This release of SermonSpeaker will not work with 'magic_quotes_gpc' turned on

Starting with SermonSpeaker 4.4.9, "Magic Quotes" need to be turned off or the installation will fail with the above error message. Magic Quotes is a PHP setting which is usually set in the php.ini file and seldom in the .htaccess file.

It was originally meant as a way to make PHP scripts safer by automatically escape each dangerous special chars. However it turned out to generate more problems than what it solved. So now it is depreceated in PHP 5.x and will be removed in PHP 6.x.

Joomla 3.x decided to make this a requirement and will not work correctly with Magic Quotes enabled. Since SermonSpeaker 4.4.9 is compatible with Joomla 3.x and makes use of part of the code which is incompatible with Magic Quotes, this requirement is now also valid for SermonSpeaker 4.4.9

If your server still has this enabled, you most likely need to contact your hoster and ask him to turn it off. If you have access to the php.ini file or are allowed to use php_flags in your .htaccess file, you can also disable it yourself. The PHP manual explains that very well.

If you can't disable Magic Quotes, Sermonspeaker 4.4.8 will be the latest release you can use.

Migration

Migration is supported from SermonSpeaker 3.4.2 and higher to SermonSpeaker 4.0 or 4.5.4. Other versions may work, but are not tested. It's recommended to upgrade to SermonSpeaker 4.0 or 4.5.4 and if it was successfull use the Joomla updater to get the latest release of SermonSpeaker.
SermonSpeaker 3.4.4 contains support for jUpgrade which should do the database processing for you.

Update your existing SermonSpeaker to at least 3.4.2

• Before attempting a migration, make sure you have at least version 3.4.2 installed.
• If you have an older version you need to update that first.
• If your version is at least 3.2.2, you can directly upate to 3.4.3 while using the package found in the download section.
• If your version is older than 3.2.2, you need to get the matching upate package from the JoomlaCode Repository to get your version to 3.2.2.
• After that is successfully done you use the SermonSpeaker 3.4.4 package to update to the last release for Joomla 1.5.

 Migrate from SermonSpeaker 3.4.2 or 3.4.3 (Joomla 1.5)

1. Install SermonSpeaker 4.0 in your Joomla! 2.5 or SermonSpeaker 4.5.4 in your Joomla! 3.x.
2. Copy (or export/import) the old SermonSpeaker database tables (usually jos_sermon_sermons, jos_sermon_speakers, jos_sermon_series) from Joomla! 1.5 to the new database for Joomla! 2.5 using phpMyAdmin or a similar tool. Make sure to drop all existing SermonSpeaker tables (starting with #__sermon_...) first and adjust the table prefix (jos) if needed.
3. Install SermonSpeaker 4.0 or SermonSpeaker 4.5.4 again. This time it will detect the existing tables and apply the needed changes to it.

Migrate from SermonSpeaker 3.4.4 (Joomla 1.5)

1. Run jUpgrade in Joomla! 1.5.
2. Install SermonSpeaker 4.0 in Joomla! 2.5 or SermonSpeaker 4.5.4 in Joomla! 3.x. It will detect the existing tables and apply the needed changes to it.

Warning

Unlike previous versions, SermonSpeaker 4.x will delete all SermonSpeaker database tables on first install and uninstall. This is needed for a clean uninstall and is Joomla standard. It also makes it easier for future updates to take care of database changes.

Further Informations

There is a thread in the forums which has some more informations in it. If you encounter some problems with the migration, feel free to post in this thread.

Pagination and Tooltips in SermonSpeaker

The pagination and tooltips used in SermonSpeaker are the standard Joomla ones. If they don't show correct, this means most likely that your template is missing styles for them. You will have to add CSS rules to your templates CSS file. I've put together some basic example CSS rules which should work:

Pagination

#main .pagination li {
    display: inline;
    margin: 0 2px;
    text-align: left;
}

Tooltip

.tip-wrap{
    z-index: 10000;
}
.tip {
   float: left;
   background: #ffc;
   border: 1px solid #D4D5AA;
   padding: 5px;
   max-width: 200px;
}
.tip-title {
   padding: 0;
   margin: 0;
   font-size: 100%;
   font-weight: bold;
   margin-top: -15px;
   padding-top: 15px;
   padding-bottom: 5px;
   background: url(../images/selector-arrow.png) no-repeat;
}
.tip-text {
   font-size: 100%;
   margin: 0;
}   

Easy steps to create a Podcast

Setting up the parameters

Title: The title of your podcast. Will be shown everywhere.
Description: A description of your feed. iTunes shows this in the iTunes Store as (surprise!) description of your feed.
Copyright: iTunes shows this below the Logo in the Store

Read more...

iTunes needs a well-formed RSS-feed to populate the podcast. SermonSpeaker 3.4.2 does provide this feed with the following URL:

www.yoursite.org/index.php?option=com_sermonspeaker&view=feed

SermonSpeaker 3.4.2 will also respond to the older format ("...&task=podcast", used with SermonSpeaker 3.3.1) and redirect it to the current one.

Read more...

Intro

In Joomla (and thus SermonSpeaker) all text coming from the program itself is handled with language files. This makes it quite easy to change words or even add multi-language support to the program.
The files are in the following format:

COM_SERMONSPEAKER_SERMONS="sermons" 
KEYWORD="Text"

While KEYWORD is the string you should leave as it is and the "Text" is what you can change.

Read more...

What is the Frontend Upload Wizard?

The Frontend Upload Wizard allows you to upload a new sermon without logging into the backend. It will let you upload the file, set the needed informations (speaker, series, notes, ...) and then save the entry to the database. The informations are prefilled with the info found in ID3 tags. So if your sermonfile has title (-> sermon title), track (-> sermon number), artist (-> speaker) and album (-> series) stored in the file, creating a new sermon will be even easier.

Read more...

SermonSpeaker uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for many things. If you want to change stuff like the background color of the table rows or the font color of the download button, you may want to look at the CSS definition file located in /media/com_sermonspeaker/css/sermonspeaker.css.
Of course this is not the only place where CSS is applied, the most important one is coming from your template. This one could be edited directly in the Joomla Backend Template Manager.

Read more...

If the installation gives you this error:

• Error! Could not find an XML setup file in the package.
• Path does not have a valid package.

Please check the upload_max_filesize directive in your php.ini. This can be checked in the Joomla Backend -> Help -> Systeminfo -> PHP Informations. It may be the case that the filesize is limited to 2MB there. Since the newest versions of SermonSpeaker are over 2MB this causes an issue.

If you're not allowed to edit your php.ini yourself, you'll have to ask your hoster for a raise.

Workarounds would be to extract the install file to a new subfolder in the joomla/tmp directory and then specify this directory as the install source in the "Install from Directory" section of the Joomla installer.

Please note that this is not a bug neither in Joomla nor in SermonSpeaker. It's a limitation set by the server administrator.