Using Mootools and Joomla

Over the past few months we've really been enjoying the amazing flexibility that comes with the mootools javascript library. Its such a flexible modular system and really has a lot to offer in terms of eye candy for Joomla based or any other type of web site for that matter.

We are also pleased to see that Joomla 1.5 will have mootools built in ... On one hand this will mean that there will be a little extra bloat in terms of size of the js file but it may well remove the conflicts that seem to happen between various JS libraries and within different version of mootools.

The main thing to remember when trying to incorporate any mootools script or module into your template is that you only need one reference to the mootools file. Its probably a good practice to put this reference before any other javascript references in the section of the index file also.

Another thing to be aware of is if you are using the JCE Utilities mambot which inserts a reference to a mootools file automatically - so that means you don't have to make reference to the mootools file even if the module you are using says that you have to. If you are getting conflicts or errors with a particular script you may need to download a full version from the mootools website and just locate the mootools.js file in your site directory and update it (Make sure you back it up first though).

We really like playing with mootools but we have had some headaches figuring it out when there is a clash between scripts. We are learning on the go and hope that this helps you in some way ...

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