In one word it means Bootstrap.

Initially I wasn't particularly fussed about adding bootstrap to the Joomla front end but after looking through the work done in the strapped Joomla 3.0 branch I've been sold.

I could see the case for adding bootstrap to the admin - It makes sense to keep a uniform admin experience and to make css and javascript available for developers within the Joomla framework to avoid any extra overhead to the admin. However, I couldn't quite see how adding bootstrap to the Joomla front end made much sense if we wanted to maintain the diverse design focussed eco system that currently exists for Joomla.

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And now we return you to your normally schedule program ...

The Intrepid Joomla template is our first template release in the last two months.

I explained in this blog some of the reasons why we had fallen behind schedule and despite my best efforts, my estimate regarding Intrepid's release date proved to be a little optimistic.

So in an effort to draw the proverbial line in the sand that I spoke so valiantly about, Intrepid is now our July template release and all members have been given an extra two months to compensate for skipping the previous two months.

With this revised schedule we will have the August template release available in the first week of August and thus we will be back on track to release all future templates within the first week of the month.

And so what about Intrepid?

Well I'm glad you asked ... Intrepid is the latest of our responsive Joomla templates that has a tonne of intelligent browser scaling and switching that will make your clients love you and keep you fixated on resizing your browser when developing your site.

The Intrepid Joomla template is a stylish mix of business, blog, news portal and gallery rolled into one with all of the power and flexibility of our Zen Grid Framework, Zentools and Zenkit power tools.

View the demo | Read the documentation | Download.

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It seems like only yesterday that I released v1.3 of Zentools - oh wait it was ...

Unfortunately one feature that was omitted from that release was the ability to assign independant links to your items. This is a commonly requested feature on our forums and I believe represents one of the last missing pieces that makes Zentools one of the most versatile Joomla content modules available.

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[Back in December I wrote about our release schedule and the various delays we faced at the time. And so, sadly, today I am writing to explain the absence of a template release for May and the delay in the release of a Joomla template this month.

There are a few things that have lead to us falling behind again. Some of these factors include supporting two current versions of Joomla, an increased level of support on our forum and ticket system as well as a significant increase in the ongoing maintenance of our back catalogue.

In addition to this, the added complexity and time required to release responsive Joomla templates has caught us by surprise and although I feel like we are gradually getting back on top of things I felt that I needed to draw a line in the sand.

](about-the-club/the-bamboo-state-of-the-union)

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After a fair amount of wrangling (and delay) v1.3 of the Zentools module is now available.

This is a major update and one that I almost considered releasing as version 2. It comes with some great new features including the ability to apply presets and defaults as well as a new pagination layout.

Members can download Zentools from the Zentools download page.

Introducing Presets and defaults

While Zentools is mostly easy to configure, we have added preset and default options to make it even easier to get up and running. Now it's simply a matter of clicking a few buttons and you can replicate any of the default layouts we showcase on the Zentools demo site.

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Yesterday I released a major update of our free Joomla twitter module. jTweet has been in need of a bit of a refresh for quite some time and this release adds a lot of flexibility and a lot of power. jTweet is built on the brilliant Sea of Clouds Tweet script with a few additions and enhancements.

Drag and Drop templating

If you've used our Zentools module you will know how easy it easy to create your own content layouts using the drag and drop interface; and now that same flexibility is available in the jTweet module. That means you can just drag and rearrange the elements you want to display in your tweet stream which means you have total control over how your twitter stream appears.

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We have played with a number of different online project management services over the last few years - Basecamp, Lighthouse, Apollo and Assembla to name a few. Each time we have changed project tools it's signified a maturing of our workflow. From the early days when we just used Basecamp as a collection of todo lists to our current platform Assembla, which integrates our svn, ticket system and bug tracking.

I've been keenly following the progress of the Hot Project task management software for the last few years and while it's functionality in the past hasn't matched our needs, I think all of that is about to change.

The new Hot Project platform features some killer features including a fast user interface (my main gripe with Assembla at the moment), advanced scheduling tools, proforma project creation, document management and more.

So on the eve of the release of Hot Project live I thought I would chat to fellow Melbourne based developer Richard Smallwood to get a bit of insight into what drives Hot Project and where it is headed in what seems like an already crowded marketplace.

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In the last week, two of our fellow Joomla template makers have announced that they will be dropping support for Internet Explorer 7 and so after looking at the browser statistics for IE7 use over the last few months I think it has come time to say goodbye to IE7 support.

Just as the folk over at Joomlart have mentioned Google, Facebook, Drupal and even Microsoft have dropped support for IE7 and given that the upgrade path for IE7 is considerably more mature than it was for IE6, we think that IE7's time has come.

Dropping IE7 support means that we will ensure that the page degrades gracefully for IE7 users, but we won't go to great efforts to get it to reflect the same cutting edge performance we are getting out of modern browsers.

This change will come into effect on August 1st.

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[Typekit support has been a part of our Joomla template framework since v1.0 however I really havent focussed that much on it given the rise and proliferation of google fonts. If you don't know about Typekit, it's a web font provider that has an extensive range of quality fonts available for you to drop into your Joomla template. It's a paid service but it's relatively cheap and really has some fantastic font choices available.

Using quality Google fonts

While google fonts are certainly easy to work with, and are also free, it takes a bit of work to sort the wheat from the chaff, although there are some good blog posts out there offering suggestions for choosing quality Google fonts. (The last link is my favourite) .

So despite the fact that Typekit is a paid service and compiling your own font stack take a little extra work, I think the benefits are obvious when it comes to choosing consistently good quality fonts for your website.

](https://typekit.com/)

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I'm sure there are a number of causes for this but this issue just came up on our support forum so I thought I would post the solution here for anyone else facing the same issue.

The solution itself actually comes from this post on the Joomla forum but it's a little tricky to find it, as it's mixed in with all of the Joomla admin password reset posts etc.

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We are looking for a motivated and talented developer to join the Bamboo team.

What you need.

The ideal candidate has been working with Joomla for at least 3 years, has a deep knowledge of PHP and jQuery and lives and breathes html, css and web standards.

Work in a remote team.

We are a remote team so there is no need to move "down under" but you must be motivated, organised and have an eye for detail.

Scope

Please note that this is a junior part time position with a view to moving full time.

Make contact.

If you have the skills and want to join us in creating cutting edge Joomla templates please send your contact information, link to your portfolio and relevant work experience via the contact form.

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