldn't execute PHP scripts as root, so maybe it's a good idea to create a new normal user or depending on directory permissions you would like to use the webserver user. After logging into the server type:crontab -eIf you want, you can export your favorite editor (if you haven't done so in for example your .bashrc already) with export EDITOR=nano first - if you aren't familiar with Linux command line editors, I suggest you try out Nano, which is a pretty easy and straight forward cli editor.After hitting enter the editor opens and you see your users crontab file - in this you create the recurring tasks.The syntax is pretty straight forward - your code begins after the comments (the lines with the # at the beginning).

We are quite often asked how to change the style of an element in our Joomla extensions (for example changing the color in a heading etc.) or how to fix css problems in a custom Joomla! template. In this tutorial i am going to show you, how to easily find out these informations yourself, using the popular Firefox extension Firebug and how to apply them to your Joomla! template.Firebug is one of the must have add-ons for Firefox, not only helping you out with CSS, but also bringing various other useful development tools for debugging and monitoring HTML, CSS and JavaScript live in any web page.

So start by adding the addon to firefox by downloading it from the official addon page. After the installation you will notice a new icon in the firefox menu, if a webpage has any severe errors you will also see a red icon behind it (if script debugging is active).But in our tutorial we are going to use Firebug another way, let's say for example we want to change the heading color of the events in the Matukio eventlist overview: The color is, in this case, not directly set by the Joomla extension, but by your Joomla template. That does not change the procedure in any way. So we right click on one of the headings in Firefox and select "Inspect element with Firebug". After that firebug opens at the bottom of your browsers window. Don't get irritated by the immense output and options Firebug offers, we can already see the all informations we need.On the left side you see corresponding HTML code, on the right the CSS code which is affecting the layout of the element. We are searching for a color and you will notice that in our example it has none directly set, but only inherrited the color #333 from the body element (at least in our default Joomla template). But our h3 element isn't grey (#333) it is blue, that's the reason why this line is crossed out in Firebug. So where does the color come from? As you notice on the left side of Firebug currently the h3 (heading size 3) html element is selected (blue highlight), let's switch to the link element (<a>) by just clicking on it in Firebug. 

It's been some time since we last blogged about Matukio (version 3 in november 2013), but as you might have noticed we've released a lot of new versions since then. We were busy improving the product and neglected the bloging for a while. So, that is why in this blog post I'll try to cover up all the important changes since version 3. That won't be that easy, as the changelog is really long.

To see Matukio 4 live in action take a look at the demo page and at the new live demo (including backend access)! Additionally we also have a "short" video showing the changes of Matukio 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKjG4dgyRcM

We are currently looking for some dedicated people helping us testing our upcoming releases and make our extensions better! New versions are bringing tons of new features and changes - and with that sadly also come new bugs and other problems, which need to be sorted out before a stable release. Because we don't want that bugs on your productive sites, we need your help!Just go to Downloads -> Development Releases, choose the extension you want to help testing with and download the latest development version. When not told elsewise you should install development releases in a "fresh" Joomla installation without prior versions installed.

As a "Thank you" the first five confirmed Bugs will get an awesome compojoom T-Shirt! (One per Person)

We are very happy to announce that our events extension Matukio 3.0 is now available for download! Version 3 brings major changes to the backend (fully MVC and bootstraped now!), integrates different fees and location pages and a lot of other awesome new features!

To see Matukio live in action take a look at the demo page and at the new Product Tour at matukio.compojoom.com! Additionally we also have a "short" video showing the changes of Matukio 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy2ljavc3AY

Rewrite of the backend

We have put a lot of effort (30.000 lines of code changed) in completly rewriting the Matukio backend to the Joomla MVC patterns and the user interface to bootstrap. Matukio now integrates 100% into the Joomla 3 design, for Joomla 2.5 we have backported Bootstrap so that you have all these amazing features there too. The new backend brings a separate view for your bookings (you can now take a look of all bookings at once and not just at event specific ones), many new filters and search options and an optimized workflow saving you a lot of time. To see the backend live in action take a look at the Product Tour and at the video above.

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Today we released Matukio 2.2.2 - Primary a big maintenance update, but because I was very busy when we released Matukio 2.2 some weeks ago, in this blog post I'm going to explain all changes the current version offers in comparison to the latest 2.1 version 2.1.10. In fact 2.2 brought so many changes that we thought about calling it 3.0, but we'll save it for the next for the next Joomla LTS Version (3.5), where we will also have a complete rewritten backend (100% Bootstrap, even in the "old" areas). To see Matukio 2.2 live in action take a look at the demo page, hundreds of screenshots (both backend or frontend) are waiting for you in here.The template systemOne of the most desired and biggest changes is the new Template System for E-Mails, Export lists (like signature, participants list and csv) and certificate templates. You now can easily customize these to your need with the Joomla editor, field data can be easily inserted by using MAT_BOOKING_FIELDNAME (for example MAT_BOOKING_CITY will be replaced through the users booking value in the field city) or MAT_EVENT_FIELD for the events details. Along side you could also support multi-language through language keys. The booking E-Mail and the Certificate can also be customized / overwritten in the event edit / create dialog.New eventlist templateFitting to the new modern event template which was introduced in 2.1, we now have also a new modern eventlist template. The new template is also completely table less and optimized for an optimal events experience. Fitting to the new modern layout (which you can customize through many paramenters in the backend) you can now have hot and top events (with different css classes and some more nice promotion visuals). The template is also optimized for webinars and events with a location (you can now view the location map directly from the eventlist by clicking on the icon) - if you are using organizer pages you can also access them directly though it.Payment PluginsIn 2.2 we moved to the Joomla payments API which offers a standardized way of implementing new payment methods. Currently Matukio supports the following payment methods: Cash, Banktransfer, PayPal (both normal PayPal and PayPal Pro), PayU, Pay by check, Pay by PO, Amazon, Authorize Net, CCAvenue and some more. You can customize, enable and disable plugins in the Joomla -> Extension Manager. If you disable all, the payment processing will be completely shut off. Optimized Booking formThe new booking form has been improved many ways, starting from a better and complete summary on page 3 (now including payment details), which now complies with the european / german laws and many other small additions and bugfixes making bookings much more user friendly.Organizer pagesYou can now have custom organizer pages presenting your organizer to your visitor. You can use any HTML-Code you want for that and the pages are deeply integrated into the whole event system.New modules2.2 also brings four new different modules to you (you can still use the old one):- Calendar module offers you a nice, AJAX driven view of the next events. - Upcoming events- Booking module- Upcoming events slideshow  Import events and bookings from SeminarYou can now easily import your old event data from Joomla 1.5 Seminar. All event details, all bookings and the categories are imported into your Joomla 2.5 / 3 page with one click. Various Bugfixes and smaller improvmentsBeside the explained changes / updates you can find many other updates and improvements in Matukio, like better support for access levels, improved webinar support, hundreds of new tooltips in the backend which explain all features and options and so much more. In conclusion we like to thank you the community for your continuous bug reporting, feature requests and ideas - without you Matukio wouldn't be what it is today! Thank you!

We just released Matukio Version 2.1.0. It fixes many bugs, brings design improvements and two new views, which i am going to describe a bit later. Actually we planed to integrate some more changes (improved E-Mail Template-System, new Event-Templates and four new modules), but we decided to release this version now so you don't have to wait for the fixes. 

Let's have a look at the two new views:

We just released a small update for Matukio, fixing most critical bugs found in the 2.0.0 version and it should now work properply on Microsoft Internet Explorer.

 

We are happy to announce the first stable release of Matukio (2.0.0) today. We worked very hard on the new version and rewrote most of the extensions code and added many new exciting features, including Payment-Management, a new amazing and dynamic booking form and a new modern and social media enabled event template.For an overview about the changes take a look at the last blogpost about new features and changes of the latest development version. The demo site will be updated in the next couple of days, if you want to see the new version in action now, visit dothewebinar.com! 

By the way, beginning with the day after tommorow the price of the extension is going to be increased to 39 Euro, so take up your last chance in saving more then 30% by purchasing Matukio now!