Meet Community Member: Bucklash

From time to time we spotlight active and prominent members of the SEBLOD community. Recently “Bucklash” released a new SEBLOD template extension on the SEBLOD.com store, so it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up with him to hear about his experience using SEBLOD. Bucklash has been a prominent member of the community and active contributor on the SEBLOD forums for some time, which is how we first learned about his work and interest in SEBLOD.

When did you start using SEBLOD?

I started about two years ago. I can’t remember why I looked at SEBLOD initially, but I think it was through the early tutorials that _jrmo released (and at the time, the prospect of an ebook release, which has since been abandoned in favor of developing the official manuals on SEBLOD.com).

As a hobby user I initially found it overwhelming so I gave it a break. I took it up again though and have stuck with it. Now, with SEBLOD, I am confidently looking forward to completing my next web project.

Did you try any other CCK components for Joomla, and why did you end up choosing SEBLOD?

I have looked at and used a few other CCK’s (Fabrik, Cobalt, plus Drupal 7) by following OSTraining’s tutorials if available.

If your knowledge is good, Fabrik, or Cobalt could be great for you. I am of the belief that you have to match the CCK with your knowledge, requirements and your way of thinking.

Ultimately, I do think SEBLOD makes Joomla almost as flexible as Drupal. Maybe even more in some instances. For example, I see SEBLOD as a combination of Views, Panels, Display Suite, and Entities but in a unified UI. Now that SEBLOD has added Tags as Objects, maybe Taxonomoy can be added to that list, too.

What is your favourite SEBLOD-powered website that you’ve built and why?

That’s easy! A site I built for by main business: Fretroom - Fretroom.com.au

Mucking around with web technologies is something I do in addition to my main work in music.
SEBLOD and Joomla! allowed me to make my own portal for my guitar students, my way. It works really well.

The main fields I used are button free (for nested forms), fieldx (for a kind of tagging system), select dynamic (to get lists of options), afterstore and beforerender (to do checks and alter values), text free (for custom dynamic download links)

What is your new SEBLOD product and what does it do? Are you working on any more products to release?

I wanted to use my own template that I could incorporate jQuery coolness in a way that I wanted. I saw that Coolcat Creations had made a template using Owl Carousel, but I wanted to use Slick.

Its starting point is as a List template. All of Slick’s settings are configurable from within the template area so no need to write a single line of javascript. Though, you can do that from the template, too.

I also made it so that modal windows render based on popular frameworks (Bootstrap and Foundation). You select your framework version so that the container element renders as required. I will add Yootheme’s UIK next.

My next release will be Slicked Minima. Same as Slicked List, but for form/content views instead. My site’s contact form uses this nicely.

After that I plan to add an events template, plus Flickety versions of Slicked List/Minima.

As a side note, now that the SEBLOD.com store is opening up to the community more, I’d love to see many of the great 3 ^rd party plugins available. If you’re a developer / plugin author,  contact the publishers of SEBLOD to get your products listed on the store! 

What advice would you give to new users looking to get started with SEBLOD?

• If you are new to coding and SEBLOD, then read the forums, check out the tutorials and manuals.
• If asking questions, give details like Joomla! version, SEBLOD version and examples of code or screenshots.
• As soon as you learn something post it on the site as a forum post or as a tutorial (You have a record of how to do it, plus it helps others, and the more examples the better).
• Experiment with the padlock for when creating fields (is field for all content types of a certain object or just the one content type).
• Experiment with live values.
• Experiment with typographies.
• Experiment with search & lists.
• Experiment with field storage (custom is for fieldx and groupx, you’ll rarely use it)
• And always check the db to see how and where your data gets stored!

Basically… don’t be afraid to experiment! It’s a great way to learn this software.

Is there anything else you’d like to add / say to the community?

Yes… as an Open Source community, consider the ways that you can contribute back to the SEBLOD project. Particularly think about new knowledge  in the tutorials section. Klas does a great job with support on the forums, so with new knowledge you learn, consider  writing a tutorial about it!

Thanks to Bucklash for his time and responses for this interview!