Various tips and help related to Joomla CMS

As I run into issues and answer questions from other new Joomla users I'll be listing the answers here.

Joomla Documentation

Joomla Administrators Manual - https://docs.joomla.org/Portal:Administrators

Beginner's guide to Joomla - https://docs.joomla.org/Portal:Beginners

Joomla Security

Joomla Security

Security Checklist - https://docs.joomla.org/Security_Checklist

Security and Performance - https://docs.joomla.org/Security_and_Performance_FAQs

Security Extensions (free versions)

jHackGuard - https://www.siteground.com/joomla-hosting/joomla-extensions/ver1.5/jhack.htm - VERY useful. Pay attention to the installation guide, especially adding/whitelisting user groups or you'll lock your website.

Brute Force Stop - http://extensions.joomla.org/extension/brute-force-stop

RSFirewall - This is a paid download that has a lot more to offer, worth checking out.

Joomla upgrade 3 to 4 issues

Error on saving an old article after editing with "xx" = User

"ID xx" refers to the original user/author of the article which has been removed from the User Manager. so it means a former user created the article you're editing, that no longer exists in the system (but the article still holds the "author" information). So just update the author field and that should eliminate that error. Author name information can be specified in the Publishing tab.

"Overrides(s) to check!" block in Notifications
If you edit your template files instead of core files you might need to keep track of this. Otherwise, if you don't edit any files you can breeze past this notification. This video explains more and how to check the overrides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geQfVWsDZO0&t=1578s

Enabling Tooltips in the Joomla 4 backend admin panel area.
In Joomla 4 the hover tooltips were removed. There is a new toolbar button on most pages of the backend, titled “Toggle Inline Help”... click that to expand all the tooltips below each field.

Akeeba Backup (Extension) Security & File Size
In the configuration, you should do two things
1 - Put the backup location folder outside your site. Create a new root folder for it. In Configurations point the backup location to this new folder. This will secure your backup and prepare you for the second step.
2 - Exclude the default backup location from your backup. In "files exclusions" navigate the subdirectories (click the folder names, not the icons to the left) and select administrator/components/com_akeebabackup/backup to be skipped.
More - Here's a video explaining the Database Tables Exclusion (Exclude the non-core tables) as well as other large files like your images if you already have them backed up locally.

file manager extension for Joomla
Quantum Manager

media player extension for Joomla (easily embed youtube video links
https://www.joomlaworks.net/extensions/free/allvideos

Search for Joomla
https://docs.joomla.org/Smart_Search_quickstart_guide

How to change menu titles from all caps to case sensitive
This is part of the specific menu.css file in your template and has various names. It is located in the
templates folder > template name > css
The folder can be called scss too. Different templates have their own subfolder names.
You'll be looking for a file specific to the menu you need to edit.
Copy and backup the file first then look for this line
  text-transform: uppercase;
change that to
  text-transform: none;

Save, clear your website cache file and reload. If nothing changes you need to edit a different file.

Add missing H1 tags in Joomla
Normally Joomla will add the proper H1 tag when you create a new article but in some cases it will be missing.
When this issue is found through an SEO review these are usually fixable through menu item links.
On the backend bring up the specific menu item and go to the Page Display Tab.
Page Display - Show Page Heading - Set to SHOW
Page Heading - Enter your H1 tag here
Or this may be fixable through
Details tab > Edit button in Choose a Category field if you are using this as page content.

Make the fix then clear your cache and the H1 tag will appear.

Error, Variables Assigned

"Notice: Only variables should be assigned by reference in xxx/plugins/content/article/article.php on line 9"
This is leftover from an older php version.
Dropped the & symbol in line 9
$document =& JFactory::getDocument();

Error, Joomla 3 error on going to Control Panel in the admin area

"An error has occurred.
0 Call to a member function format() on null"

Try disabling the plugin phpversioncheck

Stop Form Spam

Google reCAPTCHA - https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html - Install and enable for use with default contact form and registrations.