Essential Joomla 1.5 extensions

With Joomla 1.5 coming out of beta at the end of January, the new version of Joomla has already got some great extensions. We thought it would be helpful to share what we consider to be some of the essential extensions for Joomla 1.5.

We have chosen the extensions we particularly like and are using on some of the websites we have up and running on Joomla 1.5. In this post will be mentioning extensions to help SEO, customise blogs, display images and manage communities.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) extensions for Joomla 1.5

While Joomla 1.5 is an improvement on Joomla 1.0.1x for search engine optimisation, we still advise using extensions to make sure your website performs to its full potential in terms of getting indexed. The following two extensions from Joomlatwork will enable you to have truly search engine friendly URLs and give you more control of your meta tags:

• Smartsef - For Search engine friendly URL's
• SEF patch - For better meta tag control (you'll need to patch Joomla 1.5 core files)

Look out for sh404sef which is coming soon to Joomla 1.5. Yannick Gaultier has released an early beta version (link) which has most of the same features as sh404sef for Joomla 1.0.1x. This extension enables you to have SEO friendly URLs, improved meta tag management and add h1 tags around the article titles. We think Yannick's sh404sef patch for Joomla 1.0.1 is excellent (we use it here at Good Web Practices) and we're looking forward to the extension coming out of beta for Joomla 1.5.

Customising your blog in Joomla 1.5

You can make your blog look and function better by adding these 4 extensions:

• JomComment - The best comment system for Joomla 1.5 in our opinion
• Blog post calender - Shows the date of the blog post in a neat css format next to the blog post title
• Blog post avatar - Adds the avatar/gravatar of the author next to the blog post title
• Adsense module - The easy way to add Google Adsense to your website
• Joomap - A simple sitemap extension which generates both HTML and XML sitemaps

Displaying images in Joomla 1.5

There are already lots of great ways to show images in Joomla 1.5. Here are a few of our favorites:

• JSN ImageShow - A commercial flash slideshow plugin. It costs $30 but if your doing a professional project it's worth the money.
• High Slide - A lightbox type effect that zooms open an image without fading out the page

Fostering interactivity in Joomla 1.5

• Community builder

Look out in the near future for phpBB3 forum integration for Joomla 1.5! This is exciting news that is going to make Joomla 1.5 even more attractive!

Have you come across a Joomla 1.5 extension that you have found useful and think we should add?

7 Comments

David T March 04, 2008 Votes: +2	Thanks for the comments KingBt and Hummerbie! I agree that having to use legacy mode is a serious weakness for Joomap. Sh404sef also requires using legacy mode which is a shame... I think that together you make a good point that Xmap could be considered as a good alternative to Joomap. report abuse vote down vote up
Kyle Ledbetter March 05, 2008 Votes: -1	Agreed, Xmap works great in 1.5, we're using it for out new Joomla Template Site: www.JoomlaPraise.com Some other extensions we love for 1.5: * RSform is our new fav for forms in 1.0 and 1.5 * docMAN of course is a must have * EM Slideshow is a great frontpage slideshow for 1.5 * We LOVE the phpBB3 forum bridge from Rocketwerx report abuse vote down vote up
David T March 06, 2008 Votes: +0	Hi Kyle! Welcome to Good Web Practices! Your website looks great by the way! I'm looking forward to seeing the templates and extensions you'll bring out in the future. Thanks for sharing with us some of the extensions you're using at http://www.JoomlaPraise.com and the extensions you consider essential for Joomla 1.5! report abuse vote down vote up
great March 21, 2008 Votes: +0	great art. report abuse vote down vote up
J.Mihai March 24, 2008 Votes: +0	Nice article. It is such a pitty there are so few extensions available for Joomla 1.5, even with legacy more on... report abuse vote down vote up
Steve | Hannisdal Express March 27, 2008 Votes: +0	What is the status of sh404SEF for 1.5? I looked at his site and it doesn't give any inclination of when it will be native for 1.5. Also, I've heard that legacy mode is a bad thing, but what exactly does it do? Does it add some sort of abstraction layer to make things run and therefore slow down the site? Again, I've heard it isn't great, but I'm not sure what it does. Thanks. Steve report abuse vote down vote up
Yannick Gaultier March 29, 2008 Votes: +1	Hi, Good question. As for sh404SEF, I have not started anything in direction of removing the legacy plugin requirement. I would not expect that to be really hard, but it is just a huge amount of work, mostly for the backend. As for how bad the legacy plugin is, it basically only "recreates" the classes and behaviors of 1.0.x using 1.5 functions. I only looked superficially, but I can't imagine there would be significant penalities in using it. Any real data on this would be appreciated. Please note however that preliminary testing did find J!1.5 (w/o) leg. mode) to be 20% slower than 1.0. I think next releases will focus on perf. optimization though. Rgds report abuse vote down vote up