The big news is that the framework now supports Google Fonts - as you saw in the recent release of the Newstream template. This feature adds an extra layer to the visual aesthetic of your site and gives you the option to use google fonts for your logo, headings, body text or navigation elements. We will be updating the docs later today so be sure to check out the options available there in the next day or so.

Continue Reading

I'm happy to announce that the Newstream Joomla template is now available for all of our club members. New stream is a simple news portal or Magazine template with a bold color hierarchy that is perfect for creating an elegant Joomla magazine or Joomla news site. It has a wonderful K2 template that is perfect for ;multi-user blogs or magazine type layouts.

The template is a little late in delivery but we had to delay this release in order to make it compatible with the latest version of the Zen Grid framework. Version 1.05 of the framework includes a few new tasty features such as support for Google fonts, better implementation of the logo or the option to use Google font replacement for the logo as well as a handful of other smaller layout tweaks and refinements. I'll be spending the rest of today porting the existing templates to the new framework and will put together a special announcement regarding the release of the new version of the framework.

For now you can see the Newstream template in action on the demo site, or read about its features on the feature overview page or check out the indepth documentation on the doc page.

Continue Reading

The very first edition of the Joomla Community Magazine has just hit the presses and judging from the responses via twitter and in the comments on the magazine it's already quite a success. There has been some amazing work done by the team in putting this complex site together and the list of authors is already very impressive.

The site design was created by our friends over at Komrade (aka Joomlaworks) and is an edgy design that fits nicely with the other official Joomla site designs. While there is still some functionality yet to be rolled out this is an awesome release and should hopefully be the base for informal, indepth and insightful reflections on using and working with Joomla from users and developers alike.

Continue Reading

We have just released a pretty major update to our free jQuery JB LIbrary plugin. The aim of this release is to cut down on conflicts caused by other instances of the jQuery library loading on the page. jQuery is a fantastic javascript library but it tends to misbehave if there are multiple versions of the library being loaded and unfortunately some Joomla extension developers dont provide an easy way to turn the references off. JB Library can now remove extra instances of jQuery as well as any other javascript you want removed from your site's output.

Continue Reading

After a slight delay the bamboo team have come up with the results of the avatar competition that we announced a few weeks ago. The voting was tight and to reflect that we have given away some smaller subscriptions for second and third place getters. But in the end the guy with the donkey won - what can we say but we like donkeys - so Id like to congratulate Lex for winning a 12 month subscription to our Joomla template club and also say a big thanks to all of the other entrants. We hope to run a similar competition in the next few months so please stay tuned.

You can check the run down of the entrants and the final result on the avatar competition forum thread.

Continue Reading

Last week I got a little carried away on the blog and posted perhaps a little bit too regularly. I think the whole blogging thing can be a little addictive, and after talking to a few other Joomla bloggers my suspicions have been confirmed (Im thinking of starting up a bloggers anonymous group) ... soooo ... as way of bringing some more order to the workflow Im going to keep the updates regular but stick to a daily routine.

This week Ill be rolling out some daily themes for blog posts and Im going to try my best to follow them. Monday is probably a good day to start off with some music, i hope you are enjoying the music to design to series and the latest edition - Music to Design to volume 6.

Continue Reading

Development on Newstream, our Joomla template release for July, is coming along nicely and tomorrow I'm planning on cracking open a fresh installation of K2 v2.3 to put it through its paces. I thought since the sub pages are starting to come together so nicely Id give you a snapshot of the simplicity that you should expect from the template.

The emphasis of this template is really on creating a clean and simple layout for you to use to highlight your content - mixing strong typography with lots of white space ... Anyway you can check the screen grab after the break.

Continue Reading

The Daggerfin site is pure genius and is another example of the single page folio type site that gets a lot of attention across the web galleries. I love the fading cutout css affect on this page. There are a few other sites out there that are utilising the technique but the mix of textured hand drawn stuff and this effect is great.

Continue Reading

I just recently came across this faq on the Joomla.org forum from RussW that sums up the often troubling subject of Joomla and server permissions. Its amazing how many issues arise due to poor or incorrect server setups. This issue tends to mainly affect new users since once you've lost a day or a week of your time troubleshooting, you tend not to make the same mistake again.

For new users or old I think this post is certainly well worth taking the time to read, it might end up saving you or your clients a few headaches.

Continue Reading

I thought Id post a much cruiser non-electronic track for the music to design to series today as the last few entries were at the heavier end of my listening palette. Andrew bird is a consummate whistler although it doesn't feature so much in this song and I think his music is a perfect adjunct to pushing pixels around on your computer monitor. I love the film clip and its certainly worth a listen if you like downbeat groovy folky music with violins.

Continue Reading

[Earlier last year I experimented with posting design inspiration and general Joomlabamboo news over at the Bamboo Pixel blog. Somehow or other that blog kind of fell off my radar and as you can probably see I've been putting a lot more energy into blogging here so ... I have decided to port the design inspiration series to the JB blog. The designs that will be featured wont necessarily be based on Joomla but I will endeavour to highlight some of the non template or customised template Joomla sites that ;are out there.

So to launch things off here is my first design inspiration Crush Lovely and yes isn't it lovely :).

](http://crushlovely.com/)

Continue Reading

This track by Zen Paradox was one of my favourite early 90's trance tracks. Although its a bit darker, more intense and a little heavier than the track I posted a few days ago by Emeralds I still think its worthy of being included in a music to design to collection.

Continue Reading