Elxis 5.2 feature requests

[datahell]

Facebook Comments is a third party extension. Open a new topic for it.
Facebook like: Extensions > Components > Content > Parameters > Facebook : Set the default option to Hide (you can enable it later on individual articles)
Image Gallery: There are other options available too https://www.elxis.net/edc/multimedia/. However, we as Elxis Team, are not responsible for third party extensions. How many image galleries to integrate by default in Elxis? Also note: For any image gallery if you want to look nice you must use images of same dimensions. This is a global rule.

[bledi]

Thanks for the answer
Facebook Comments: OK
Facebook like: I set it to Hide, but nothing happens. I want to show this plugin in articles, but not in category listing.
Image Gallery: I think the elxis image gallery at least the thumbnails should be resized automatically

[kyomar]

Agree with bledi about automatic thumbnails. I do this now manually with datahell's modification from a few years back with filename_thumb.jpg. It works actually great and I can decide thumbnail size. This modification has never been implemented into the gallery plugin that's why with every gallery update I have to replace with old/modified gallery plugin. I am ok with doing it manually but could you please upgrade the gallery plugin for manual thumbnails. Datahell, i can pm you the modified gallery plugin if you need it.
Thanks a lot!

PS. while we talk about updates, It would still be nice if one could chose which files to keep and not update (modifications like gallery plugin or css). After a comparison of the new/old files I can upgrade individual files manually if wanted/needed. Now I update "all" files manually so not to override the modified ones (the old way :-( ). BTW, the check file-system is great and helps a lot. Here one could flag the ones not to update.

[datahell]

@kyomar: I dont remember this modification. If you wish send it to me.

Regarding CSS modifications. During an Elxis update all Elxis core files are checked if they are up-to-date. Elxis does this by checking the hash of the official file with the one on the site. If they are different it updates the file. So, if you have perform any modifications on the file these will be lost. An exception are the "config" files and a few other files. "config" files are all the files that have a "config" in their name. Examples: mytest.config.php, shopconfig.php, myconfiguration.txt, sysconfig.css, etc. These files are excluded from update.
Usually we update the CSS files not for aesthetic reasons but because the extension's html changed or new css rules added. If you restore the old file after the update these new rules will not exist and the extension will not look correct. So never overwrite official CSS, JS, etc files.

The solution for CSS updates
The proper way to modify the CSS of ANY extension is to write your custom CSS rules in your template's CSS file. If you use a standard template, like Five, then your changes will also be lost after an update. This is why we have several times said not to use the standard template, or at least copy and rename it to something else. A solution from our side, and I am thinking of implementing this on Elxis 5.2, is a global CSS overwrite file which you will be able to modify from within Elxis administration. You could add there any CSS rules you want and these rules would overwrite everything (templates, extensions, etc). This custom file will not be affected by Elxis updates. Maybe we could do the same for javascript too.

[kyomar]

Thanks datahell for the detailed explanation about css modifications. I had to modify those files to get everything correctly lined up and colored. E.g. I have the newsletter module in the bottom of template five (love this template) with dark grey background and "enter your e-mail to ..." was in dark grey as well, so I changed to white. Whenever there was a css file updated I compared it with my modified file and updated it if needed.

The solution you suggest sounds very interesting, looking forward to it.

I have attached the gallery plugin, hope it helps.

Thanks a lot!

[datahell]

Done! I believe I made it better than you expected.

I implemented code editing functionality with syntax highlight.

In Elxis 5.2 you can:

1. Edit Modules, Plugins, Templates, and Search engines CSS files directly from Elxis administration console.
2. Edit template's PHP files (index.php, inner,php, 404.php, etc). You are not allowed to edit the administration templates and the system template.
3. Write your own CSS rules, or overwrite existing ones on user.config CSS file. This file Elxis loads it automatically last, even after the template's CSS file, so you can easy overwrite anything. You don't have anymore to modify extensions for styling purposes and moreover your style will stay intact after an extension modification. Even more, you dont have to modify your existing template to use this new feature. Elxis applies your CSS file in a very smart way. Off course there is also an -rtl version for RTL languages.
4. Write your javascript code on user.config.js file. You can write anything and Elxis will load it after all other javascript files have been loaded.
5. For CSS file there is also validation available (through W3C).

See attached screenshots.

[datahell]

And this is how Elxis 5.2 adds your custom user.config CSS/JS files in HTML, I repeat without you to have to modify your template!

[kyomar]

Why I am not surprised, you are a genius datahell. I cannot wait to start using this new feature, makes my/our lives so much easier and of course elxis even better - if that is possible, because it's already awesome :-).
A big thank you!

[michalis1984]

Very useful feature. Congrats datahell for implementing this.

[michalis1984]

- Extensible content (custom user fields with additional data for content items)

I would love to see at some point custom content.

The way I am thinking it.

"Content"->article to be the basic content type in Elxis as it works now. But to have a way for the website creator to extent this "content" and create other types, like "content"->book, "content"->company, "content"->review, without the need to create a new component. Each of these content extensions can give the ease to the end user to add plugins at specific positions, in an easy way (by filling a field), without the need to play with the code each time in the editor and can have some logic in programmatic level.

I think mikro works the same way, because each time you create a new post it gives the flexibility to add map, youtube video etc by just filling a field. So, eg on "content"->book will be specified somehow* in programmatic level that these extra fields will be available in elxis backed when you add this content type. eg if the extra is a youtube video... you will just have a field to fill with the youtube id of the video and the video will be visible at the specified position. If its the map, just need to add the coordinates. Elxis will check if plugins are installed and enabled, if not I can give a warning in frontend. Not all extra fields will make a use of a plugin. In "content"->book for example extra fields can be simple thing like a text, author, year of release etc. which the extension will use in its logic to create eg a table or a graph.

* the way I am thinking of it this "somehow" can be a new small class like *book.class.html somewhere in com_content which will extend the parent core class of content component only with the necessary classes, which will be responsible to specify the presentation and the logic of the content if needed, and maybe an xml which will specify which fields are available or required in the backed.

[datahell]

2. Να παραμετροποιηθεί η δυνατότητα οι χρήστες - μέλη να στέλνουν προσωπικά μηνύματα μόνο προς τους διαχειριστές με ξεχωριστή ρύθμιση και όχι το κάθε μέλος να στέλνει ανεξέλεγκτα προσωπικά (spam) μηνύματα σε όλα τα μέλη.

@perseas: Added parameter in component User that controls to whom standard users are allowed to send personal messages. Available options are: None, Administrators and Managers, All (default). This option applies only to standard users. Rest user groups like admins, managers, authors, etc, are allowed to send personal messages to everyone.

[datahell]

@bledi and @kyomar: The Gallery plugin was updated. The following new options are available since Elxis 5.2:

You can enable the generation of images thumbnails. You can set various options for the thumbnails (width, height/auto-height, distortion/crop). The thumbnails are generated automatically by Elxis, get saved in filesystem (in order not to be generated on each page refresh) and automatically updated if you change the settings. On each individual plugin integration/gallery you can have different settings.

Also added the option to set the number of columns to 3 or 4.

[kyomar]

That's great datahell, something else to look forward in 5.2 - exciting times. Thanks a lot!

[datahell]

@perseas: Component Search > Search engine Content

The following new options added in Elxis 5.2:
1. Option to display articles' images: Yes / No / Only if image exists
2. Option to set the text (subtitle actually) position: Top / Bottom

Also the highlight option works now on the search results too.

[perseas]

@datahell: Thank you for responding to my requests. Keep up the good work.