HomeSupportJoomla 1.5 Component

The Joomla 1.5 Component is depreciated and will not be receiving further updates. It is recommended to use the Joomla 2.5 Component instead.

Changelog

v0.6 – August 2012
  • Re-built with cron, error checking, and more.

Module Requirements

  • Joomla 1.5
  • MySQL database
  • PHP 5

What does it do?

This component takes articles from Brafton XML feeds and imports them into your Joomla! CMS.  The package contains a Joomla component and a plugin.  The component is the article importer itself (aka the “Brafton Article Importer”), while the plugin is used for running the component on a regular schedule (aka the “Brafton pseudo-cron Plugin”).

Installation

Please use the following steps in order to successfully install the Brafton Article Importer and Brafton pseudo-cron Plugin.

  • Login to your Joomla! administrator account.
  • From the ‘Extensions’ drop down menu, choose Install/Uninstall.
  • Choose to upload a file from ‘Upload Package File’.
  • Navigate to where you downloaded the .zip file of the component and select it.
  • Click ‘Upload File & Install’.

Uploading the zip file 

If you see an ‘Install Component Success’ message, congratulations!  You have installed the Brafton Article Importer and the Brafton pseudo-cron Plugin for Joomla!

Basic Configuration

From this screen, you can adjust settings such as your API key and which author you would like the imported articles to be displayed as.

  • Hover over your ‘Components’.  You should see a new option there named ‘Brafton Article Importer’. 
  • Click on it to access the importer settings.

Brafton Article Importer settings screen

  • Enter the API key you were given into the API Key field
  • Change the author to your choosing.  Please note that authors must be Joomla users.
  • Click ‘Submit’.
If you received a success message, then your settings were saved.  Your articles have not been imported.  Please follow the next steps to activate scheduling of your importer (aka the “pseudo-cron”).

Activating Scheduling

In order to import articles, you must activate the scheduler (aka the “pseudo-cron plugin”).

  • In the ‘Extensions’ dropdown, click on ‘Plugin Manager’.
  • Navigate to the ‘System – Brafton pseudo-cron Plugin’ and click on it.
Plugin Manager with the Brafton pseudo-cron Plugin
 
  • This brings you to the plugin settings.  Enable the plugin by setting the ‘Enabled’ option to ‘Yes’.
  • On the right, set the interval you would like the scheduler to run at in minutes. The default is 180 minutes (3 hours), which we recommend.
  • Please note: Setting this parameter below an hour may greatly increase the strain on your site.  It is highly recommended to stick with the default value of 3 hours/180 minutes.
Setting the scheduler interval.
 
  • Click Save in the top right to save your settings.
Your articles should now start importing on a scheduled basis.  Visit the frontend of your site once to start up the importer, then check your ‘Article Manager’.  You should see your articles imported with their proper categories, under the section ‘News’.

Displaying Articles

There are several options available for displaying articles.  You may use a ‘Section Blog Layout’ and display the ‘News’ section, or you may use the default view provided by the component (covered below).

  • From the ‘Menus’ dropdown, select the menu you wish to add the new view to (in this example, we will be using the ‘Main Menu’).
  • From your menu, create a new menu item.
  • When selecting a ‘Menu Item Type’, choose ‘Brafton Article Importer’, and then choose ‘Default Layout’.

Brafton Article Importer Default Layout

  • Give your menu a ‘Title’ and ‘Alias’, and customize any settings that you may need for your site.
  • Click ‘Save’.
  • Check your new menu item.  Your articles should be displayed!
It is possible to override this default view with your own styles using Joomla template overrides.