Many of the templates we have developed at the website make use of custom HTML modules which are great for displaying text or images inside the modules which you can create and publish at your website.
IMPORTANT : For more information about setting up the custom HTML modules for the template read the installation guide.
To create a custom HTML module complete the following steps
Log into the Joomla administrator area of your website
Select the Extensions menu and Module manager menu
Select the New button to create a new module
Select the Custom HTML option
Setup the module position as show in the screen shots below
After you have setup the module position select the save button to save and publish the changes to the website
Note: Not all templates use a Module Class Suffix and you can leave the module class suffix blank if the module class suffix information is note included in the installation guide.
If you plan to include a number of images in the template slideshow which will be displayed on the home page or other pages at your site we recommend you optimize / compress the images first to make the images smaller.
Reducing the size of the JPEG images will make your website load faster and give your visitors a better user experience.
Free Image Optimization Sites & Software
The following websites are great for compressing JPEG files and can reduce the size of the image by up to 30% without loosing any image quality.
We recommend visiting all the sites noted below and experimenting with each one to see which one gives you the best result.
The JPEG Mini is a free and easy to use site. All you need to do is upload the JPEG image via the website and it will automatically compress the image which you can then download to your computer.
The great thing about JPEG Mini is that you don’t loose the image quality after the image is compressed.
The image optimizer tool at Yahoo is free and easy to use and produces some good results.
Again all you have to do is select the up loader tab and choose the JPEG image you want to compress.
Once the image is compressed then you can download it to your PC.
Another very useful feature included in Smush It is that you can enter your website address and the tool will scan all the images included in your site and give you the option to compress them.
One piece of free software we would recommend you download is called RIOT which stands for Radical Image Optimization Tool. RIOT is free and very easy to use and produces some great results.
From the tests we have competed we have compressed JPEG images by up to 30% without loosing any image quality.
RIOT is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7
Google Analytics is a powerful reporting tool which you can use to understand where your web site traffic is coming from plus it will give you a better understanding about your web site visitors behavior and help you to make improvements at your Joomla site.
Why should you use Google Analytics
It’s free to use
Provides you with detailed reports about where your traffic is coming from including demographics, technology used, visitors flow plus much more all of which can be easily accessed via the online reporting tool
You can get a better understanding of your website visitor behavior patterns. For example which page they most visited, which page did they exit at, how long they spent on a page and lots more
You can make improvements to your website based on the reports generated by the reporting tool
Its easy to add the Analytics code to the Joomla template
Once you have created the new account log into the website
Select the Admin button located in the top right menu
Click the new account button to create the new account for your website
Complete all the fields for the account
Select the create new account button located at the bottom of the form
Step 2 How do I get the Analytics code
From any Analytics page select the Admin button
From the account administrator area select the property (account profile name you setup for the website you want to track)
You will now see a number of tabs, select the tracking info tab as show in the screen shot below
Open up the Notepad application on your computer
Copy the code from the analytics page and paste the code into Notepad
The reason why we advise you to use notepad is because it is a raw editor and will not generate any unwanted, rogue code when you are copying and pasting code.
Step 3: How do add the Analytics code in the Joomla template
All the templates we have released at the website for Joomla 3.3 plus some of the latest templates we have created for Joomla 2.5 allow you to easily add the analytics code via the built-in control panel.
All the template zip packages we have released at the website are structured in the following way to make it easy for you to quickly access all the information you need.
Zip File Contents
Joomla – The Joomla directory includes the template zip file for the latest version of Joomla
Photoshop Files – This directory include the Adobe Photoshop PSD used to create the design
Template Images – This directory includes all the images we have used for the design
Template Install Guide – The directory includes a step by step installation guide which will guide you through installing and setting up the template at your website.
Template Quick Start – The directory includes the quick start files and installation guide to help you setup the quick start package.
Photoshop Files – Directory includes the Adobe Photoshop source files