How to customise a Joomla template based on article ID

Working on a custom Joomla template, I needed to change the page layout for a specific article and creating a new template for this one article didn't seem to be the right tool for the job.

The solution was suprisingly easy.

How to add a CiviCRM extension to Joomla

As you probably know, CiviCRM comes bundled with some extensions, you can add these to your installation from
CiviCRM > Administer > Settings > Extensions, Select the Add New link, then click the download link opposite the extension you want to install.

The CiviCRM Extensions page includes many extensions which aren't bundled with CIviCRM, to install these:

How to configure MailGun and Google Business Apps in CiviCRM

When configuring SMTP mail in CiiviCRM and you're using a secure port like 465, you need to prepend your hostname with ssl://, eg

ssl://smtp.mailgun.org or ssl://smtp.gmail.com

How to fix microdata or structured data errors in Joomla

Microdata or Structured Data was introduced in Joomla 3.3 and you can test how Google sees any page by going to the Google Structured Data Testing Tool

If you find errors in your test results, here are some ways to fix that.

How to prevent duplicate URLs with sh404SEF

If you use sh404SEF and can't solve problems of duplicate URLs, start by going to
Components > sh404SEF > SEF URLs, then under the duplicates header compare the Non-SEF urls.

If you see different values for the Itemid parameter, then that's the source of your problem.

After upgrading from Joomla 3.5 to Joomla 3.6.0
I suddenly got a 
JLIB_APPLICATION_ERROR_COMPONENT_NOT_LOADING
error on the back end of the site.

• If started by clearing the site cache from System > Clear Cache but that didn't help
• I'm using a CDN so I cleared that cache but still no joy
• I double checked error logs but nothing there of any significance
• I confirmed that disk space wasn't an issue
• I also checked Extensions > Manage > Database to be sure everything was good there

The above checklist usually solves this error but not this time.

Joomla error "1030 - Got error 28 from storage engine"

If you get this Joomla 1030 error it's an almost sure sign that you've run out of storage space.

Joomla error 500 - Unable to load renderer class

If you get a  Joomla error 500 - Unable to load renderer class, the first thing you want to check your jdoc code in your template.

Joomla Warning JUser: :_load: Unable to load user with ID: 62

If you see a Joomla warning JUser: :_load: Unable to load user with ID: 62 it's related to a user which originally created content on your site is no longer a Joomla use. This could have happened because the user was simply deleted, or as a result of a Joomla migration.

The user ID is often 62, but it could be any other number, the underlying reason is the same, as is the solution.

What is the 'Itemid' in a Joomla URL?

If you examine the non-SEF url of a typical page on your Joomla site you'll see the ItemId parameter, here's a typical example for one of the pages on our site:

 https://www.panchroma.ca/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=143&id=13&lang=en&view=article