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What is RokMicroNews?

RokMicroNews is a new module, perfect for displaying your content. Your content (plus auto loaded image) are displayed adjacent to your article titles and the hover or click of these titles triggers a javascript transition to another article. Perfect for showcasing news items in a small, but structured spaced.

[span class=attention]In order to stack multiple modules on top of one another, you must create new modules: Admin → Extensions → Module Manager → New → rokmicronews and fill out the relevant details.[/span]

[span class=alert]In order for the new SolarSentinel modules to function, you must install com_rokmodules. This component facilitates the modules, as Roknavmenu does for the integrated menu. Follow the instructions below:-

1. Download solarsentinel-extensions-j15.zip from RokDownloads.
2. Extract the zip onto your computer
3. Go to Extensions then select the Upload File & Install button
4. Find com_rokmodules.zip and in install

Now all the new modules are functional[/span]

How do I configure RokMicroNews?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

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RokNewsFlash is a custom mootools module that displays your newsflash tidbits at the top of your site. The RokNewsflash also includes small buttons allowing your visitors to toggle through the different newsflash items you have set up. See it in action on the frontpage.

How do I configure RokNewsFlash?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

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The module is an article previewer and rotator. It displays content articles, in a summarised form and, using mootools based javascript transition, rotates through a series of pages displaying articles in a contracted list format.

How do I configure RokNewsPager?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

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RokStories is a great module to display your articles and accompanying images as a featured item. The module itself is facilitated by Mootools to transition between images and articles seamlessly. Perfect for showcasing featured articles on your site, as seen on the frontpage.

How do I configure RokStories?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

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RokWeather, as the name suggests, is an Ajax-powered weather module, using the Google API, you can easily display weather data from regions across the globe. This includes temperature, climate, wind speed as well as allowing the location to be configured from the frontend via the user. Perfect for any news site.

[span class=note]Remember, you can change the location displayed in RokWeather by double clicking on the current location, then type your own (as seen in the Minimal block in the screenshot below.[/span]

[span class=alert]In order for the new SolarSentinel modules to function, you must install com_rokmodules. This component facilitates the modules, as Roknavmenu does for the integrated menu. Follow the instructions below:-

1. Download solarsentinel-extensions-j15.zip from RokDownloads.
2. Extract the zip onto your computer.
3. Go to Extensions then select the Upload File & Install button.
4. Find com_rokmodules.zip and in install.

Now all the new modules are functional[/span]

How do I configure RokWeather?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

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RokMicroNews is a new module, perfect for displaying your content. Your content (plus auto loaded image) are displayed adjacent to your article titles and the hover or click of these titles triggers a javascript transition to another article. Perfect for showcasing news items in a small, but structured spaced.

How do I configure RokMicroNews?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

[span class=attention]In order to stack multiple modules on top of one another, you must create new modules: Admin → Extensions → Module Manager → New → rokmicronews and fill out the relevant details.[/span]

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RokStocs, is an Ajax-powered stocks module for your site. It has been finely tuned to give stocks character such as a coloured line graph, coloured indexes, draggable indexes, tooltips and much more. Your users can easily add, remove, and reorder the stock symbols in their portfolio, this is stored locally for them in a cookie. The module fits seamlessly into the template and is perfect for any news site.

How do I configure RokStock?

We will take a quick look at the parameters you will find when you install this module. There are 4 columns, parameters, options, demo and description. The parameter column lists each available setting for the module; options lists the available options to choose from; demo lists the options chosen on the demo and description outlines what the module does.

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RokGZipper is a plugin whose primary aim is to improve the performance and speed of your site. It does this by compressing your CSS (stylesheets) and JavaScript files. For javascript files, it compresses them altogether (via GZip) and places them in the cache folder. It differentiates between the pages so if you have a particular combination of scripts on one page, and a different combination on another, two files will be created and loaded independently. A similar method is used for the CSS but is based on path. To exemplify, all the CSS files in template’s /css directory are combined into one file, with the module CSS files being combined elsewhere. Compressing all these files means your site can load faster.

[span class=alert]Note: This plugin is experimental and should be used at your own risk. You should not use the plugin during development stage and should only activate it on a finalised site.

Also, Gzip must be installed on your server and enabled in PHP in order to function.[/span]

What does this mean in the real world?

To see how this effects a template in the a real world scenario, we’ll examine the front-page of the SolarSentinel demo site from a very average 768kb DSL connection. We used the Net panel in Firebug for Firefox to get our data.

CSS Files

First we’ll see how the site loads the CSS without RokGZipper enabled:

As you can see because the SolarSentinel template allows for maximum flexibility with almost unlimited combinations of header/body/footer/backgrounds etc, there are multiple CSS files loaded as well as some of the CSS files needed for the modules used. Let’s turn on RokGZipper and see what we get now:

As you can clearly see the 11 original requests have been reduced to 4 requests. The 104KB of CSS files has been reduced to just 18KB (17% of the original size!), and the original 1.44 seconds it took to download the CSS files has been reduced to just 359ms (400% faster!). A drastic improvement!

JavaScript Files

Now to see the effects on the JavaScript side. SolarSentinel is an extremely feature-packed template, and we’ve tried to show off as much as possible on the front page of the demo. This makes it an excellent example to really see the power of RokGZipper in action. First without RokGZipper enabled:

Once again, there’s a lot of JavaScript there to power all the features and functionality we are showing off on the front page. This of course is a somewhat extreme case, and you probably would not have this much functionality turned on at any one time. Let’s enable RokGZipper and see what we get:

The end result is even more dramatic than with the CSS. Those original 17 requests for the JavaScript elements have been reduced to just 1 request. The 164KB has been reduced to just 46KB (28% of the original size), and the 4.85 seconds it took before has been reduced to just 639ms (760% faster!).

Of course RokGZipper is particular useful with SolarSentinel due to the large amounts of CSS and JavaScript Files, but RokGZipper can be applied to any template and should improve your browsing experience significantly.

How do I configure RokGZipper?

The plugin itself has one parameter, as found in Extensions → Plugin Manager → System – RokGZipper. This option is Cache Time in Secs which delineates the amount of time the cache will remain unchanged before it is flushed for a new file. The value is set in seconds.

[span class=note]Note: You need to publish the plugin for it to work.[/span]

The popular return of the color chooser in SolarSentinel makes a third appearance, in a more conservative and complimentary format. There are several options to choose from to supplement the elegance and ease of use with the template. Simply go to the template manager to change a variety of styles and colours.

The options are as follows, and the areas that they control are indicative in their name:-

• Header Style
• Body Style
• Background Style
• Footer Style
• Primary Colour

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Creating your own presets

With SolarSentinel, we provide a series of preset configurations for the color chooser which you and your visitors can select from. However, if you wish to set or change these yourself, the process is extremely simple.

1. Login into the Joomla Administrator
2. Go to Extensions > Template Manager > rt_solarsentinel_j15
3. Set Preset Styles to Custom
4. Now, choose all the options you wish from the several options available
5. Hit the Custom Styles button in the Button menu, located in the upper right of the template manager
6. This will output all the values into the Custom Style Output box, situated below the options. Copy the outputted code from this box
7. Open the file styles.php which is located within the /templates/rt_solarsentinel_j15/ directory
8. Locate the following code block.

   $stylesList = array(
   	'style1'  => array('black', 'white', 'bg-red', 'black', "#cf0404"),
   	'style2'  => array('blue', 'beige', 'bg-black', 'grey', "#2986d0"),
   	'style3'  => array('grey', 'white', 'bg-blue', 'blue', "#035b99"),
   	'style4'  => array('orange', 'beige', 'bg-grey', 'orange', "#de510b"),
   	'style5'  => array('red', 'white', 'bg-red', 'blue', "#cf230b"),
   	'style6'  => array('green', 'beige', 'bg-white', 'blue', "#4e7805"),
   	'style7'  => array('blue', 'white', 'bg-grey', 'black', "#0269b3"),
   	'style8'  => array('orange', 'beige', 'bg-black', 'black', "#de510b"),
   	'style9'  => array('black', 'white', 'bg-white', 'red', "#cc0000"),
   	'style10' => array('red', 'beige', 'bg-grey', 'grey', "#cc0000")
   );
   

9. Edit that block to meet your needs, either by remove the code between $stylesList = array( and ); and copying in the code directly, or adding the new style code to the list of current styles or whatever method you prefer.
   [span class=alert]Ensure that you only edit the code in between $stylesList = array( and ); and ensure it is the right format otherwise you will receive errors[/span]
10. Save, and upload the file to your site.

US president has taken the first step towards ushering in an era of new relations with another long-time Washington foe.

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