Fabrik User Manual 0

Preferably a graphics library such as GD or Imagemagick should be installed on your
server.
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What's new in Fabrik 2.0?
The main menu has had some options added and some removed:
+ Plug-ins - allows you to install new functionality into Fabrik, be that new element
types, form actions, table actions, visualizations or validation rules
+ Visualizations - create new types of views on multiple data sets. E.g. a calendar view
or a charting view
- Validations - these are now added when editing an element
- Validation rules - these are now installed from within the plug-ins section
Form creation:
Now rather than form's defaulting to storing data in tables called
"jos_fabrik_formdata_x", you can specify the name of the database table you want to
store your form's data in.
Rather than requiring a group to be created before creating the form, Fabrik now gives
you the option to automatically create a group when you create the form. This leads to a
much more intuitive process for creating the forms.
Actions performed on form submission are now stored as plug-ins, each form can contain
multiple plug-ins which can be triggered in either the front or back end, and on editing
or creating a record. We have ported Fabrik 1.0.x's email, receipt, redirect and custom
PHP sections to plug-ins. Finally of course, the plug-in architecture allows for expansion
of these features such as sending SMS's messages.
Elements:
By applying a plug-in architecture to Fabrik's element structure Fabrik 2.0 should allow
for a plethora of new elements to be created, currently available from fabrikar.com's
downloads section are the following extra plug-ins:
• Google map - displays a Google map, and allows your users to place a marker
when adding or editing a record. The mark up for the map coordinates are
outputted in the geo microformat.
• CATCHA - create an image verification element to reduce spam from your
forms.
• Rating - provides a series of stars that can be clicked on to apply a rating.
• Colour picker - opens a pop-up window where you can select a colour.
•
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• Yes/no - a simple yes/no radio option, that when displayed in the table shows a
corresponding tick/cross
Installation
To install Fabrik:
• Download the latest version from http://www.fabrikar.com/project/downloads,
and save it onto your hard drive (e.g. in c:\)
• Open your site's administration page e.g. http://www.mysite.com/administrator,
and sign in as the site administrator.
• From the top menu, select "extension->install/uninstall"
• On the next page press "browse" next to the " Package File" field and locate the
Fabrik component zip you previously downloaded.
• Press "Upload file and install" to install Fabrik.
• A message will appear asking you to wait whilst we uncompress some zip files.
Please do not navigate away from this page whilst this is happening.
• Once installed you are given the choice to install a sample form and table.
After installation you can access Fabrik's administration section from Joomla's top menu:
components->fabrik.
We now provide a nightlies page where a snapshot of the SVN code can be found:
http://fabrikar.com/nightlies
Upgrading
Upgrading from Fabrik 1.0.x is not possible - sorry we simply have too many changes to
make this possible.
Upgrading from a previous version of Fabrik 2 is possible - simply follow the same
instructions as for installation. You element,groups, forms, tables etc will all be left in
tact as well as your table's data.
Additional Help
Whist this document covers the functionality of each part of Fabrik we also have
additonal learning material, details of which are listed below:
A comprehensive series of tutorials can be found here:
http://fabrikar.com/help/tutorials
Our wiki which contains additional information, please take some time to add or update
it as this is a community driven effort.
http://fabrikar.com/wiki
And finally of course we have our forums:
http://fabrikar.com/forums
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To get the best response please post in the most appropriate board for your subscription
level and please provide as much information as possible about what you are doing. We
LIKE screenshots we LOVE links to the pages in question and we will practically MARRY
YOU if you attach a video!
What is Fabrik?
Fabrik is the application builder to use in Joomla. It allows you to create
forms to record your data
tables to display, filter and report on the data
visualizations to display your table data in a appropriate manner (calendars, maps etc)All
of these views can be shown in your site's front end.
Key Concepts
Placeholders
Through out Fabrik we often refer to placeholders, these are special bits of text that you
can enter in parts of Fabrik's administration forms which when shown on the live site will
be replaced with dynamic data.
An example of a place holder is:
Place holder
Description
{tablename___elementname}
This is what we call the "full element
name" it is replaced with data that
element's data. If in a table view then this
is the current rows data
{$my->id}
This is replaced with the current users id,
you can replace the 'id' with any field of
the jos_users table
You can replace 'id' with the following
values:
• name
• username
• email
• usertype - string representing
user type e.g. "Registered"
• block - is the user blocked
• gid - the acl group that the user
belongs to
• registerDate
• lastvisitDate
• guest - is the user a guest
{$their->var->id}
This is similar to {$my->id}. However the
'var' in this example should refer to the
name of a request variable which contaiins
the user id to load.
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