Hi,

This module installs easily and then it took me a while to figure out why I did not see anything.

- As with all first you need to enable to module. Note that this is an Administrators module, so you first need to select the admin tab.
- The module is standard listed on the "left" position, but that position is not visible in the control panel. So choose the position "cpanel" instead and it then all works

The module is great in listing the document that miss metadata information, great work !

Bart

I have literally spent days going through every of the flash and of the non flash gallery plugins. And I have kept going back to Phoca.

Phoca is maybe not the most sexy looking, or the examples are not that trendy, but when it comes down to actually working and being able to figure out, there seems to be only one name in town that brings the gallery, multiple item upload, slideshow, etc, etc together.

The gallery plugins in Joomla show the great and ugly of open source, there is lots of choice and it is very very hard to differentiate the ugly from the diamond in the rough. I wished there was a space to compare them all one by one, but there is not really. Since I spent days, maybe over a week trying them all out, I can confirm Phoca is a diamond in the rough.

The main issue with this extension is:
It is listed as native Joomla 1.5, but when you try to install it, it does not work without activating the Legacy 1.0 plugin

No doubt, Joomla is an fantastic product. Yet there is a constant mind contortion going on because you have to think about menus when you want to generate any content (a page), or of menus do not generate content it may be a plugin that generates content, and that plugin has to be on the page in question for it to work.

This pages and items completely takes that mind bending out of the Joomla experience, and it is a real relief. Not that I could not reach the same results before, but the steps are only 10% and you see all the elements that create a page together, so it is just quick and easy to get the page you want.

I had to try several plugins before I got lucky. This plugin should indeed be part of the core code. I works well and is simple enough to get going. The look is clean.

If you first use it, have a look at the settings, since attachment by initial default only show to logged in users, which may confuse you at first.

Great tool that is well focused on what it wants to do !
Thank you.

I tried several Joomla mapping extensions for Google maps and this one is by far the easiest to get going. Download the module and install it and the rest is very intuitive.

What is great is that you can define several marker points and that it does not require you to learn any complex syntax.

I just would like to see some more configuration possibilities. There is no clear way to change the wording for getting directions and I did not see a way to work with Google KLM files. Yet with these shortcomings I come back to this one after having tried some others.

Also note: This is 1.5 native, many other map plugins seem not to be 1.5 native.

This extension makes Joomla into a totally different experience. It is like going from a push bike to a car, without the pollution.

This should indeed be part of Joomla, it makes it so much easier to administer a joomla site.

Just make sure PHP5 is running or gets activated. For 1and1 hosting you need to create .htaccess in the web root folder with the following lines.

AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

Phoca is a real quality solution if you want a gallery. The product works well and there are a lot of extension and options that work together in a very consistent way in my experience. It take care of all the basics like bulk updates, grouping, categorising and gives many options to link galleries together.
I had worked with Gavick first, which is ultimately promising a more flashy presention, but Phoca works and the site and author are really friendly in a real open source spirit like Joomly itself it. Highly recommended.

This extension is easy to install and use.

Not only does is prevent spammers with Captcha but is also fixes one major Joomla issue. I.e. once this plugin is installed the system no longer sends the password in the clear to the user.

I wished I could get my search engine friendly URLs back though