Items filtered by date: December 2014

Background

I have designed a project using smarty and I have decided that the easiest way to add a transaltion system was to use gettext() because it was widely supported. I shortly discovered there were many issues with it which I have resolved bar one, scanning smarty .tpl files with Poedit. I am not going to do all my translations manually!!!

I managed to get quite far using poedit and messing with the various parsers but they were not 100% for me.

The goto plugin for smarty to add gettext support is smarty-gettext , a plugin that allows you to put text you want to translate inbetween some custom tags and then these will be translated into gettext() statements.

{t}....{/t}

Now Poedit will not find these tags, nor can you config custom scans for it in the software. You can however use external extrators to do this.

smarty-gettext has a command line parser that will scan your .tpl files and return correctly formatted .po and .mo files but this means you have to scan from the command line with this script, then you have to use Poedit to scan your PHP files which could get quite messy and then somehow merge the 2. So to that end I have manged to get the command line parser to function as a Poedit extractor. I will also go through the different parts of the process so you can perhaps build your own parser or utilise one that is already there. I have also found a few other Poedit parsers that might be of use and i will also list them later.

These instructions were written with gettext() in mind but because of caching issues with gettext() I decided to use motranslate. The instructions are exactly the same for both technologies except you need to add some Additional keywords for motranslate.

The Process

My advise is to follow these instructions carefully and then once you have the process working it is at that point you should alter it to your needs. These instructions are also for Windows and Xampp.

I will be using my file locations so everything matches up. I will also  assume 

Prerequisites

• Poedit 1.83 - The newer version is not as easy to use and I would not recommend it.
• Xampp v5.6.30 - I use the zip version because it is easier.
• Windows
• gettext 0.19.8.1 and iconv 1.14 - Binaries for Windows (static) - I used 64bit but 32bit should be ok aswell
• smarty-gettext (block.t.php, function.php so smarty will translate and tsmarty2c.php for the parser) - just copy raw version into a text file with the correct name.
• the gettext() translation system is setup in your project
• Smarty plugins are installed (block.t.php, function.php).
• You also will need a couple of {t}....{/t} strings to exisit so they can be found.

Edit tsmarty2c.php to search .js files

When specifying a directory the script will only search within .tpl files and I need it to search with some .js files I have in my project. So edit the file and change:

// extensions of smarty files, used when going through a directory
$extensions = array('tpl');

 to

// extensions of smarty files, used when going through a directory
$extensions = array('tpl', 'js');

Configure the enviroment

• install xampp to D:\websites
• install Poedit
• create a folder D:\websites\php\gettext
• Extract msgcat.exe and msgmerge.exe from gettext 0.19.8.1 and iconv 1.14 - Binaries for Windows (static) and put them in D:\websites\php\gettext
• Put a copy of tsmarty2c.php into D:\websites\php\gettext
• add the 2 following paths to you windows PATH variable
  • D:\websites\php
  • D:\websites\php\gettext.
• restart windows so the new paths will be recognised

• I added the 2 folders to the windows PATH so the files within can be found easily. You can probably get all of this working without adding stuff to the PATH but I would not reommend it. php.exe, msgcat.exe and msgmerge.exe all need to be found for this to work.
• You could probably get away with just adding the D:\websites\php tot he PATH but I found it neater to have these other files in their own folder.
• I choose the static versions for the gettext() package so I did not have to worry about if the .dll files were registered or could be found
• xammp does not need to be running
• make sure you do not have other version of gettext in the path otherwise the software can get confused

Configure Poedit

All the files and settings are inplace we now need to configure Poedit. Make sure you download the older v1.8.13 version because you can still see how all of the parsers are configured.

On the orginal Poedit (v1.8) you were able to select which parsers were enabled. These were all configured the same except for the language type and what files they scanned. In v2.0 this has been removed. Below is the PHP Extractor setupfrom v1.8.

I have been using Poedit v2 with success for QWcrm.

Instructions

• Open Poedit v1.8
• Open up your primary language .po file D:\websites\htdocs\develop\qwcrm\language\en_GB\LC_MESSAGES\site.mo
• Goto Catalogue->Properties->Source paths
  • and configure your folders as required for your project.
  • Dont forget you probably will have PHP and TPL sections. You can scan the whole project if you want.
• Goto File->Preferences->Extractors
• Disable all extractors you dont need - This makes experimenting easier but is optional. I just kept PHP
• Create a new extractor with these settings
  • Language:    Smarty
  • List of extensions:    ‪*.tpl;*.js
    
    • and any other files types that use smarty and need translating.
  • Command to extract translations:

    Search all folders supplied by Poedit (recommended)
    php "D:\websites\php\tsmarty2c.php" -o %o %F
    
    Only searches in the folder 'themes'
    ‪php "D:\websites\php\tsmarty2c.php" -o %o themes

  • An item in keywords list:    ‪-k%k
  • An item in input files list:    ‪%f
  • Source code charset:    ‪nothing in this
  • Looks like this for my example
    
• Edit the Catalogue Properties - Will not appear until you have created a new catalogue and I have used QWcrm as an example. These settings are stored in the .po file.
  
  • Translation properties
    • Project name and version - QWcrm v3.0.0
    • Language team - https://quantumwarp.com/
    • Language - English (United Kingdom) - set this to the language of the translation you are doing.
    • Plural forms - leave as 'Use default rules for this language' unbless you know why you want to change this.
    • Charset - UTF-8 (recommended)
    • Source code charset - UTF-8 (recommended)
  • Source Paths
    • Base path - This should be the root folder of your project.

      D:\websites\htdocs\develop\qwcrm

    • Paths - .  (only a period)
    • Excluded paths - This is important to reduce the files that are scanned such as cached files which also have gettext() functions in them. These are my exclusions, yours will be different.
      

      cache\
      nbproject\
      libraries\
      logs\
      media\
      themes\default\js\dhtmlcombo\
      themes\default\js\tinymce\
      themes\default\js\jscal2\jscal2.js
      themes\default\js\jscal2\unicode-letter.js
      themes\default\js\jscal2\css\
      

  • Sources keywords
    
    • Additional keywords - These are only required if you are using motranslate.

      _gettext    - This is for the function _gettext()
      __          - This is for the function __()

NB:

• I could not get %f to work with this process and so I had to use the folder name themes. Not exactly sure if Poedit is adding the rest of the file location onto it.
• You must use %F in your extractor string i.e. uppercase.
• themes is my root folder that is holding all of my .tpl files
• you will notcie that i have added *.js and this is because I have some files that are *.js with some smarty tags in that need parsing.
• when using this extrator the files you configure in the catalogue (i.e. include excludes) will be ignores because you are not using the %f option. I would like to get this fixed so i can use it.
• because we are not using %F for the file list and instead a hardcode value we will need to change the target directory for each project for the Smarty Extractor. You could create multiple extractors and just keep them disabled until you need them.
• Also when you are not using the particular smarty extractor you will need to disable it as it will always search that directory.
• If there are not translations found by the smarty extractor then Poedit will generate and error saying thas the .po file might be corrupt. This might also be the case of all extractors but I cannot be 100% because i am not going to spend time testing that hunch.
• Poedit does not always save you preferences and settings so make sure you save and check them if things are not working.
• in Poedit a folder  'Exclusion' will override a folder 'Inclusion'.

I will just explain a little here about this extraction process. All of the other Extractors are using xgettext() to scan files and return a correctly formatted .po file. xgettext() is dated and will not recognise a lot of languages and you can not add custom scans in to it.

Poedit extractor switches explained (This is useful so you can workout how to build you own parser.)

• -o    - This is just a standard switch that is pass to the extractor. It is not specific to Poedit. However the xgettext() uses this to denote the output file and so does tsmarty2c.php
• %o    - this is a placeholder for Poedit to swap out with the tempory .pot file location where changes are merged to.
• %k    - this placeholder is to be able to pass custom function names to your script (or xgettext) to scan within for strings i.e. instead of gettext("translate me") you could scan for chicken("translate me") or football("translate me"). It is not mandatory to have this.
• %f    - this is placeholder for the file list. I am not sure of the format but it is in a format that ngettext() will accept. All files are passed in 1 large list here. I can't work out if this is type, but to pass the list you need to use %F.
• ‪--from-code=%c    - this is always added on to the end of the command line and is to specify what charset the files houls be open as. I do not need this so have removed it. I thing it is mainly for xgettext. My scripts have been running with it attached though.
• NB: the instructions for Poedit for the extractors does not make sense. There is information left out.

So what happens with an extractor when you hit 'update from sources'

• poedit scans the project's folders (as per your rules) for allowed files and builds a list
• one of the following happens (not sure which)
  • The files are passed as a single command line to an extractor that matches the file extensions (possible goes to multiple extractors if an extension is registered in more than 1 extractor)
  • Each file is passed as a single command line to an extractor that matches the file extension (possible goes to multiple extractors if an extension is registered in more than 1 extractor)
• the extractor then parses these files and then merges the strings it finds to a temporary pot.file (using msgmerge.exe)
• the next extractor is run and those files are merged into the same temporary .pot file(using msgmerge.exe)
• once finished Poedit loads this temporary .pot file in to memory and you are returned to the main screen
• your changes have not been saved yet. For this you actually need to hit save to apply the changes to you .po file.
• Poedit will now build the .po and .mo files

Extract the Translations

Comodo Sandbox which is part of the comodo Internet Security (CIS) if running will cause the extraction process to fail because it blocks the PHP script. You need to disable the Comodo Sandbox before running the extraction. This might also be the case for other sandboxes and Firewalls.

So now run Poedit and extract the translations as outlined above by hitting the Update from sources menu item of click the Update button.

gettext() is a translation system written by GNU people and is present on many systems natively. This makes it a good standard to use. Gettext does have some issues especially on PHP and I will outline what I have found here with possible solutions

I now use motranslator which is based on the same technology as gettext because of the following:

• gettext translation file (.mo) is cached by the server and is never refreshed until you restart server, so changes you make will not be seen untill then. Not practical for shared webhosting.
• On Windows gettext will not allow translations to other than default language - There are some untested workarounds but they are messy (Custom Code, Thread Safe?, PHP as FastCGI not as a module)
• On Windows gettext will only read the directory that belongs to the default language meaning all translations need to go in the default local directory to allow translations.

General Gettext

Gettext Tutorials

• How to Build a Multilingual PHP App | Toptal (Good Tut)
• PHP Gettext: Quick Start Guide to Creating Translations Using gettext in PHP (Good Tut)
• PHP internationalization with gettext tutorial - LingoHub - Translation Service Hub (Good Tut)
• Gettext i18n system - LingoHub - Translation Service Hub (Good Tut)
• A Quick Gettext Tutorial
• How to translate using gettext and poedit - YouTube
• PHP and Javascript Internationalization using Gettext and Poedit
• PHP internationalization with gettext tutorial - LingoHub - Translation Service Hub
• Localizing PHP web sites using gettext » Pablo's Development Blog
• Gettext i18n system - internationalization for gettext
• Gettext PO Localization - LingoHub - Translation Service Hub
• php - Gettext: Translation of strings with HTML inside? - Stack Overflow

Gettext Documentation

• GNU gettext - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
• GNU gettext utilities
• gettext - Wikipedia
• PHP: Gettext - Manual

Gettext software

• GitHub - vslavik/gettext-tools-windows: GNU gettext tools compiled binaries for Windows
• GetText for Windows (Official Source)
• windows - What is msgcat and how to use it - Stack Overflow
• gettext 0.19.8.1 and iconv 1.14 - Binaries for Windows - mlocati - Michele Locati - Has both 32bit and 64bit with static and dll based version. These are kept upto date.

Misc documents

• National Language Support (NLS) API Reference
• php - Is en_UK an illegal locale? - Stack Overflow
• php - List of All Locales and Their Short Codes? - Stack Overflow
• Translate gettext PO Files | Transifex Documentation
• How to Translate With GetText PO and POT Files
• Ruby localization: i18n, g18n, gettext, padrino... - what's the difference? - Stack Overflow
• Why GetText is Better than Rails I18n - Translation.io
• Ruby gettext internationalization tutorial on using the fast_gettext gem

Issues I have found with gettext

It is not straight forward to getting gettext() to workout of the box, especially when using xammp on windows. HEre I will address the issues I came across while trying to get translation to work. These issues probably also appear on diffrent setups.

Apache Gettext Caching issue

When i was developing QWcrm on my windows xammp setup I would make changes to translation strings in th .PO file (via POedit) and these would not get reflected in my software. After a lot of research I discovered that when you run PHP as an Apache module the the getttext translation files upon first load are cached 'premanently' or for a time which I can not figure out. So to get around this I needed to find a way of refreshing the cache or turning it of for my development site.

Solutions I found

• change the .MO filenames loaded when ever you make changes - this works but is a bit of a mess and I would not recommend it for production sites.
• use PHP as Fast CGI. When PHP is loaded as a module the .MO files are cached 'permantely' or for an undisclosed time I can not figure out but this apparently is not the case when using PHP as Fast CGI
• The only true way to clear the cache it to restart apache. I think if you are running PHP as an Apache module, you have to restart Apache for the catalog to be reloaded.
• clearstatcache() - i could not get this to work

I will now outline my research below

Emptying of MO gettext cache without restarting apache links

• server caching of gettext translation files « zenphoto forums - renames the files on change before reload. this is more  trick than emptying the cache
• https://blog.ghost3k.net/articles/php/11/gettext-caching-in-php - renames the files on change before reload. this is more  trick than emptying the cache
• How to clear php's gettext cache without restart Apache nor change domain? (PHP) - Codedump.io - a few issues here including the use of symbolic links but i could not this to work on windows
• How to clear php's gettext cache without restart Apache nor change domain? - Stack Overflow - a few issues here, symbolic links and clearstatcache()
• PHP gettext caching workaround - renames the files on change before reload. this is more  trick than emptying the cache. Also mentions changing the bindtextdomain

Gettext not working on windows / xampp

These following issues can cause a real problem when devloping with gettext on windows. The main issue I came across is the localisation handling.

Issue

• gettext will work but only with the default language/region
  • The reason is that the language/region is set for the whole computer and cannot be changed for individual processes. I believe that this is why there are 2 types of apache/php thread safe and non thread safe. I am not 100% how to apply the 2 variants and I dont know of any work aruonds to change the settings just for xampp.
  • Windows uses different region codes thant those used by gettext (gettext = de_DE whereas windows = deu)

Solutions

• if you use the standard gettext file layout windows will always be able to access the default language folder. This gives to unique features
  • it allows translation to work normally by using the default language (at least you can test gettext is working)
  • you can add in the other language translation files into the default language folder and then they can also be used (this is a workaround)
• not confirmed - is this because I do not have the other languages installed on my windows PC - see this thread

You can write code to utilise the workaround outline above by address the locale issue. When trying to fix this do not forget about the caching issue above.

Links

• Getting gettext to work in Apache on windows: Why the stupid script just won't work?
• php - Gettext will always use system default locale - Stack Overflow
• PHP, Apache, MySQL, Windows : WampServer
• PHP: setlocale - Manual
• php - Gettext example not working on Windows 7 - XAMPP - Stack Overflow
• PHP gettext on Windows - Stack Overflow -  this outlines that setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, “en_US”); is for linux and putenv(“LC_ALL=en_US”); is for windows
• locale - PHP/Gettext Problems - Stack Overflow
• PHP :: Bug #66265 :: gettext is not working anymore - This has some code to possibly fox the windows regional issue and definately some pointers
• PHP :: Bug #49349 :: gettext behaves differently in php 5.3.0 (5.2.x ignored setlocale errors) - an insight to the history of the issue

xgettext will not scan within double quotes / remmed lines

xgettext is very particular about what it scans for, it seems to be syntax aware rather than just searching for the strings. i.e. if a line is remmed out it will ignore it.

• xgettext cannot extract strings from templates · Issue #622 · tornadoweb/tornado · GitHub
• you cannot put the gettext() or _() on the same lines as an remmed line (i.e. <!-- -->) because they will get ignored.
  
  • Can cause the error unterminated character set constant error but the scanning carries on.

Scanning source files for translations strings

once you have your project done you need to grab all of the strings and translate them, doing this manually would be difficult and you would miss strings. I outline the options I have found below:

• Use software to extract the gettext strings
• Scan .tpl files with specialised scripts
• Compile all smarty templates and then just scan them with POedit. It is not ideal but will work

Applications

• POEdit- will scan your PHP files for standard gettext() strings. It will not scann for {t}..{/t} strings in the .tpl files
• POedit + a custom extractor that will scan the .tpl files. I dont currently have one.
• Eazy Po - Eazy Po is a translation editor and a catalog manager for Gettext translation files.

Smarty TPL Scanning software

• smarty-gettext tsmarty2c.php - the command line utility - This utility will scan templates for {t}...{/t} placeholders for translation strings and output a .pot file (.po template).
• tsmarty2c V2 - this is a custom command line PHP script

Poedit Links

• php - How to make gettext and poedit recognize custom file types? - Stack Overflow - mentions on how to add other file types to the extractors.
• GitHub - umpirsky/Twig-Gettext-Extractor: The Twig Gettext Extractor is Poedit friendly tool which extracts translations from twig templates. Twig Gettext extractor
• How to make gettext and poedit recognize custom file types? - php - smarty - gettext - poedit - TechQA - mentions on how to add other file types to the extractors.
• theme development - How to create .pot files with POedit? - WordPress Development Stack Exchange - covers the subject and mentions Eazy PO.
• php - How to use Poedit with smarty templates? - Stack Overflow - This is very useful and needs looking at further. Shows you how to use PoeditSmarty to create a .pot file.
• Smarty :: View topic - {t} tags and PoEdit parser - This tells you how to run tsmarty2c.php on the command line to output a .pot file. Basically using the > operator to output to a file.
• php - How to use Poedit with smarty templates? - Stack Overflow
• Poedit and smarty parser - A useful example using the command line
• How To Merge Two PO Files Using POEdit | MarketPressThemes
• Extract .po string from .volt file - Discussion - Phalcon Framework

Smarty Poedit Parsers (software) / and other parsers than can potentially be used

• smarty-gettext/smarty-gettext: Gettext plugin enabling internationalization in Smarty Package files. - this tutorial is based on this.
• PoeditSmarty: Gettext extension support for Smarty templates (*.tpl) - Library for syncing gettext catalogs with Smarty sources. Library parses files and writes results as xgettext files, whose are processed by Poedit parser. Soon I will make exe version without java (I dont have so much time)
• smarty-gettext/tsmarty2c: Smarty Gettext Translation String Ripper - a new verions that in not ready?
• GettextParser: Gettext parser for Poedit
• PoeditSmarty: Gettext extension support for Smarty templates (*.tpl) - Java version but source code is not available.
• Jsgettext - A Javascript parser for Poedit written in PHP
• xgettext-js: xgettext string extractor tool capable of parsing JavaScript files - gettext-js is a utility for extracting translatable strings, written in and capable of parsing JavaScript files. It is similar to the GNU xgettext program, but returns strings as a JavaScript array.

Poedit notes

• in version 2 all of the parsers have bve removed and put into 1 extractor which you cannot edit or turn off so you should use version v1.83
• because there are no extractors to see how they are configure i will give you one below. All of the parsers (except TWIG) use xgettext. the only different between the settings are the language name
  • Language:    Perl
  • List of extensions:    ‪‪*.pl;*.PL;*.pm;*.perl;
  • Command to extract translations:    ‪‪xgettext --language=Perl --add-comments=TRANSLATORS: --force-po -o %o %C %K %F
  • An item in keywords list:    ‪-k%k
  • An item in input files list:    ‪%f
  • Source code charset:    ‪‪--from-code=%c
• if you run xgettext --help on the command line you will see all of the switches listed
• in ngettext -o is an alias of --output=FILE  and all other switches are similiar.

Compiling all smarty templates

• php - How to use Poedit with smarty templates? - Stack Overflow - this also has some code to help with this option of  $smarty->compileAllTemplates() 
• Extracting PO Files automatically · bbrdaric/smarty-gettext Wiki · GitHub - this also deals with compiling the ttempaltes and this method allows you to keep the file names althought the line numbers will not match.

Translating in Smarty

This section is involve in actually translating the strings in the smarty software.

Smarty translation links (various)

• LAMP : Linux Apace PHP PERL mySQL: Internationalization PHP web sites using Smarty and gettext
• php - Smarty and gettext - Stack Overflow

Smarty Software

• GitHub - smarty-gettext/smarty-gettext: Gettext plugin enabling internationalization in Smarty Package files.
  
• GitHub - gueff/smarty_modifier_getText: PHP Smarty: a modifier for internationalization tool gettext
• PHP Smarty: a modifier for internationalization tool gettext
• php-gettext in Launchpad
• Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
• Extracting PO Files automatically · bbrdaric/smarty-gettext Wiki · GitHub

tsmarty2c.php Command line examples

setup the software as per these instructions - configure the software, you dont need the poedit software for this to work.

• php "D:\websites\php\gettext\tsmarty2c.php" D:\test.pot %f | "C:\Program Files (x86)\Poedit\GettextTools\bin\xgettext -LC --add-comments --no-location -"
  • this involves sending it to xgettext and is not needed here
  • i have just added to show you can send output to another program with a  pipe (|) character 
• php "D:\websites\php\gettext\tsmarty2c.php" -o test.pot "D:\websites\htdocs\develop\qwcrm\themes"
  • this will scan the 'themes' directory recursively for all .tpl files and parse them for the {t}...{/t} strings
• php -q tsmarty2c.php mytemplate.tpl > mydomain.c
  • this will output to a file
  • you could just use the -o switch

In this article we will be discussing the compression of output from a php, not normal assets such as JS and css. Because the nature of PHP files is dynamic we have to use another method. 

After needing to compress my PHP output for QWcrm I started researching on the internet after thinking it would just be a case of a couple of lines of code. What I discovered is there are several ways to compress PHP output and each has their pros and cons. I also found that some people were incorrectly using the wrong or outdated methods. Below I will go through each method I found and then I will sum up my thoughts at the end so you can easily workoout what method you want to use.

One other thing to note is that everyone goes on about how they gzip their content, but in these modern times there are 2 compression methos GZIP and DEFLATE, deflate being the newer method and can offer better compression.

.htaccess - (for static assets and PHP sometimes)

I have discovered that on some server installs that the following code (in particular text/html) will compress PHP output. Obviously you have to have mod_deflate installed. Worth a try and add other file types as needed.

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
    <IfModule mod_filter.c>
        AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>

Below is the normal way of compressing with deflate (gzip replacement) and the legacy gzip. I have added these for references only as it keeps coming up but will not actually compress PHP output but as a combined effect can help reduce the download footprint of the webpage and its assets.

Example 1 - Enable compression via .htaccess (mod_deflate)

This seems to be the prefered .htaccess compression method now because it gets better ratios.

<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
	<IfModule mod_filter.c>
		AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/css text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript
	</IfModule>
</IfModule>

Example 2 - Enable compression via .htaccess (mod_gzip)
http://www.awesomeinfolab.com/enable-gzip-compression/

I have never come across this method before in htaccess and might not work on all apache installs. I am thing of PHP as Fast-CGI/'Apache Module'

<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
    mod_gzip_on Yes
    mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
    mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
    mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
    mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
    mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
    mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
    mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>

Links

• How to enable gzip compression on Apache
• Active Gzip Compression | CSS-Tricks
• Enable Gzip compression for your website
• How to enable compression and gzip for page speed.
• Enable gzip compression | GTmetrix
• An introduction to gzip / mod_deflate - InMotion Hosting

ob_start("ob_gzhandler") - (Simple 1 liner)

This takes advantage of Php's buffered output and buffers all output of the script until the Php engine has completed, and then runs all the output through a special function that gzip compresses it before sending it on to the browser.

Just place this at the very top of all your PHP pages and it will send gzip-compressed output to the browsers with the correct headers.

ob_start("ob_gzhandler");

The function basically says start buffering PHP content and tag it to says the outputted content should be gzipped. The procedure should also send the correct headers so the browser knows it is compressed. I also think that unless the browser has told the server that it supports compression that the content will be returned uncompressed. All modern browsers send the 'I support compression' headers.

Some say once the script is finished it will flush the buffer and output the content automatically and that is why you can get away with 1 line, however this article from magicmonster tells you to add the flush command at the end to flush the cache.

ob_end_flush();

The method mentioned above is quick and easy, but the downfalls are that it only works on Apache with mod_gzip and according to the Php manual this is not the preferred method for gzipping.

You can increase the compression ratio by altering the php.ini or add the following to the script before ob_start("ob_gzhandler")

ini_set('zlib.output_compression_level', 4);

Another example

<?php if (substr_count($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip')) ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); else ob_start(); ?>

This example adds a check to see if the browser send the “Accept-Encoding: gzip” or “deflate” header before enabling the compression, however the buffer is still enabled even if compression is not required.

(From the Php manual at www.php.net)
note that using zlib.output_compression is preferred over ob_gzhandler().

Links

• How to enable gzip compression with Php - Excellent article I got some of this information from
• PHP: ob_gzhandler - Manual
• Using gzip compression on PHP pages (magicmonster) - This is a really easy to read and following article.
• Fast, Effective PHP Compression | Perishable Press - The methods might not work on all Apache/PHP installations.

Full PHP buffer

Create a buffer, fill the buffer, compress the buffer data and send the content to the client

This is similiar to ob_start("ob_gzhandler") but there is a little more to it.

Example 1
http://www.webcodingtech.com/php/gzip-compression.php

This example utilises the PHP buffer correctely and manual takes the buffered content, sends the compress data headers relevant to the compression method, then it compresses the blob before returning it to the buffer. The buffers is then dispaly or returns to the browser as compress content. I dont think this method is dependant on having Apache mod_gzip installed for the auto detection of the compression headers from  the browser or to send the correct output headers.

This example has some issues an seems dated to use for compression. I think PHP has moved on. I would not use print as echo is quicker and I have no idea what print("\x1f\x8b\x08\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00"); does.

// Include this function on your pages
function print_gzipped_page() {

    global $HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING;
    if( headers_sent() ){
        $encoding = false;
    }elseif( strpos($HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING, 'x-gzip') !== false ){
        $encoding = 'x-gzip';
    }elseif( strpos($HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING,'gzip') !== false ){
        $encoding = 'gzip';
    }else{
        $encoding = false;
    }

    if( $encoding ){
        $contents = ob_get_contents();
        ob_end_clean();
        header('Content-Encoding: '.$encoding);
        print("\x1f\x8b\x08\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00");
        $size = strlen($contents);
        $contents = gzcompress($contents, 9);
        $contents = substr($contents, 0, $size);
        print($contents);
        exit();
    }else{
        ob_end_flush();
        exit();
    }
}

// At the beginning of each page call these two functions
ob_start();
ob_implicit_flush(0);

// Then do everything you want to do on the page
echo 'Hello World';

// Call this function to output everything as gzipped content.
print_gzipped_page();

Links

• How to enable gzip compression with Php - Excellent article, I got example 1 from it.
• Use GZip compression on your PHP files · GitHub - An example script. This probably is in a legacy format.

zlib.output_compression = on - (automatic and invisible)

This is the prefered method for gzipping over ob_gzhandler()

The zlib extension can be used to transparently compress PHP pages on-the-fly if the browser sends an “Accept-Encoding: gzip” or “deflate” header. Compression with zlib.output_compression seems to be disabled on most hosts by default, but can be enabled with a custom php.ini file:

The zlib extension is the undelying technology and the zlib.output_compression = On is a switch that enables transparent/invisible compression on all PHP content. The zlib extension is also the library that is used for other compressions such as ob_gzhandler. I would need to check which compressions operations were covered by it. 

This method is installed on most servers but left of by default. It will automatically send the output back to the client's browser in a compressed form if the 'allow compressed content' header is sent with the page request. If enabled in the php.ini then no further coding is required in any php (or other) script, or for that matter any assets.

Enable via php.ini

Add or alter the following line in the php.ini 

zlib.output_compression = On

Enable via a PHP script 

If zlib.output_compresssion is disabled but installed, you can enable either by editing the php.ini (as above) or you can add the following in to your PHP script. This will only enable compression for the script it is included in. and you must add this code before any headers or output is sent from the script. You should also note that having this method of compression will cause errors if further compression methods are implemented in your scripts.

if (extension_loaded("zlib") && (ini_get("output_handler") != "ob_gzhandler"))
{
    @ob_end_clean();
    @ini_set("zlib.output_compression", 1);
}

As you can see this simple script makes a few checks, that the libary is present and that ob_gzhandler() has not been set. This is perhaps optional depending on your script, the ob_end_clean() just makes sure any buffers are emptied, I am not sure this is needed either. The @ symbol just surpresses errors and again these could be removed

Links

• PHP: Runtime Configuration - Manual

gzencode / gzcompress / gzdeflate - (for a single blob)

There is a difference between these 3 functions even thought they all compress a blob you supply to them. However the concesous is to use gzencode() as it outputs in the correct format including the required checksums. This function is also supports both gzip and deflate compression algorithyms.

Joomla Example

I have included this to see how these guys do it as they have more experience than me. This process happens in 2 distinct sections, the first check to see if the gzip function is enabled whilst check to see if the server supports zlib compression and that ob_gzhandler has not already been set.

/**
 * Execute the application.
 *
 * @return  void
 *
 * @since   3.2
 *
 * From {Joomla}libraries/cms/application/cms.php
 */
 
 /**
 * @package     Joomla.Libraries
 * @subpackage  Application
 *
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2005 - 2016 Open Source Matters, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * @license     GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt
 */
 
public function execute()
{
    // Perform application routines.
    $this->doExecute();

    // If we have an application document object, render it.
    if ($this->document instanceof JDocument)
    {
        // Render the application output.
        $this->render();
    }

    // If gzip compression is enabled in configuration and the server is compliant, compress the output.
    if ($this->get('gzip') && !ini_get('zlib.output_compression') && (ini_get('output_handler') != 'ob_gzhandler'))
    {
        $this->compress();

        // Trigger the onAfterCompress event.
        $this->triggerEvent('onAfterCompress');
    }

    // Send the application response.
    $this->respond();

    // Trigger the onAfterRespond event.
    $this->triggerEvent('onAfterRespond');
}

The second section actually does the compression and further checking, and yes there is some duplication of these checks. This fucntion supports the use of gzip or deflate compression algorithyms which is great for compatability. If you look at the code you can see that gzencode() is used and that if performs compression on a single variable (blob) rather than a page. gzencode() is able to use both algorithyms where as the other 2 functions this section covers cannot.

The code has been compress but because of the nature of the function you have to manually send the 'Content-Encoding' header so the browser knows the payload is compressed and how it has been compressed.

/**
 * Checks the accept encoding of the browser and compresses the data before
 * sending it to the client if possible.
 *
 * @return  void
 *
 * @since   11.3
 *
 * From {Joomla}libraries/joomla/application/web.php
 */
 
 /**
 * @package     Joomla.Platform
 * @subpackage  Application
 *
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2005 - 2016 Open Source Matters, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * @license     GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE
 */

protected function compress()
{
    // Supported compression encodings.
    $supported = array(
        'x-gzip' => 'gz',
        'gzip' => 'gz',
        'deflate' => 'deflate'
    );

    // Get the supported encoding.
    $encodings = array_intersect($this->client->encodings, array_keys($supported));

    // If no supported encoding is detected do nothing and return.
    if (empty($encodings))
    {
        return;
    }

    // Verify that headers have not yet been sent, and that our connection is still alive.
    if ($this->checkHeadersSent() || !$this->checkConnectionAlive())
    {
        return;
    }

    // Iterate through the encodings and attempt to compress the data using any found supported encodings.
    foreach ($encodings as $encoding)
    {
        if (($supported[$encoding] == 'gz') || ($supported[$encoding] == 'deflate'))
        {
            // Verify that the server supports gzip compression before we attempt to gzip encode the data.
            // @codeCoverageIgnoreStart
            if (!extension_loaded('zlib') || ini_get('zlib.output_compression'))
            {
                continue;
            }
            // @codeCoverageIgnoreEnd

            // Attempt to gzip encode the data with an optimal level 4.
            $data = $this->getBody();
            $gzdata = gzencode($data, 4, ($supported[$encoding] == 'gz') ? FORCE_GZIP : FORCE_DEFLATE);

            // If there was a problem encoding the data just try the next encoding scheme.
            // @codeCoverageIgnoreStart
            if ($gzdata === false)
            {
                continue;
            }
            // @codeCoverageIgnoreEnd

            // Set the encoding headers.
            $this->setHeader('Content-Encoding', $encoding);

            // Header will be removed at 4.0
            if ($this->get('MetaVersion'))
            {
                $this->setHeader('X-Content-Encoded-By', 'Joomla');
            }

            // Replace the output with the encoded data.
            $this->setBody($gzdata);

            // Compression complete, let's break out of the loop.
            break;
        }
    }
}

So that is how Joomla does compression and it should be noted that this method is probably the most compatible way of doing compression.

Links

• PHP Compression: gzcompress vs gzdeflate vs gzencode - This article goes in to what the differences are between these 3 blob compression functions and which one to use and why, for reference is gzencode
• Which compression method to use in PHP? - Stack Overflow - Again this gice information about the 3 different functions and which one to use and why.
• PHP: gzencode - Manual

What I used in QWcrm

I wrote my own function bas heavily of the Joomla function to enable gzip. In QWcrm I was able to do this becaus emy page is stored in a single varible/blob that I can manipulate.

In the main index.php I have the following code

################################################
#         Page Compression                     #
################################################

// Compress page and send correct compression headers
if ($gzip == true && $VAR['theme'] !== 'print') {

    $BuildPage = compress_page_output($BuildPage);
    
}

This is the function code stored in include.php

###########################################
#  Compress page output and send headers  #
###########################################

/**
 * Checks the accept encoding of the browser and compresses the data before
 * sending it to the client if possible.
 *
 * @return  void
 *
 * @since   11.3
 *
 * From {Joomla}libraries/joomla/application/web.php
 */

/**
 * @package     Joomla.Platform
 * @subpackage  Application
 *
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2005 - 2016 Open Source Matters, Inc. All rights reserved.
 * @copyright   Copyright (C) 2017 - Jon Brown / Quantumwarp.com
 * @license     GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE
 */

function compress_page_output($BuildPage)
{
    // Supported compression encodings.
    $supported = array(
        'x-gzip'    => 'gz',
        'gzip'      => 'gz',
        'deflate'   => 'deflate'
    );

    // Get the supported encoding.
    $encodings = array_intersect(browserSupportedCompressionEncodings(), array_keys($supported));

    // If no supported encoding is detected do nothing and return.
    if (empty($encodings))
    {
        return $BuildPage;
    }

    // Verify that headers have not yet been sent, and that our connection is still alive.
    if (headers_sent() || (connection_status() !== CONNECTION_NORMAL))
    {
        return $BuildPage;
    }

    // Iterate through the encodings and attempt to compress the data using any found supported encodings.
    foreach ($encodings as $encoding)
    {
        if (($supported[$encoding] == 'gz') || ($supported[$encoding] == 'deflate'))
        {
            // Verify that the server supports gzip compression before we attempt to gzip encode the data.            
            if (!extension_loaded('zlib') || ini_get('zlib.output_compression'))
            {
                continue;
            }           

            // Attempt to gzip encode the page with an optimal level 4.            
            $gzBuildPage = gzencode($BuildPage, 4, ($supported[$encoding] == 'gz') ? FORCE_GZIP : FORCE_DEFLATE);

            // If there was a problem encoding the data just try the next encoding scheme.            
            if ($gzBuildPage === false)
            {
                continue;
            }            

            // Set the encoding headers.
            header("Content-Encoding: $encoding");

            // Replace the output with the encoded data.            
            return $gzBuildPage;
            
        }
    }
}

####################################################################
#  Get the supported compression algorithms in the client browser  #
####################################################################

function browserSupportedCompressionEncodings() {
        
    return array_map('trim', (array) explode(',', $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING']));

}

In future I will try and see if the mod_deflate option is working on other servers as this might be built into newer version of the module to treat PHP output as normal files and compress them.

Other Links

• output buffering - What's the use of ob_start() in php? - Stack Overflow - A thread explaining what it is used for, which is not just compression.
• How To Optimize Your Site With GZIP Compression – BetterExplained - This covers the use of gzip in general, the protocol and sending of headers to then receiving back compressed assets. It does not cover PHP compression.
• Enabling Gzip Compression of PHP, CSS, and JS Files Without mod_deflate - WarpConduit Computing - An intersting article on compressing assets without using mod_deflate by using an intermediatery PHP file and .htaccess rewrite rules. I can say I would ever use this but there might be situations it could be useful.
• Speed Up your Website with Gzip Compression - An overview of gzip and real world usage. This is useful for noobies who want a little bit more information.
• How to compress .php, .css and .js files without mod_gzip or mod_deflate | Ardamis - This article has some good ideas and explanations but perhaps would not be the way I did compression.
• Enabling Gzip Compression of PHP, CSS, and JS Files Without mod_deflate - WarpConduit Computing - If you really need to do this.

This is just a simple article to references most of the simple ADOdb functions I use in QWcrm and what they do:

Smarty Call

$smarty->assign('currency_sym', get_company_details($db));

The Basic Function

I will use this function for the demo. This function just returns all of the company information or a single item.

function get_company_details($db, $item = null){
    
    global $smarty;

    $sql = 'SELECT * FROM '.PRFX.'TABLE_COMPANY';
    
    if(!$rs = $db->execute($sql)){        
        force_error_page($_GET['page'], 'database', __FILE__, __FUNCTION__, $db->ErrorMsg(), $sql, $smarty->get_template_vars('translate_system_include_error_message_function_'.__FUNCTION__.'_failed'));
        exit;
    } else {
        
        if($item === null){
            
            return $rs->GetArray(); 
            
        } else {
            
            return $rs->fields[$item];   
            
        } 
        
    }
    
}

The Results

I will be changing the line and listing the results

return $rs->GetArray(); 

$rs->GetArray();

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => QuantumWarp
            [NAME] => QuantumWarp
            [1] => 123456
            [NUMBER] => 123456
            [2] => The Gurking
            [ADDRESS] => The Gurking
            [3] => London
            [CITY] => London
            [4] => Greater London
            [STATE] => Greater London
            [5] => LA1 W10
            [ZIP] => LA1 W10
            [6] => AF
            [COUNTRY] => GB
            [7] => 123456
            [PHONE] => 123456
            [8] => 123456
            [MOBILE] => 123456
            [9] => 123456
            [FAX] => 123456
            [10] => 
            [EMAIL] => 
            [11] => £
            [CURRENCY_SYMBOL] => £
            [12] => GPB
            [CURRENCY_CODE] => GPB
            [13] => %d/%m/%Y
            [DATE_FORMAT] => %d/%m/%Y
            [14] => media/logo.png
            [LOGO] => media/logo.png
            [15] => 
            [WWW] => 
            [16] => 10
            [OPENING_HOUR] => 10
            [17] => 0
            [OPENING_MINUTE] => 0
            [18] => 17
            [CLOSING_HOUR] => 17
            [19] => 0
            [CLOSING_MINUTE] => 0
            [20] => 3.50
            [TAX_RATE] => 3.50
            [21] => <p>welcome</p>
            [WELCOME_MSG] => <p>welcome</p>
            [22] => <p>thanks</p>
            [INVOICE_MSG] => <p>thanks</p>
        )

)

• ADODB Manual - Link 1 - Generate a 2-dimensional array of records from the current cursor position, indexed from 0 to $number_of_rows - 1. If $number_of_rows is undefined, till EOF.
• Returns all rows.

$rs->GetRows();

• Generate a 2-dimensional array of records from the current cursor position. Synonym for GetArray() for compatibility with Microsoft ADO.
• Returns all rows.

$rs->GetAssoc();

Array
(
    [QuantumWarp] => Array
        (
            [NAME] => QuantumWarp
            [0] => 123456
            [NUMBER] => 123456
            [1] => The Gurking
            [ADDRESS] => The Gurking
            [2] => London
            [CITY] => London
            [3] => Greater London
            [STATE] => Greater London
            [4] => LA1 W10
            [ZIP] => LA1 W10
            [5] => AF
            [COUNTRY] => GB
            [6] => 123456
            [PHONE] => 123456
            [7] => 123456
            [MOBILE] => 123456
            [8] => 123456
            [FAX] => 123456
            [9] => 
            [EMAIL] => 
            [10] => £
            [CURRENCY_SYMBOL] => £
            [11] => GPB
            [CURRENCY_CODE] => GPB
            [12] => %d/%m/%Y
            [DATE_FORMAT] => %d/%m/%Y
            [13] => media/logo.png
            [LOGO] => media/logo.png
            [14] => 
            [WWW] => 
            [15] => 10
            [OPENING_HOUR] => 10
            [16] => 0
            [OPENING_MINUTE] => 0
            [17] => 17
            [CLOSING_HOUR] => 17
            [18] => 0
            [CLOSING_MINUTE] => 0
            [19] => 3.50
            [TAX_RATE] => 3.50
            [20] => <p>welcome</p>
            [WELCOME_MSG] => <p>welcome</p>
            [21] => <p>thanks</p>
            [INVOICE_MSG] => <p>thanks</p>
        )

)

• ADODB Manual - Link 1 - Generates an associative array from the recordset. Note that is this function is also available in the connection object. More details can be found there.
• ADODB Manual - Link 2 - Returns an associative array for the given query $sql with optional bind parameters in $inputarr. If the number of columns returned is greater to two, a 2-dimensional array is returned, with the first column of the recordset becomes the keys to the rest of the rows. If the columns is equal to two, a 1-dimensional array is created, where the the keys directly map to the values (unless $force_array is set to true, when an array is created for each value).
• Returns all rows.

$rs->FetchRow();

Array
(
    [0] => QuantumWarp
    [NAME] => QuantumWarp
    [1] => 123456
    [NUMBER] => 123456
    [2] => The Gurking
    [ADDRESS] => The Gurking
    [3] => London
    [CITY] => London
    [4] => Greater London
    [STATE] => Greater London
    [5] => LA1 W10
    [ZIP] => LA1 W10
    [6] => AF
    [COUNTRY] => GB
    [7] => 123456
    [PHONE] => 123456
    [8] => 123456
    [MOBILE] => 123456
    [9] => 123456
    [FAX] => 123456
    [10] => 
    [EMAIL] => 
    [11] => £
    [CURRENCY_SYMBOL] => £
    [12] => GPB
    [CURRENCY_CODE] => GPB
    [13] => %d/%m/%Y
    [DATE_FORMAT] => %d/%m/%Y
    [14] => media/logo.png
    [LOGO] => media/logo.png
    [15] => 
    [WWW] => 
    [16] => 10
    [OPENING_HOUR] => 10
    [17] => 0
    [OPENING_MINUTE] => 0
    [18] => 17
    [CLOSING_HOUR] => 17
    [19] => 0
    [CLOSING_MINUTE] => 0
    [20] => 3.50
    [TAX_RATE] => 3.50
    [21] => <p>welcome</p>
    [WELCOME_MSG] => <p>welcome</p>
    [22] => <p>thanks</p>
    [INVOICE_MSG] => <p>thanks</p>
)

• ADODB Manual - Link 1 - Returns array containing current row, or false if EOF. FetchRow( ) internally moves to the next record after returning the current row.

$rs->GetRowAssoc();

Array
(
    [NAME] => QuantumWarp
    [NUMBER] => 123456
    [ADDRESS] => The Gurking
    [CITY] => London
    [STATE] => Greater London
    [ZIP] => LA1 W10
    [COUNTRY] => GB
    [PHONE] => 123456
    [MOBILE] => 123456
    [FAX] => 123456
    [EMAIL] => 
    [CURRENCY_SYMBOL] => £
    [CURRENCY_CODE] => GPB
    [DATE_FORMAT] => %d/%m/%Y
    [LOGO] => media/logo.png
    [WWW] => 
    [OPENING_HOUR] => 10
    [OPENING_MINUTE] => 0
    [CLOSING_HOUR] => 17
    [CLOSING_MINUTE] => 0
    [TAX_RATE] => 3.50
    [WELCOME_MSG] => <p>welcome</p>
    [INVOICE_MSG] => <p>thanks</p>
)

• ADODB Manual - Link 1 - Returns an associative array containing the current row. The keys to the array are the column names. The column names are upper-cased for easy access. To get the next row, you will still need to call MoveNext().
• Returns one row.
• same as $rs->GetRowAssoc($toUpper=true)
• you can use $rs->GetRowAssoc($toUpper=false) to give all lowercase

$rs->fields[$colname];

QuantumWarp

• ADODB Manual - Link 1 - Returns the value of the associated column $colname for the current row. The column name is case-insensitive.
• Returns one field.
• The 'f' is supposed to be lower case, it does not work otherwise.

Conclusion

Muliple Records/Rows = $rs->GetArray(); This returns a 2 dimensional array which allows you to loop through the records which are also arrays.

Single Record/Row = $rs->GetRowAssoc(); - This returns a standard associative array.

Single Item from a column in a single Row = $rs->Fields[$colname];

Links

• ADODB Manual

We have all seen the terms and conditions pages and privacy policies on websites, most of us have not read them but they are an important part in protecting yourself from litigation from people on the internet and it helps set out a framework on how interactions between your website and the end user should occur. So you have made a website and you know you need to add them, but what now?

What do all the different terms mean? / What are they all for?

There are many different polices that I have come across so before you decide what you want on your website I should outline the main policies and what they are for below.

Terms and Conditions can be used as a blanket term or a specific policy. If you are running a website that provides pricing information, advice or any other service, you may want to consider adding a Terms and Conditions page or similiar page. This can absolve you of responsibility if anyone mistakenly uses your information for the wrong purposes, or wants to hold you liable for damages they have incurred by using your website or its information. Some other useful functions of a Terms and Conditions page is:

• Website terms and conditions give information about a websites content and how visitors are and are not permitted to use it. https://www.rocketlawyer.co.uk/documents-and-forms/website-terms-and-conditions.rl#
• Help protect your website and its users with clear and fair website terms and conditions. These terms and conditions for a website set out key issues such as acceptable use, privacy, cookies, registration and passwords, intellectual property, links to other sites, termination and disclaimers of responsibility. Terms and conditions are used and necessary to protect a website owner from liability of a user relying on the information or the goods provided from the site then suffering a loss. 
• A Terms and Conditions agreement is the agreement that includes the terms, the rules and the guidelines of acceptable behavior, plus other useful sections, to which users must agree in order to use or access your website and mobile app. 
• Sample Terms and Conditions Template - TermsFeed - This article describes what terms and conditions are,

According to some, the name of the contract does not matter and that perhaps is why there are so many variations for the same thing, but read my thoughts below. You can call the contract what you want as it is a contract between you and the customer but I would stick with these rules because a good lawyer could say you tried to confuse the end user if the name was to different from what the contents purpose was.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the different names of policies and terms:

The descriptions below are not the absoulte meaning of the titles because of the interchangability but I feel they are an apt description of what they are for.

• Terms and Conditions
  
  • Can be used as a blanket term or a specific policy terms.
• Terms and Conditions of Business
  • The orginal term for doing business as Brick and Mortar
• Terms of Service (TOS)
  • A “Terms of Service” is also known as TOS. It is a set of rules that users should agree with whenever they engage in the use of a product or service. In some instances, it can serve as a disclaimer under some conditions like website use. A “Terms of Service” has different sections like user rights, responsibilities, definitions and disclaimers. http://www.termsgenerator.net/terms-of-service-generator/
  • These are distinct from terms and conditions of business which are concerned with the e-commerce aspects of selling goods or services online, rather than the way in which a website is used. Any businesses with an online presence must include certain details in order to abide by the Electronic Commerce Regulations. Website terms and conditions are the best place to include such information. Ensuring that your users understand the limitations of how they can use any website content, including text, images, videos and music, helps to secure your intellectual property. 
  • What Is a Term of Agreement Page and How to Write It? | Terms Generator
• Terms of Use (TOU) / Terms of website use / Terms and conditions of use
  • This is effectively the same as a 'Terms of Service' but with a prose/title written from the users role. 
  • A Terms of Use agreement can be used for websites, SaaS apps, mobile apps, Facebook apps, APIs and more. The purpose of a Terms of Use is to set the rules to which your users must agree to in order to use your website, mobile app, API etc. https://termsfeed.com/blog/sample-terms-of-use-template/#Download_Terms_of_Use_Template
  • While a Terms of Use is recommended to have, it’s not mandatory by law as the Privacy Policy agreement is required.
  • Sample Terms of Use Template - TermsFeed - This article describes what terms of use are
• Terms and conditions of supply / Terms of Supply
  
  • This is the name that can be given to a policy covering the supply of goods or service
• Terms of sale
  • If you are selling goods and need more terms that are not covered by your statuary laws or you by law have to define them, then this is the name you would use.
  • https://store.digitalriver.com/store/defaults/en_GB/DisplayDRTermsAndConditionsPage/env.design
• Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Policy outlines some or all the ways how your company gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer's or your visitor's data It's a legal document to protect a customer's or visitor's privacy.   http://termsandconditionstemplate.com/privacy-policy-generator/
  • Why do I need a privacy policy? - Unlike with website terms, privacy policies may be required by law, depending on where you operate. In any case, it’s good practice to have one, especially if you collect any sort of private data from your users (eg. personal details, contact details, account info, cookies). Additionally, you may need a privacy policy statement to use third-party services like Instagram, or to list your app in a commercial marketplace like Google Play. http://getterms.io/
• Cookie Policy
  • This is for disclosing your use of cookies and to be compliant with the law and the EU Cookies Directive regulation. https://termsfeed.com/cookies-policy/generator/?ref=blog-sidebar-start-here
  • The EU has some weired rules and one of them is about having a cookie policy. This policy is the most pointless thing in the world and has been changed many times.
• Disclaimer
  • Many bloggers and website owners around the Internet get paid for their content, so their opinion or articles could have a slight bias. A disclosure policy lets your readers know exactly how you are compensated and how that affects your articles and services. This makes your readers more comfortable with the content you provide.
  • You need a disclaimer on your website to reduce your significant legal risks, as well.
  • You need a disclaimer so as to be able to at least have some claim to a defense. 
  • This is needed on Blogs just incase you make a mistake.
  • A dislaimer can be used to make an explicit disclaimer against information or product that you supply where you what iot to be absolutely clear that you can not be held liably.
    ie Nothing on this site shall be considered legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is established. docracy.com
• Refund Policy
  • This is just simple your companys policy on how and when a customer qualifies for a refund and what obligations they have. This is useful in the UK and EU where we have the Distance Selling Regulations (DSR) where it is required that the customer is aware of the return conditions before purchase.
• DMCA
  • By following the “safe harbor” provisions of the DMCA, a website or blog owner acknowledges that if a copyright holder believes there is infringing material on the website, then the website owner will remove it if the copyright holder provides proper notice as specified in the DMCA. The notice also prevents people from abusing website owners with fictitious, unsubstantiated requests. https://disclaimertemplate.net/
  • If you operate a website or blog where you have member-posted content, you need to have a DMCA Takedown Notice on your website to help protect yourself from both copyright holders and your members.
  • Has Your Blog Content Been Copied? A DMCA Takedown Notice May Help | Affiliate Playground - An article about the DMCA procedure
  • Dealing with website content theft | SEQ Legal - An article about content theft iwth an interesting point reguarding the UK and DMCA

T&C, TOS, TOU, are they the same?

The following articles all point towards them all being the same

• Contractual term - Wikipedia - When you search on Wikipedia for Terms and Conditions you are redirected to this page telling you it is a contractual term.
• Terms of service - Wikipedia - Opens with "Terms of service (also known as terms of use and terms and conditions, commonly abbreviated as ToS or TOS and TOU)"
• Term of Service vs. Terms of Use vs. Terms and Conditions - This is one of the first links that comes up in any of the search engines, it is short but to the point with examples.
• Terms of Service - Priori Legal - This is an article with an example Terms of Service written by a lawyer. In his opening statement he says how all of these terms are the same.
• Terms and Conditions - Priori Legal - This is an article with an example Terms of Service written by a lawyer. In his opening statement he says how all of these terms are the same.
• Sample Terms of Use Template - TermsFeed - This article under the section What is a Terms of Use is says because this agreement simply acts as a contract between you, the company, and the users that are using or accessing your website or mobile app, the agreement can be named as you’d like:
  • Terms of Use (ToU)
  • Terms of Service (ToS)
  • Terms and Conditions (T&C)
  • User Agreement
  • Conditions of Use
• On Termsfeed Terms & Condition Template/Terms of Service Template/Terms of Use Template are all exactly the same.

My Thoughts

Original before the internet this contract between you and the customer was called Terms and Conditions of Business which was then shortend to Terms and Conditions. This is what should be used for Bricks and Mortar business that primarily deal with a physical product. It should be noted that when you search for Terms and Conditions on Wikipedia that you are redirected to a page called Contractural term, which it probably is rather than a document name. Now we are in the age internet, people are still using Terms and Conditions to denote their agreement with the end user. I however feel that because you deliver things through a website, whether you deliver a physical product or not, maybe just a blog or advice, you are offering a service! This means that you should use Terms of Service. But what about Terms of Use I hear you say? Terms of Use is just another prose of Terms of Service instead of looking at it from the website or companies side you have looked at things from the user's point of view, or at least that is what the name implies. These terms are all interchangable in this modern world even thought I am not 100% convinced when you arbitrarily choose one of these terms it is the correct one, hence my musings here. The title must make sense to the policy it entitles.

It does now seem that Terms of Service is the most popular term name for websites. I have read some advice just to call the document Terms and not add any of the other ancillary words, I would perhaps refrain from that so the customer and laywers know what you meant. You can quite happily call the hyperlink Terms but give the document a proper title. 

Building your Legal Polices layout on your website and adding these to you website

There are a couple of different parts to consider when you want to add legal policies to your website.

• Layout on the website
  
  • Hyperlink
  • Page URL
  • Main Page/Article/<h1> Title
  • Sub Titles/Sections/Clauses/<h2>
  • Do you require a EU Cookies Policy
• Type of website (Interactive website/ecommerce/bricks and mortar)
• Physical location, USA/UK/EU etc..
• The actual policies required (Terms and conditions / Privacy Policy / EU Cookies Policy etc..)

There are that many different variations used on websites all over the internet but no real standard on how to layout your 'Terms and Conditions' and 'Privacy Policy' and even how to actually layout out those policies. What I hope to achieve in this article is show you how to configure all these different parts based on your business model and website by following rules I set down in the following sections giving rise to a standard.

When filling in these documents consider using an email that is not your primary address so if spammers get hold of it you can chnage the email on the policies easily. I am not sure about the legalities of this and in fairness i do think it will cause any issue sunless you are in the middle of communication for an issue and even then the email address will  be available. Use something like privacy2015@quantumwarp.com and then you can change the year if needed without killing of your main email address.

1) Hyperlink and Page URL

The hyperlink is the first thing a customer will look for on the home page when looking for the terms and conditions. In the USA the privacy policy law states that there should be a link on the homepage (if not all) with the word ‘Privacy’ prominently part of it pointing to the sites privacy policy. There does not seem to be a similar directive for 'terms and conditions' but we shall use the same model and even though this is a USA law there is no harm applying it to the rest of the world.

If in the UK/EU you need to select whether you want a single privacy page incorporating your  cookies policy and privacy policy or if you want them as seperate pages. If you have lots of cookie information then maybe having a seperate cookies policy page.

This table will help you how decide how to build your hyperlinks for your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions pages link to your terms page. Select the relevant rows for your scenarion below, considering:

• Country
• Hyperlink Text
• UK/EU single/separate cookie and privacy policy page(s)

This will result in giving you the hyperlink that matches your ciscumstances.

Notes

• Where page real estate is short, you can use the shortend hyperlink anchor text : ‘Privacy’, ‘Terms’, ’Cookies’ (optional)
• google.com does not mention cookies in a hyperlink anywhere on hompage. the cookies policy is part of the privacy policy so perhaps you do not need a link specifically for the cookies policy. Seems to be the case.
• A separate cookies page could be useful if there is a lot of information and/or you develop apps like ITV that then use your domain/website
• These rules are good across different languages
• The content and its page title can change without affecting the logic
• To be compliant with US privacy laws  the word Privacy must be promiscuous, very visible and on the home page

My Selection

• Terms Hyperlink (option 1)
  • 'Terms & Conditions' for the hyperlink anchor text
  • ../terms for the page slug
  • the use of ampersand keeps the link shorter
  • This seems to be the most popular options and does not tie me to using ‘Terms of service’ on the ../terms page
  • It allows me to change the terms at a later date without having to change the hyperlink
  • It is well recognised in the USA and UK
  • I have enough room for the full anchor text
• Privacy Hyperlink (option 8)
  • 'Privacy & Cookies' for the hyperlink anchor text
  • ../privacy for the page slug
  • I have enough room for the full anchor text
  • It is well recognised in the USA and UK
  • I did not want a separate cookies page
• Cookies Hyperlink (n/a)
  • I did not want a separate cookies page so this is not needed

2) Terms and Conditions Page Layout

We have identified your hyperlink and page slug for your selected scenario. We now need to establish the actual layout of the content, titles and sections which can be just as complex unless someone just tells you what they would do.

I have seperated this process out in to 2 sections, Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy to keep things logical as they have different thought processes and are held on different pages. In this section we will deal with the Terms and Conditions page.

Page Title

We now need to select the option by your type of business model because this has the biggest influence for the page name.

This table will help you decide how to name and layout your page titles for Terms and Conditions.

Notes

• 'Terms of Website Use' is used under 'Terms of Service' to keep the policy as the singule document that can be accepted and the sections are easily identified to their area of cover.
• If unsure you could just use Terms and Conditions / Terms of Service as page title.
• The page title (as can the policies) can always be changed at a later date to match your needs. Users would need updating as per your outlined policies (ie. By email, modify date at bottom of the T&Cs, by triggering users to re-agree to terms next time they login)
• Notice the use of ampersand, this keeps the link shorter but you can use ‘and’ if you want

My Selection

Option 4

• The combined title prevent misunderstanding and utilses the 2 most common names for this contract
• It is universal and easy to understand
• The TOS can easily be expanded
• The website use terms still under the single policy are in a clear section

Page Layout

The link, page(s) and title(s) are now set. You have a couple of options that you can use to display your content not. These are the variations of layouts that you can apply to your terms page when you require more than a TOS, such as terms-of-sale which includes DSR (EU regulation, Distance Selling Regulation) to be accepted or displayed.

Example subthing names, these now come into play.

• Terms of Website Use
• Terms and Conditions of Sale
• Returns Policy

Subthings is the name I have given to the <h2> sections/hyperlinks/clauses reference points within the terms and conditions we are building here. You will use these containers once you have decided which you prefer

These are the available layouts and their pros/cons. This section is more about personal preference.

This is dealing with layout and sub title stuff, everything else is done.

Notes

• These ideas could potentially be transliterated onto the privacy and cookie pages but is not necessary.
• 1 page is better as it is clear that this is what the user agreed to and can be pointed to by most software with the ability to select 1 page of terms to accept.

My Selection

Option 2

• single policy with multple sections is easy to manage
• can easyily be accepted as a single TOS
• easy to expand

3) Privacy / 'Privacy and Cookie Policies' Page Layout

We now have identified your hyperlink and page slug for your selected scenario. We now need to establish the actual layout of the content, titles and sections which can be just as complex unless someone just tells you what they would do.

I have seperated this process out in to 2 sections, Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy to keep things logical as they have different thought processes and are held on different pages. In this section we will deal with the Privacy Policy page.

the layout of these polciies is much simplier. so the decision process is much simplier

This table will help you decide how to name and layout your page title(s) for the Cookies and Privacy policies. consider:

• Country
• Single or Multiple pages for your policies (should of already been decided in stage 1)

Notes

• You only need a Cookies Policy in the UK/EU
• If you choose to have a separate Cookies and Privacy Policy either on a single or multiple pages, then you should at least have a clause as (or similiar) below to show acceptance of the cookies policy. You should  also remove any cookie clauses in the privacy policy to prevent confusion.

  1.2    By using our website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of our Cookies Policy.

• Only use a separate Cookies Policy page if you use lots of cookies that need identifying

My Selection

Option 3

• Single Page (UK)
  • Less pages to manage
  • I don’t have a lot of cookies on my site
  • Less links on my homepage
  • Google only has a single policy integrating cookies
  • I am in the UK and need a cookies policy
• Single Policy 2 Sections (UK)
  • 2 sections so I can easily manage updates to the policies
  • I can use the atticat cookie audit tool to generate a cookie policies with all the reference cookies as needed rather than doing it manually.
  • I also have a really good privacy policy where I can remove the cookie section
  • I am in the UK and need a cookies policy
  • I removed the cookie clauses/section from my Privacy Policy
  • I modified a clause (1.2) that says by accepting the privacy policy I also accepted the cookies policy. This is required so the cookies policy is refrenced in the privacy policy.
  • only had to change the title heirarchy slightly

4) Creating your Terms and Conditions content

Terms and conditions are usually very specific to your website and sometimes your country and state. There is a lot of common statements such as liability and do not hack my website. I have use the phrase Terms and Conditions throughout this article to loosely reference this section. As you know many websites call their terms different things and then these terms might include more things that the Terms of Service. In the tables above you have decided what actuall polices you want on your site so i will try and make the following instructions as general as possible so the workflow is the same (or as close to) for all options.

To start with these are the recommended sources. I will refer to the following documents as Terms of Service

• UK - SEQ Legal (static document)- see my building notes below on how to convert to HTML
• USA - termsofservicegenerator.com (generator)- This is the sister document to the one from freeprivacypolicy.com. This is not free, but dont take the first offer, you can get it cheaper by going through freeprivacypolicy.com and saying no thanks twice.

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

Once you have the Terms of Service by filling in the document by following the instructions or by using the generator wizard

• Convert to HTML
• Modify the Title to match your selection (ie. 'Terms of Website Use' and <h2> vs 'Terms of Service' and <h1>)
• Edit the relevant page on your website for your Terms of Service
• Add the Primary page title <h1>
• copy and paste the generated HTML into the page
• modify any links in the Terms of Service that reference the Privacy Policy or Cookies Policy to match your configuration.
• save page

Optional

• You now need to add in all other policies as clauses/sections/hyperlinks as per your selection.
• Add in the additional paragraphs to denote hyperlinks as included in the policy

5) Creating your Privacy Policy content

We now have the page created for your privacy policy and the titles we are going to use but we need content. Do not just go and copy and paste content from the internet as this violates copyright and the privacy policy would most likely not be correct for your website. There are many websites where you can get privacy policies for your website legally but I will outline the recommend ones below:

• UK - SEQ Legal (static document) - see my building notes below on how to convert to HTML
• USA/Rest of World - freeprivacypolicy.com (generator)

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

Once you have the Privacy Policy by filling in the document by following the instructions or by using the generator wizard

• Convert to HTML
• Modify the Title to match your selection (ie. 'Privacy' and <h2> vs 'Privacy Policy' and <h1>)
• Edit the relevant page on your website for your privacy policy
• Add the Primary page title <h1>
• copy and paste the generated HTML into the page
• save page

6) Creating your UK/EU Cookies Policy content

If you are in the UK or the EU you need a Cookies Policy. You can either have this on the same page as the privacy policy as a section or a seperate policy or it can be on its own page. With any of these options the process is the same except how you alter the page and section titles as required.

• Run the Atticat Free cookie audit tool in the chrome browser. This will do what irt says and audit all the cookies you use and generate a HTML cookie policy.
• Copy the generated HTML cookies policy to the selected location (Section on the Privacy Page/Seperate Policy on the Privacy Page/Standalone cookie page)
• Modify the Title(s) to match your selection (Section on the Privacy Page/Seperate Policy on the Privacy Page/Standalone cookie page), make sure you adjust both the names and <h1><h2>... as needed.

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

7) DMCA Page (optional)

The DMCA allows communities to be protected from users posting copyrighted materials on the site as long as that website operates a DMCA policy to remove the content as per the rules they set down. It might be an obligation to show this via a page with a DMCA decalration on it. I am not sure whether is 100% required but it doe snot harm to have it on just incase.

If you operate a website or blog where you have member-posted content, you need to have a DMCA Takedown Notice on your website to help protect yourself from both copyright holders and your members.

Firstly aquire a policy:

• Dmca Takedown Notice | disclaimertemplate.com - This is a word document that you can edit and you only have to leave the copyright notice in.
• Creative Commons DMCA Notice & Takedown Procedure - Creative Commons - This document can be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license and icludes Counter-Notification rules.

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

Now follow these simple instructions:

• Create a page entitled DMCA / DMCA Policy on your website
• make its slug ../dmca
• Get a DMCA policy edit it as per the instructions
• Once edited, paste it into the page and save it
• Done

If you do receive a DMCA Takedown request, just take the material down straight away. These companies will have a lot money and resources than you.

My Selection

• DisclaimerTemplate.com
  • really easy to edit
  • not sure if it 100% compatible with UK law but it cannot harm to say you will remove the dodgy content

8) Done

You have now added terms and conditions to your website with a decent organisation standard and hopefully some really good content. I would encourage to review your terms and conditions and privacy policy on a regular basis to make sure you are still compliant. If you are a good sized company, and you have completed this process perhaps get a lawyer to check everything out or supply some specific terms.

Building my Policy Content / What I did (UK) 

Instuctions for SEQ Document / Page Preperation

These are my instructions to get the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy I have used on this site from SEQ Legal, how to lay them out and why.

Firstly these instructions are my interactive website based in the UK.

Resources I used

• SEQ Legal - Privacy Policy
• SEQ Legal - Website terms and conditions
• Atticat Cookie audit Extension for chrome
• Joomla (obviously) to put the site on and some of the formatting via the WYSIWYG
• A Gantry Cookie Consent ATOM from inspire theme for getting cookie consent notification - you can use any code that does the same effect on your platform

Preparing the Documents from SEQ Legal

Editing the SEQ Documents

This process should be done for all of the SEQ documents you are going to use on your site.

• create a copy of the  SEQ legal document and prefix it MY- (so you can have disticnt copies and not get mixed up)
• open your MY- copy of the document
• remove the intro page and the draft notes at the bottom
• open the orginal copy of the document and scroll down to the drafting notes. this is so you can have them next to you while you follow the instructions and edit your document as needed. The notes are very useful and should be read.
• Follow these Editing Notes
  1. The optional sections you do not use, use strikethrough, do not delete
  2. when there is an OR statement, the one(s) you do not use you should be strikethrough and not deleted
• Now proceed through the document as per the included SEQ Legal instructions
• save

Once edited, we no need to transfer this into a html document/web page

• select all of the document and copy and paste this into a WYSIWYG (i use JCE editor in Joomla)
• the text will now be converted into html
• go through and delete all of the striketrhough text and sections
• select all of the text and click both 'Cleanup HTML' and 'Remove Formating' which will take all of the document back to standard HTML but with no formating
• we now need to add the formatting back in
  1. make the main title <h2> and add an anchor of 'terms-and-conditions-of-use' or 'privacy-policy' etc..
  2. go through the text and bold all of the headings (i.e. 1., 2. , 3. etc..)
  3. find the italic sections and make them italic again, most likely personal/company information
  4. To keep the list items in the document with the correct reference on them i.e.(a), (f) etc.. and to make them proper HTML List items we need to follow these instructions:
     
     1. select each group of list items and click on the Circle List item menu. This will convert the list into a list with circles before the (a), (b), (c) etc..
     2. now view the source code of the document and copy this into Notepad++
     3. in notepad++ do a text search and replace: circle --> none
     4. copy the new text from Notepad++ back into the source code page of the WYSIWYG
     5. return to the normal WYSIWYG window
     6. You will no have <li> lists with the original document references but no circle bullet points
• add the last edited date at the bottom, in blod and italics e.g. Terms and Conditions Last Edited on 2017-03-21
• you could make a backup of the new html if you wanted.

Create Terms and Conditions Page

• Create the page Terms and Conditions with the alias of https://quantumwarp.com/terms
• Publish the article on the home page in the legal menu at the bottom, present on all pages.
• Prepare the HTML version of the SEQ Website terms and conditions
• Paste this code in to the Joomla article
• Change the primary title to Terms of Service
• Save and close

Create Privacy & Cookies Policy Page (single page)

Create page

• Create the page Privacy and Cookies Policy with the alias of https://quantumwarp.com/privacy
• Edit the joomla article and add the primary title of Privacy and Cookies Policy
• Publish the article on the home page in the legal menu at the bottom, present on all pages.

Adding Privacy section/policy

• Prepare the HTML version of the SEQ Privacy Policy
• Edit the Joomla article
• Paste this code in to the Joomla article, below the primary title
• rename the title Privacy Policy to Privacy and set to <h2>
• Save

Adding Cookies section/policy

• Edit the Joomla article
• Edit clause 1.2 in the Privacy Policy to reference the cookies policy we are creating here. so it reads as follows
  

  1.2    By using our website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of our Cookies Policy.

• in clause 1.2 I made the 'privacy and cookies policy' hyperlinked to the 'Privacy and Cookies Policy'. This is not mandatory.
• Delete Section 13.0 from the Privacy Policy Section (should of already been deleted). This is the section that deals with cookies
• Run Atticat cookie policy generator and paste the results after the Privacy Policy Section. The code is already outputed as clean HTML.
• Paste this code in to the Joomla article, below the Privacy section/policy adjusting title heirarchy as needed (each <h> tag will need increasing by 1 so that Cookies In Use on This Site is set to <h2>
• Rename Cookies In Use on This Site to Cookie Policy / Cookies In Use on This Site
• Save

Cookie Consent Popup

I installed the  Cookie Consent ATOM from inspire theme for getting cookie consent notification.

Create DMCA Page

I created a page as per the instructions above but added the following sentence (with hyperlink)  so as to facilitate easier contact. I am not sure if this breaks the contract in any way but I would like the least amount of hassle, so i would just remove the offending content.

You may contact us via the contact form so we can deal with this issue.

Additonal Options

I added the following clause so it is easier at a later date to expand my Terms & Conditions / Terms of Service. This statement also get the user to acknowledge that hyperlinked sections are part of the TOS.

This website is operated by Bob Marley (referred to as "QuantumWarp/we/our/us"). As user of this website (referred to as "you/your") you acknowledge that any use of this website including any transactions you make ("use/using") is subject to our terms and conditions below (which includes any other important hyper-linked sections e.g. Privacy & Cookies Policy.

The following policies form the Terms of Service, this is the contract between you and us for using our website or services and the purchasing of products or services.

Notes

Atticat Cookies Policy Generator

• Use atticat chrome addin. It audits the cookies and give you a nice policy already preformatted (http://www.attacat.co.uk/resources/cookies)
• If you think you are going to use it, say yes. like i am not using a/b marketing now but I might. If i answer yes I dont have to go back and consitently alter my policy
• Most questions probably should be answered yes.
• Embedding a youtube video is a 3rd party service usage
• If you use a cookies template you still have to find all the cookies and populate it, hence why this tool is great.

SEQ Privacy Policy

• This policy does mention goods
  • (d) send you goods purchased through our website;
  • (e) [supply to you services purchased through our website];
• 9.3 - I added notify you by updating the modification date
• 13. Cookies - I removed this section as I was using Atticat Generator
• 14. I am not registered as a data controller
• 15.2 altered to 'This site operates under the Jurisdiction of England and Wales.'

SEQ Terms and condition of Use

• From the notes: this document includes provisions covering user accounts and user-generated content (although the latter are not as detailed as in some of our more sophisticated website terms and conditions documents).
• Rename 'Terms and conditions of use' to 'Terms of Service' ? (most things say TOS)
• 4.1(e) - [use [our website services] by means of a web browser], I need to alter this if I have extra services
• 5.1 - use data collected from our website for any direct marketing activity (including without limitation email marketing, SMS marketing, telemarketing and direct mailing). - I think this implies a 3rd party and not me
• 8.2 can close your account - not sur joomla has an option for this.
• 9.2 - this controls the re-use of the user submitted content
• 14.2 - I selected the options to change the terms and conditions withou notification - when going it would be good to change this to notification by email and that the modification date at the bottom
• 14.3 - if user has given specific consent to the TOS then if the TOS change we will ask you again for consent
• 18.1 - 'privacy and cookies policy' changed to 'privacy and cookies policies' - also in more than one place - ,maybe change it to this 

Additional Options for Terms

After building your Terms of Service / Terms and Conditions you might find that you need to add a few extra options, policies or terms that are not covered in my article but none the less are very useful. I will outline the ones I have come across here:

Implicit Consent and Hyperlinked Sections

The following statement adds implicit acceptance of tetms by just usign the site and it also denotes hyperlinked sections are included in the terms by hyperlinking sections and further makes this clear by giving a short list of examples.

You can of course alter this to just promote either Implicit Consent or Hyperlinked Sections

This website is operated by Bob Marley (referred to as "QuantumWarp/we/our/us"). As user of this website (referred to as "you/your") you acknowledge that any use of this website including any transactions you make ("use/using") is subject to our terms and conditions below (which includes any other important hyper-linked sections e.g. How to use this website, Returns and refunds, and Privacy policy. In addition, you will find other useful information within Customer services. Please:

• read through these terms and conditions carefully before using this website.
• print a copy for future reference.
• also read our Privacy policy section regarding your personal information.

Transaction Clause

Not all Terms of Service will come with a clause like this or indeed any e-commerce clauses. This clause is a vehicle to be able to attach other terms and conditions to your primary Terms of Service document and still allow end users to explicitly except it. You can if needed, also hyperlink 'terms and conditions of supply' and/or alter the name of the document being included. You are also not limited to adding just this one clause, you can add further clauses like this or modified clauses following the same basic layout.

Transactions concluded through our site

Contracts for the supply of [goods OR services OR information] formed through our site or as a result of visits made by you are governed by our terms and conditions of supply.

USA Specific Laws / Policies

If your company is located in the USA and/or your website is hosted in the USA (not 100% about this) then you need to comply with their rules and laws. I am not sure how international law matters are handled in reguards to this as to which regions laws are applied. These extra rules are mailny to do with the Privacy Policy, I am not sure if there are any specific changes required to the Terms of Service.

To make things easy you could add compliance for all of the laws and polices that are required for the USA (including the California ones) and this should not adversely you current privacy policy as these extra policies are usually on top of what is already there.

The extra Privacy Rules are:

• Information Protection
• Cookies (not to an EU level just that they are used)
• Third-party Disclosure
• Third-party links
• Google (including DART and some other stuff)
• CalOPPA
• COPPA
• Fair Information Practices
• CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

You can read my 'Privacy Policy Notes' for further information or just use Google as these are well known rules. My advice would be to generate a Privacy Policy with freeprivacypolicy.com as this is upto date with all of the rules and is USA centric.

 Other Things you can add to your TOS

• Linking Policy - not used so much nowadays but can be useful to describe how other people can link to your site and how you link from your site. This can quite easily be part of your TOS.
• Trademarks - Trademark protection is very useful. This give information how you allow the use of your trademakrk and in what circumstances it is allowed.

Notes

In this section I will add the notes I made but did not need to go in the instructions or elsewhere in this article.

Dont use your primary email for these online policy documents just incase spammers get hold of it, use something like privacy2015@quantumwarp.com and then you can change the year if needed without killing of your main email address.

Privacy Policy Notes

I did these notes whilst using the freeprivacypolicy.com generator to make my Privacy Policy document with it.

• There seems no specification to a regional/country law, except that most countries require you to have a privacy ploicy and som of the califonian/american law reuire that privacy ploic to have the word 'pricay' in the hyperlink and should be conspicuously i.e. on the home page. the calfifornian ones should be adehered to unless they cause you issues as this is usually the standard
• There are some references to some american based rules such as CalOPPA COPPA which can be adopted by non-us. If you are in the UK I do not thing you are under any obligation to use the us laws.
• It covers the following areas:
  • Information Protection
  • Cookies (not to an EU level just that they are used)
  • Third-party Disclosure
  • Third-party links
  • Google (including DART and some other stuff)
  • CalOPPA
  • COPPA
  • Fair Information Practices
  • CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
• CAN-SPAM (do not need this unless you are want to send unsolicted emails) - i do not really want to put my address on my site
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
  • It exempts "transactional or relationship messages.
  • only needed if you are sending unsolictied emails
  • There are no restrictions against a company emailing its existing customers or anyone who has inquired about its products or services, even if these individuals have not given permission, as these messages are classified as "relationship" messages under CAN-SPAM.[13] But when sending unsolicited commercial emails, it must be stated that the email is an advertisement or a marketing solicitation. Note that recipients who have signed up to receive commercial messages from you are exempt from this rule.
  • In general the privacy policy is just saying what data you collect and how you use it, the terminology is alomost universal. This piad one covers more ground and is us centric.,

Terms and Conditions

• look at a lawyers website (preferable online law specialists) local to your country and see what they have done. you would expect their site to be correct.
• When considering your terms and privacy policy the following can affect them:
  • e-commerce
  • Is the site is owned by a company or is a personal project
  • blogs
  • interactive
  • EU
  • US based
  • The rest of the world
• A generic Terms of Service and Privacy policy is better than non, and makes your site more compliant
• Embedding a  youtube videos is classed as using a 3rd party service
• Terms and Conditions - Definatley use these if your site is commercial or a company becaus eit includes leagal terms related to the UK.
• You would add extra information about paid subscriptions etc.. to Terms of Service
• Copyright is usually taken care of in the T&Cs
• Services need contracts - Overview of the Terms and conditions for supply of services to consumers via a website | Rocket Lawyer – very cool answer
• TOS – addresses the use of your website and the interactions. It would not necessarily cover sales in a shop etc.
• if you cannot find local terms and condions for you country, use the US ones and possibly alter the jurisdiction to your country. If you are in the EU, add the EU cookie policy on via the Atticat chrome extentions. You might need to use Google Translate to make it into your own language.

Acceptance of Terms

Acceptance of terms was a major part of this article and now I want to explain a little more.

There are 2 types of acceptance:

• Implicit - This means you automatically accept the terms by using the site or service without you haveing to give any specific consent.
  
  • Argos - See the paragraph at the top.
• Explicit - To give your explicit consent you must perform an action showing you give permission such as clicking a button or selecting a check box
  
  • Twitch - When you sign up there is a sentence saying "By clicking Sign Up, you are indicating that you have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy" so when you sign up you have given you Explicit consent
  • ADD another site here where you have to click on a checkbox
  • Joomla  registration with a checkbox

There might be a difference between countries and then depending on what the terms are, you might be required to get explicit consent for the terms to of been deemed as accepted. There is no harm is having the terms implicitely accepted like Argos and then explicitely accepted by the use of a checkbox during registration to your site. This should cover both aspects.

I have read that in American (USA) courts unless a click is made (i.e. accept the terms and conditions checkbox) the acceptance is not likely to be upheld. This is one reason I am striving with these rules so that acceptance is upheld for both UK and US law.  There might be times where implicit terms are accepted in the USA but i do not have any example sites for that.

Enable Acceptance of TOS in Joomla

Joomla is my platform of choice but this particular feature is hidden, Joomla enabling TOS articles:

• https://www.gavick.com/documentation/joomla/terms-conditions-registration-checkbox
• http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1858258&seqNum=5

I have not come across a plugin that will allow me to get users to re-accept the terms and conditions, but this would be useful, also Joomla calls it's terms, terms of use but when you sign up to Joomla it says accept Terms of service

Why a single page is important?

This is another central point of this article was to create rules for laying out the content so that all systems were able to accept the terms. What do I mean with this statement?

Most CMS systems such as Joomla or Wordpress have facilites to accept the Terms of Service (TOS) but you will only have the ability to select one page of terms. This is where my terms rules come into play as all of the different options allowing you to make a single page of terms that can be selected and then accepted. A single page allows you to get explicit consent for all of the terms you require.

The basic rule is that the Terms of Service page should clearly reference all other required terms and policies by hyperlinks with a paragraph saying to the end user that this is the case or that all of the other policies should be part of the singular Terms of Service policy.

Do you need to click to accept terms of sale?

If digital you cn just make this part of your TOS and then is hould not be an issue. When considering Bricks and Mortar businesses I think that you would need to reference it on your invoices and it would be Implicit consent you get because they would get the terms on the invoice after paying or could look them up on your website.

Twitch Legal Document Model

Twitch is an excellent example of a large site and how it handles it slegal documents so that is why I have given it a special mention here. Blow I will outline the main points:

• The hyper links on the homepage are
  • Terms which goes to https://www.twitch.tv/p/terms-of-service
  • Privacy Policy which goes to https://www.twitch.tv/p/privacy-policy
  • Cookie Policy which goes to https://www.twitch.tv/p/cookie-policy
• All Twitch's documents are under the directory/slug https://www.twitch.tv/p/ - This is good if you have lots of documents you can file them all under one directory to keep things neat.
• Twitch's Terms of Service is their primary terms page and within the second paragraph they referer to other polices including  Terms of Sale and says as such are all incorporated into the Terms of Service. This example proves how you can have 1 TOS that incorporates other policies with merging them, but just by inclusion.
  

  When using the Twitch Services, you may be subject to any additional posted guidelines or rules applicable to specific services and features that may be posted online from time to time (the “Guidelines”). One example is Twitch's Community Guidelines.  Twitch may also offer certain paid services, which are subject to the Twitch Terms of Sale  as well as any additional terms or conditions that are disclosed to you in connection with such services. All such terms and guidelines are incorporated into these Terms of Service by reference.

• Their hyperlink policies is not as neat as mine
• The explicit acceptance of the Terms of Service (which includes other Twitch policies) on Twitch is done by:
  • The fact that when you signup/register on Twitch you have to fill in a form and on this form there is the following statement

  • By clicking Sign Up, you are indicating that you have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

  • To complete your registration you have to click on the 'Sign Up' button which then gives your explicit acceptance of those terms linked.
  • Also should be noted that this could be a way of including other terms and conditions if you absolutely needed to do it this way.
  • Most Terms of Service have references to include the Privacy Policy Twitch in these modern times is just making things a lot more obvious.

Questions

• Can a website and a bricks and mortar and it's website  be classed as 2 different entities? Is this by default?
• A note on invoice that the terms are available on the website or print them all on it like Scan (UK)

Links

The following are links that I helped me figure out my rules and how everything worked.

How to  write your Terms and Conditions

If you really need to write your own terms and condtions then have a look through these guides.

• Terms & Conditions Template | eCommerce How-to Guide | smallrevolution - Learn to write best practice Terms & Conditions for your eCommerce store. Fair, clear and personalized with the help of hand picked examples and templates.
• How to Make Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies for a Business | wikiHow - An easy to read article on making your own terms and conditions.
• How to Write Terms and Conditions (with Sample Terms and Conditions) | wikiHow - An easy to read article on making your own terms and conditions.
• How to Write Terms and Conditions | Legal123.com.au - How to Write Terms and Conditions for Your Website – the Legal123 guide. Pretty much everything you need to know about posting Terms and Conditions on your online business website in Australia.
• How to Create Terms & Conditions for a Website | Chron.com - an article on how to write your own terms and conditions
• Protect Your Website - Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy | Udemy - A cource from udemy on how to "Write a Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy Agreement for Your Website or Mobile App"
• Where can I generate terms and conditions for an eCommerce website online? - Quora
• How to Write a Privacy Policy | The Docracy Blog
• It’s OK if you copied your Terms of Service | The Docracy Blog - an article going through the Pros and Cons of this method.

Sources of information

• SEQ Legal - All of the documents have details notes and there are many articles on this site covering legal matters.
• Rocket Lawyer - Has articles on various legal things and for each of the documents it has information about what they are for.
• Docular - For each of the documents it has information about what they are for.
• Off To See My Lawyer, Legal Advice For Entrepreneurs - For each of the documents it has information about what they are for.
• e-lawresources.co.uk - A little dated but the information is still good.

Privacy Policy vs Terms and Conditions

Some people get confused between these two documents, I hope these helps.

• Privacy Policies vs. Terms & Conditions - TermsFeed
• What is the difference between a privacy policy and terms and conditions - Quora

Terms and Condition Monitoring Sites

Large companies are always changing their terms and conditions and these sites help you see what the terms mean and when they change.

• Terms of Service; Didn't Read - We are a user rights initiative to rate and label website terms & privacy policies, from very good Class A to very bad Class E. Terms of service are often too long to read, but it's important to understand what's in them. Your rights online depend on them. We hope that our ratings can help you get informed about your rights.
• TOSBack | The Terms-Of-Service Tracker - TOSBack is a collaboration between the EFF, the Internet Society, and ToS;DR. Every day, we check the Terms and Policies of many online services to see if any of them have changed.
• Docracy Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Tracker - Changes - Using Docracy's unique document change analysis, we are now tracking terms of service and privacy policies for hundreds of the world's top sites.

Cookie Audit Tool / Policy Generator

There are some apps out there that you can use to build up a Cookie Policy along with what cookies are actually used. I am not 100% you have to do this anymore.

• Free cookie audit tool | Attacat of Edinburgh - a very easy to use Google Chrome Extension

Document Generators

For all of us that do not have lots of money or are not lawyers these generators will be good enough, just give the content a read over once they are created. Lawyers want you to scare you in to spending money that you do not have. The internet is great you can get a document and print it out without ever needed a laywer. When you do earn enought money to warrant the laywer fees (or you can afford it ) then you should get one but until then use a generator.

Some of these generators are by well respected companies (ie. shopify) and if they were complete bollocks they would not offer them. It is true that a generic terms and conditions cannot cover all situations, btu most of them.

You should check the generated content as a lot of them are USA centric and need adapting for the EU and UK, in either case it is always good to read the output to make they are correct for your situation.

• In some places you can swap state for 'England and Wales'
• I have used all of these generators listed here to output sample documents.

Generator Articles

• Generate Terms & Conditions with TermsFeed - This is an article on Termsfeed
• Free Website Terms and Conditions Templates for Your Blog | Affiliate Playground - a brief look at some generators and other resources

Free Generators

• bennadel.com - Privacy Policy / Terms Of Service Generator. really easy to use, the documents are to the point and not overcomplex. ideal for the small websites. Doesnt have any refence in it for ecommerces
• Shopify Tools
  
  • Common: The submission form is the same for refund policy/terms and considtions/privacy policy, all have your full address. All docs are plain text so will need making into html (use a WYSIWYG). Add blockers wi
  • Terms and conditions - this is from a  big company, is country aware and is for an ecommerse site. It does use the supplied email to send you the document. You do not need to be a shopify customer but they do try. It asks if you website uses cookies (obviously it does) but it might asdd a cookie thing on. The emails take a minute or 2 to come through. The email contains a link, not the actual document. The document is indepth but is text only, you will have to make it into html. For some reason the generator reduces lancashire to LAN
  • Privacy Policy - this has a cookie clause, the cookies it mentions will not match yours if you do not use shopify
  • Refund Policy - simple to use
• termsandconditionstemplate.com
  
  • Terms and Conditions (make a donation if you want) - you must keep a link on the terms and conditions unless you make a donation, you can give your email to be kept updated whena  new version comes out. The results are supplied in both html and text. They seem quite in depth and warrant a full read. IT does not automnaitcally add a link into their website, you should add this manually?
  • Privacy Policy (make a donation if you want) - There are a lot of selectable options in the privacy policy wizard covering Website Visitors, Personally-Identifying Information, Security, Advertisements, External Links, Google Adwords Remarketing, Aggregated Statistics, Affiliate Disclosure, Cookies, Credit (donate to remove), E-commerce, Business Transfers, Privacy Policy Changes, Protection of Collected Information (recommended for membership sites) = very in-depth. You can add your own custom polices. If you get the captcha wrong it will wipe oout what you have typed, case sensitive and check adblockers causing issue. The policy is supplied in plain text and html
• getterms.io - Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions (combined) - fill in 3 boxes and click, the output is in html, a good documents, not as in depths as some but it covers all the main stuff.
• seotoaster.com  - E-commerces Privacy, Terms & Conditions - This is a 7 page wizard. when you click on the finish button it redirects you to the seotaster homepage not the plicy. you have to click back and hope it is still there. Considering it covers all 3 topics it is not very long and you have to aquire the html mnaully. the generator also seems to store the details in apersitnet cookie. dont forget to remove the <div> tags surrounding the policy. i cannot work out if the bit at the top needs to be included aswell
• termsgenerator.net - This site also has templates and other generators and descriobes the terms. the website has many generators, descriptions and templates.
  • Terms of Service  - easy to read and can include ecommerse, the output is html but you will need a wysiwyg to extract it (seems similiar to seotaoster)
  • Terms of Use -  it contains private policy?
  • Terms and Conditions - there are not many options to configure. the terms are quite lengthy and well written
  • Terms and Conditions Template for Ecommerce Website - Not working yet http://www.termsgenerator.net/ecommerce-website-terms-and-conditions-generator/
  • Privacy Policy - a lot of options to select from, this is quite a good generator. very easy to use
  • Cookie Policy -  2 boxes very easy, the policy is simple and to the point. It is justs text and is not a full audit with specific cookies labelled aprat from the possible use of non specified anayltics
  • Disclaimer -  http://www.termsgenerator.net/disclaimer-generator-tool/, the actual generator is there but a bit hidden,
• madsubmitter.com
  • Terms and Conditions (remove credit with a donation), has a credit card awareness checkbox, as mention it includes a backlink (fair enough) and the terms cover all of the basics and are well set out.
  • Privacy Policy (remove credit with a donation) has a cedit card awareness checkbox, a failry basic policy which briefly mentions cookies
• privacypolicyonline.com
  • Common - there are some article son this site about this topic.  It adds a link at the bottom of the plicy but does not say anywhere you have to keep it
  • Privacy Policy  - generate your own Privacy Policy that fills all of the requirements of the leading PPC and Affiliate sites such as Google Adsense, Commission Junction and the most popular sites used for site monetization. has a nice feature to obsucate email address with javascript. this is not needed for joomla. your can generate a doc or html.
  • Disclaimer -  easy to make, short and to the point
  • Terms of Service - very configurable with allsorts of compnay information. make sure that you tick the boxes to iunlcude the information
  • Terms and Conditions - this uises the same apges as above
• alpineinternet.com
  • Common: is stuck to using USA address, you have to use a wysiwyg and jsbeatifier to ge the html code. The generated html code is a bit messey but nothing terrible. Alpine will also email them to you
  • Privacy Policy - quite a good size policy but  It mentions cookies in a single paragraph.very easy to use. Make sure you swap out the american state in the text because you cannot do it in the generator.
  • Terms and Conditions - Easy to use. covers all the basics and is well set out
  • Return Policy - Easy to use, The policy is only emailed to you
  • Other Generators: Google Analytics Tracked Link Builder, Professional Bio Interview, Organizational History Interview, Professional Services Agreement Generator
• Legal River: I think this site is dead
  • Terms of Service  - This allows you sleect trerms of service sections (general terms/sales/blog) and also give you a description of these sections. Definately USA centric. NOT WORKING
  • Privacy Policy - NOT WORKING
• Same1 - All the same Company
  • Disclaimer Generator (disclaimertemplate.net) - very easy just add your company name - outputs html
  • Terms and Conditions Generator (termsandcondiitionssample.com) - easy to use, covers all of the basics and is well set out, outputs html
  • Terms and Conditions Generator (termsandconditionsgenerator.com) - slightly different to above
  • Terms and Conditions Generator (termsofservicegenerator.net) - easy to use
  • Terms of Use Generator (termsofusegenerator.net)- very in depth and easy to use. outputs html
  • Privacy Policy Generator (privacypolicygenerator.info) - easy to use - goods terms, adds a link at the bottom of the document but does not say anywhere you have to remove it.
  • might be the same generators as 
• freeprivacytermsgenerator.com - Terms and Conditions/Privacy Policy Generator (free) - easy to use and a simple wizard. you can download ither as a pdf or as HTML . The html is a little messy but nothing major
• freeprivacypolicy.com - Privacy Policy (free) - It has options for ecommerce, indepth questionaire incling PCI compliance, SSL, advertising tracking. It has a page for 'CalOPPA - California Online Privacy Protection Act', 'COPPA' and 'FTC's Fair Information Practices'. You can add additional clauses. This is a very indepth privacy ploicy creator. At the end you have to sign up to a newsletter to get your ploicy (fair enough). The policy is then email to you. You are then upsold to buy 'terms of service' for $15. I woul dlike to see the generator first. if you click no thanks it goes to $7. maybe ask them for a demo on terms of service. you can build it before purchase? You are given a username a password and can edit and download your policy. well set out but the html is a little messy but nothing terrible. possibly worth the $7. It also does not describe the single licese very well./ contact them via the live chat. i am sure you can get the $7 deal easy again.
• Docular - ideal if you only have 1 site
  
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/174/free-privacy-policy
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/175/free-cookies-policy
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/5200/free-returns-policy
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/365/free-anti-spam-policy
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/368/free-linking-policy
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/5199/free-delivery-policy
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/5193/free-it-support-terms-and-conditions
  • https://docular.net/documents/template/173/free-website-terms-and-conditions

Paid / Freemium Generators

Some of the free sites give you free terms and consitions/privacy policys etc.. but leave out vital parts of the contract unless you pay. Some of these terms left out make them almost pointless so I have added these under paid.

• TermsFeed  (Freemium) - most needed things are paid for, you 'might' get a useful document if you are an individual running a smalll site, the rest is paid for. The builder wizard seems quite good. It has features like being able to select what country you are in. A paid document can get expensive really quickly. One feature is that I believe it is a pay for once service so when updates to the document are made you are notified by email and can get the update for free.
• Rocket Lawyer (you have to sign up for a TRIAL)
  • website terms and conditions - an indepth wizard. It is UK aware. When you have finished the wizard you can see the document and you are prompted to register to view you document at any time. You cannot download it at this point so you must register. This subscription service has many other document generators available not just for websites
  • and more
• E-Terms - E-Terms are the UK's leading provider of custom-made Website Terms and Conditions. We've helped over 2,000+ businesses with their website legal documents, with prices starting at just £35.
  
  • Website Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy Template
  • and more
• Privacy & Cookie Policy Generator - for Websites and Apps | iubenda - Privacy laws require privacy policies on websites and apps: Use our lawyer-crafted, self-updating and international privacy policy generator.
• Internet Legal Armor - Easily generate unlimited "law firm quality" website legal documents and sell them to your clients! Add revenue to your business with our online compliance system. Website Legal Protection Made Easy!
• Docular - A large online library of legal documents that you can build using their generator technology. Both a selection of free and paid options.

Document Templates (static)

Some websites offer excellent templates, free and paid, that require you to manually alter them giving you the same efect as a generator.

Free

• Sample Terms and Conditions templates – Ecwid Help Portal - English and German
• Website Terms and Services Agreement | indiafilings.com
• Free Website Terms and Conditions | Contractology - You pay to remove the Contractology Credit. They also offer free under the same terms : Anti-Spam policy, Copyright Notice, Cookies Policy, Legal Disclaimer, Linking Policy, Medical Disclaimer, Privacy Statement, Website Disclaimer. (Website T&Cs by SEQ Legal LLP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.)
• Sample website usage terms and conditions | nibusinessinfo.co.uk - There is also samples of: Privacy Policy, Website Disclaimer, internet and copyright notice & gudielines, business email disclaimer, acceptable internet use policy, acceptable email use policy
• Terms of Use - Creative Commons - This document has been released into the public domain CC0
• Privacy Policy - Creative Commons - This document has been released into the public domain CC0
• Creative Commons DMCA Notice & Takedown Procedure - Creative Commons - This document can be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
• Policies - Creative Commons - Other policies that can be used by Arrtibution or CC0
• Free Sample Terms And Conditions For Your E-commerce Website - Free sample terms and conditions for your e-commerce website (UK specific).  A clear set of terms and conditions is a vital step in your navigation and checkout process. We've compiled this example set of T&Cs that you can use as a guideline to create your own for your website.
• Free Website Disclaimers | DisclaimerTemplate.com
• Dmca Takedown Notice | DisclaimerTemplate.com - Download a Free DMCA Takedown Noticetoday to protect your online business.
• TermsGenerator.net - This site also offers templates you can use, such as: Standard Terms and Conditions, Online Store Terms and Conditions, Website Content Disclaimer Examples, Ecommerces Terms of Service Example, Standard Disclaimer, website Legal Discalimer, confidentiality Disclaimer and maybe a few more if you look in the sitemap. This site also offers generators and is listed in the generators list above.
• Free legal documents | SEQ Legal - A UK based company that offers a great selection of free legal notices and documents are available on this website. They are both legally sophisticated and easy-to-use, and you can download them without registering. You pay to remove the Credit link. They offer the following documents: Anti-Spam Policy, Cookies Policy, Copyright notice, Legal disclaimer, Linking Policy, Medical Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, Website disclaimer, Website Terms and conditions. They also offer many other documents in the areas of: IT contracts, Commercial contracts, Disclaimers.
• Social Media Competition Terms and Conditions - If you are running a competition in social media, you must draw up some Terms and Conditions to communicate the rules of your promotion. As soon as you ask people to  ‘enter for a chance to win’ you will be running a  ‘legally regulated competition’.
• Priori Legal Legal Document & Form Learning Center - Priori Legal is a curated legal marketplace connecting businesses with a network of vetted lawyers. Our Document Learning Center features legal forms and documents drafted by members of our network. They have agreed to share some of the documents they regularly use in the course of their practice along with annotations explaining different provisions and outlining decisions you might need to make. 
  
  • Privacy Policy - Priori Legal
  • Privacy Policy 2 - Priori Legal
  • Terms and Conditions - Priori Legal
  • Terms of Service - Priori Legal
  • Website Linking Agreement - Priori Legal
  • Many other documents in many other areas.
• Docracy - Free Legal Documents - Docracy is the web's only open collection of legal contracts and the best way to negotiate and sign documents online.
• Privacy Policy - Number 10 - Use Number 10 Downing Streets Privacy Policy as a base for making my own policy page. The UK Goverment must have this right and you can re-use the document under the Open Goverment License.

Paid / Freemium

• Disclaimer Template | Website Disclaimer - This site offers paid for documents and gives some information about the law. These guys seem to know what they are doing.
• Legal documents - Docular - Docular helps you to create professional legal documents. Choose a template, customise online and download. It's that simple. All the documents currently available on Docular have been created by English-qualified lawyers. (Owned by SEQ Legal). There is a restriction to only be able to use 1 copy of each of the free templates, and this means 1 project.
• Website Contracts | Templates by SEQ Legal - We supply downloadable template legal agreements and other legal documents relating to business, employment, media and technology. (Owned by SEQ Legal)
• Terms of Service Generator (by freeprivacypolicy.com) - this is the upsell from the free privacy policy. If you go throught the Privacy Policy generator you will get this at a massive discount. The privacy Policy Generator seems to be the most comprehensive that I have seen so the Terms of Service generator should be the same quality.
• Simply-Docs - Legal, Business & Property Documents & Templates - This site has many areas of documents with a UK slant
• Off To See My Lawyer, Legal Advice For Entrepreneurs - for all small and medium sized businesses in the UK, we offer bespoke and 'oven ready' terms and conditions with a smile

Research

Various Terms and Conditions

I used these to research this article and looked at how these lot did things.

• BBC
• Google
• GOV.UK
• Premier League
• Parcel Force
• SEQ Legal
• Docular
• Filehippo
• Natwest
• The Guardian
• facebook
• twitter
• Samsung UK
• Dell (UK)
• art.co.uk
• Edwardes UK Electrical Wholesalers
• Nexon
• Akeeba (has on 1 page for TOS and PP)
• Fatmedia - Has Terms as a PDF
• Bigcommerce - When you sign up it has the message (By providing your email, you are agreeing to our terms of service)
• PC World UK
• Scan sames as on the back of the invoice
• Zen Internet massive index list of policies
• Rocket Lawyer
• Argos
• Twitch this is a good example of the 3 main policies and a legal menu - By clicking Sign Up, you are indicating that you have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This policy is great for larger sites when you look how they arrange their documents.
• SpeedTest
• Chain Reaction Cycles

Reviews

While doing my research I had to assess a couple of sites and their products.

SEQ Legal

• Their documents are set out more like a legal document
• it has a lot of clauses. This prevents a lot of future issues.
• This is a very tight contract and goes quite far to protect the owner fo the site.
• Available to all and free as long as you leave the credit in. takes a lot more setting up
• It does not mention the sales of goods.
• it says that "Subject to Section 12.1, these terms and conditions[, together with [our privacy and cookies policy],] shall constitute the entire agreement between you and us in relation to your use of our website and shall supersede all previous agreements between you and us in relation to your use of our website" 18/18.1
• SEQ say that if you have your own cookie policy, or you use their standalone cookie policy then you should remove the section from the privacy policy
• Terms and Conditions - the document is well written and comes with many notes to help you configure it
• SEQ Legal does not cover sale of goods, just the use of the website
• These documents does has specific references to the UK Law

UKWADA

Their documents are only available if you are a member

• policies are easier to read, not concerned if you are a company, mentions that goods bought are goverend by 'terms and conditions of supply'. not available to everyone, done by a UK law firm lawid~ it mentions the sale of goods.
• Cookie document - this document needs you to fill in the cookies used (here come attacat)
• UKWADA used Lawdit Solicitors http://www.lawdit.co.uk/ to create the documents
• These documents does has specific references to the UK Law
• It does not have including provision that give me use of content that is uploaded.
• Has a linking clause
• HAs many other clauses, it is quite a rounded document but does not feature a massive use of legal terms.

Docular (free)

• Owned by SEQ Legal
• Same documents (i think)
• More a generator than static templates as you can configure them
• Limitied to 1 copy of a free template, both an instance and license (not an issue with the ones from SEQ Legal)
• Docular allows the downloading of all docs in html or word
• Can store your generated documents on their system for editing
• They have a time limit on how long you can edit a document for which is concerning. I have mentioned this to the site owner.

Prestashop

I looked into how prestashop handled acceptance of terms and here are my findings.

• Prestashop does not require you to accept terms and conditions on sign up, but give you the optio for them to accept the 'term of service' before they make an order. They also have a page called 'terms and conditions of use'. The cleary denotes 1 policy for using the site and one for the sale of the fgoods - these tersm might be the same? the second box just selecting the apge toa gree to.
• Setting the Terms of Service rule in PrestaShop 1.5 | InMotion Hosting
• Require Terms of Service before Processing Orders in Prestashop 1.5 | Web Hosting Hub
• when you sign up, prestashop does get you to agree to a small privacy policy paragraph.
• during checkout you get the following: 

  Terms of service
  
  I agree to the terms of service and will adhere to them unconditionally. (Read the Terms of Service) which teakes you to the 'terms and conditions of use'
  
  this sort of implies 1 terms and conditions page and only accepted when a purchase is made. perhaps a european thing.

• Require Terms of Service before Processing Orders in Prestashop 1.5 | Web Hosting Hub

I needed a hidden Gantry section so I could publish my Javascripts and modal code without creating a load of blanks space.

Solution

• Create a Gantry section called 'Hidden'
• Add the following CSS code to your custom.scss file

  /* Hide Hidden Section - So i can paste scripts into it without adding blank space */
  #g-hidden {
      height: 0px;
  }

So far it works but I have not extensively tested it.

Q: I can only disable comments via the options menu. There does not seem to be anyway to control it. How can I restrict comments to registered users?

A: There is no particular option for this case when using the built-in RSFeedback! commenting system. However, you can achieve this through template overrides. This procedure is explained here.

The file you need to perform template overrides is located under this path:

/components/com_rsfeedback/views/feedback/tmpl/default.php

Open the duplicate used for template overrides and search for:

<?php echo $this->comments->form;?>

Replace the above line with:

<?php $user = JFactory::getUser(); if($user->id != 0) {    ?>
<?php echo $this->comments->form;?>
<?php } ?>

This article will go through a pratical example of adding Komento (v3.0.4) to a component, in this case RSFeedback (v1.5.13). I will cover the various aspects of the Koneto Plugin structure and then go into the actual integration and how all of these parts interact.

Useful Information and Resources

These are not easy to find unless you are looking for them but combined they really helped me make this article and my plugin.

• Creating Own Integration Files - Advance - Komento Documentation - This is the primary document from Stackideas for making your own Komento plugin file for integration
• Triggers - Advance - Komento Documentation - Due to the nature of Komento's multiple component support system, triggers in Komento comes in 2 form: Component Plugin and Joomla Plugin. Not 100% what I would use this for but the link to this in the primary document is broken
• In the Komento (once installed)
  • components/com_komento/komento_plugins/abstract.php - This is the class that all other plugins extend and it includes all the functions (Basic and Advanced) with descriptions
  • components/com_komento/komento_plugins/com_sample.php - It is supposed to be a sample to help you make your own plugin but it is incomplete
  • components/com_komento/komento_plugins/com_content.php - Uses an advanced function to add extra configurability in the Komento Integrations Admin Tab for this plugin
  • components/com_komento/komento_plugins/{All the Others} - Have a look through the other plugins, they might help you.
• QW_com_sample.php - This is my upgraded com_sample.php with all annotations present with some extra code to make things easier
• administrator/components/com_komento/includes/komento.php - This holds the class KT (or Komento) and all of these functions (ie. getCount() and commentify() ) can be used if called correctely.

QW_com_sample.php

This is my upgraded com_sample.php and I highly recommend reading through it as it explains alot of things in context.

<?php
/**
* @package      Komento
* @copyright    Copyright (C) 2010 - 2016 Stack Ideas Sdn Bhd. All rights reserved.
* @copyright    Copyright (C) 2017        Jon Brown @ QuantumWarp.com
* @license      GNU/GPL, see LICENSE.php
* Komento is free software. This version may have been modified pursuant
* to the GNU General Public License, and as distributed it includes or
* is derivative of works licensed under the GNU General Public License or
* other free or open source software licenses.
* See COPYRIGHT.php for copyright notices and details.
*/

// No direct access
defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');

// Always load abstract class - This file also includes extra information about the functions here and the advanced functions not covered
//require_once( JPATH_ROOT . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'components' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'com_komento' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'komento_plugins' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR .'abstract.php' );  
require_once( JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/komento_plugins/abstract.php' );

class KomentoComsample extends KomentoExtension
{
    
    /******************************************************
     *
     * START
     * [BASIC FUNCTIONS (METHODS)]
     * These functions are mandatory
     *
     ******************************************************/
     
    // This property (object) stores all the required properties by Komento
    public $_item;

    // This property (array) stores all the key mappings of the required item properties to map from Komento's default key to your component's custom key
    public $_map = array(
    
        // not needed with custom getContentId()
        'id'            => 'id_field',

        // not needed with custom getContentTitle()
        'title'         => 'title_field',

        // not needed with custom getContentHits()
        'hits'          => 'hits_field',

        // not needed with custom getAuthorId()
        'created_by'    => 'created_by_field',

        // not needed with custom getCategoryId()
        'catid'         => 'catid_field',

        // not needed with custom getContentPermalink()
        'permalink'     => 'permalink_field'

        );

    // Constructor - Add all required files for your component here and run its constructor
    public function __construct( $component )
    {
        // Load all required files by component
        // $this->addFile( your component's files );
        // $this->addFile(JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR . '/components/com_sample/config.php');

        // This must be left at the end of this constructor function
        parent::__construct( $component );
    }

    // This method should load the article's main properties based on article ID
    public function load( $cid )
    {
        static $instances = array();

        if( !isset( $instances[$cid] ) )
        {
            // populate $this->_item with:
            // id_field
            // title_field
            // hits_field
            // created_by_field
            // catid_field
            // permalink_field

            // Create a Database Object
            $db = KT::getDBO();
            
            // Create SQL query to load a single article
            $query = 'SELECT `id_field`, `title_field`, `hits_field`, `created_by_field`, `catid_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` WHERE `ARTICLE_ID` = ' . $db->quote( $cid );
            $db->setQuery( $query );

            // Run the single article query and if there are no objects to load call the onLoadArticleError event 
            if( !$this->_item = $db->loadObject() )
            {
                return $this->onLoadArticleError( $cid );
            }

            // Generate the permalink for this article
            $this->_item->permalink_field = 'index.php?options=com_sample&view=article&id=' . $this->_item->id_field;

            // Call the prepareLink function and leave the rest to us
            // Unless you have custom SEF methods, then use "getContentPermalink" function to overwrite
            $this->_item->permalink_field = $this->prepareLink( $this->_item->permalink_field );

            $instances[$cid] = $this->_item;
        }

        $this->_item = $instances[$cid];

        return $this;
    }
    
    // This method should load all the article IDs filtered by category IDs
    public function getContentIds( $categories = '' )
    {
        // Create a Database Object
        $db = KT::getDBO();
        
        // Make sure the query is empty
        $query = '';

        
        // If no categories are supplied then load all article IDs
        if( empty( $categories ) )
        {
            $query = 'SELECT `id_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` ORDER BY `id_field`';
        }
        
        // If categories are supplied then load all article IDs for articles belonging to those categories
        else
        {
            if( is_array( $categories ) )
            {
                $categories = implode( ',', $categories );
            }

            $query = 'SELECT `id_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` WHERE `catid_field` IN (' . $categories . ') ORDER BY `id_field`';
        }
        
        // Run the query and return the results as an array
        $db->setQuery( $query );
        return $db->loadResultArray();
    }

    // This method should load all the category IDs of the component
    // Make sure you select 'Single Level' or 'Nested' categories
    public function getCategories()
    {
        // Create a Database Object
        $db = KT::getDBO();
        
        // Single Level Categories
        //$query = 'SELECT `id`, `title` FROM `#__CATEGORY_TABLE`';
        
        // Nested Categories
        $query = 'SELECT `id`, `title`, `level`, `parent_id` FROM `#__CATEGORY_TABLE`';
        
        // Run query and return categories
        $db->setQuery( $query );
        $categories = $db->loadObjectList();

        // Populate category tree for Komento Admin Integration Tab for this plugin (optional)
        // This is used in Komento where you select which categories the plugin should be active on etc...
        foreach( $categories as &$row )
        {
            
            // Single Level Categories
            //$row->level = 0;
            
            // Nested Categories
            $repeat = ( $row->level - 1 >= 0 ) ? $row->level - 1 : 0;            
            
            // Build and Add the Category Tree entry
            $row->treename = str_repeat( '.&#160;&#160;&#160;', $repeat ) . ( $row->level - 1 > 0 ? '|_&#160;' : '' ) . $row->title;
            
        }

        return $categories;
    }

    // This method lets Komento know if this is the front page or category layout (Determine if is listing view)
    public function isListingView()
    {
        $views = array('featured', 'category', 'categories', 'archive', 'frontpage' );

        return in_array(JRequest::getCmd('view'), $views);
    }

    // This method lets Komento know if this is the page that the comment form should be displayed on (Determine if is entry view)
    public function isEntryView()
    {
        return JRequest::getCmd('view') == 'article';
    }

    // This method is the main method that appends Komento on the article
    public function onExecute( &$article, $html, $view, $options = array() )
    {
        // $html is the html content generated by komento (includes listing and form)
        
        // Select 1 of the following outputs

        // This appends the HTML to the article object
        //$article->text .= $html;
        //return;

        // Return the Komento HTML code
        return $html;
    }
    
    /******************************************************
     *
     * END
     * [BASIC FUNCTIONS (METHODS)]
     *
     ******************************************************/
     
}

com_rsfeedback.php

This is the actual Komento plugin for RSFeedback and is very useful for comparing with my QW_com_sample.php to see what the differences are.

<?php
/**
* @package      Komento
* @copyright    Copyright (C) 2010 - 2016 Stack Ideas Sdn Bhd. All rights reserved.
* @copyright    Copyright (C) 2017        Jon Brown @ QuantumWarp.com
* @license      GNU/GPL, see LICENSE.php
* Komento is free software. This version may have been modified pursuant
* to the GNU General Public License, and as distributed it includes or
* is derivative of works licensed under the GNU General Public License or
* other free or open source software licenses.
* See COPYRIGHT.php for copyright notices and details.
*/

// No direct access
defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');

// Always load abstract class - This file also includes extra information about the functions here and the advanced functions not covered
//require_once( JPATH_ROOT . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'components' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'com_komento' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'komento_plugins' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR .'abstract.php' );  
require_once( JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/komento_plugins/abstract.php' );

class KomentoComrsfeedback extends KomentoExtension
{
    
    /******************************************************
     *
     * START
     * [BASIC FUNCTIONS (METHODS)]
     * These functions are mandatory
     *
     ******************************************************/
     
    // This property (object) stores all the required properties by Komento
    public $_item;

    // This property (array) stores all the key mappings of the required item properties to map from Komento's default key to your component's custom key
    public $_map = array(
    
        // not needed with custom getContentId()
        'id'            => 'id',

        // not needed with custom getContentTitle()
        'title'         => 'title',

        // not needed with custom getContentHits()
        'hits'          => 'hits',

        // not needed with custom getAuthorId()
        'created_by'    => 'user_id',

        // not needed with custom getCategoryId()
        'catid'         => 'cat_id',

        // not needed with custom getContentPermalink()
        'permalink'     => 'permalink'

        );

    // Constructor - Add all required files for your component here and run its constructor
    public function __construct( $component )
    {        
        parent::__construct( $component );
    }

    // This method should load the article's main properties based on article ID
    public function load( $cid )
    {
        static $instances = array();

        if( !isset( $instances[$cid] ) )
        {
            // populate $this->_item with:
            // id_field
            // title_field
            // hits_field
            // created_by_field
            // catid_field
            // permalink_field

            // Create a Database Object
            $db = KT::getDBO();
            
            // Create SQL query to load a single article
            $query    = 'SELECT `id`, `title`, `hits`, `user_id`, `cat_id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` WHERE `id` = ' . $db->quote( $cid );
            $db->setQuery( $query );

            // Run the single article query and if there are no objects to load call the onLoadArticleError event 
            if( !$this->_item = $db->loadObject() )
            {
                return $this->onLoadArticleError( $cid );
            }

            // Generate the permalink for this article
            $this->_item->permalink_field = 'index.php?options=com_sample&view=article&id=' . $this->_item->id_field;

            // Call the prepareLink function and leave the rest to us
            // Unless you have custom SEF methods, then use "getContentPermalink" function to overwrite
            $this->_item->permalink = $this->prepareLink( $this->_item->permalink );

            $instances[$cid] = $this->_item;
        }

        $this->_item = $instances[$cid];

        return $this;
    }
    
    // This method should load all the article IDs filtered by category IDs
    public function getContentIds( $categories = '' )
    {
        // Create a Database Object
        $db = KT::getDBO();
        
        // Make sure the query is empty
        $query = '';

        // If no categories are supplied then load all article IDs
        if( empty( $categories ) )
        {
            $query = 'SELECT `id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` ORDER BY `id`';
        }
        
        // If categories are supplied then load all article IDs for articles belonging to those categories
        else
        {
            if( is_array( $categories ) )
            {
                $categories = implode( ',', $categories );
            }

            $query = 'SELECT `id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` WHERE `cat_id` IN (' . $categories . ') ORDER BY `id`';
        }

        // Run the query and return the results as an array
        $db->setQuery( $query );
        return $db->loadResultArray();
    }

    // This method should load all the category IDs of the component
    // Make sure you select 'Single Level' or 'Nested' categories
    public function getCategories()
    {
        // Create a Database Object
        $db = KT::getDBO();
        
        // Single Level Categories
        $query = 'SELECT `id`, `name` FROM `#__rsfeedback_categories`';        
        
        // Run query and return categories
        $db->setQuery( $query );
        $categories = $db->loadObjectList();

        // Populate category tree for Komento Admin Integration Tab for this plugin (optional)
        // This is used in Komento where you select which categories the plugin should be active on etc...
        foreach( $categories as &$row )
        {
            
            // Single Level Categories
            $row->level = 0;                    
            
            // Build and Add the Category Tree entry
            $row->treename = str_repeat( '.&#160;&#160;&#160;', $repeat ) . ( $row->level - 1 > 0 ? '|_&#160;' : '' ) . $row->name;
            
        }

        return $categories;
    }

    // This method lets Komento know if this is the front page or category layout (Determine if is listing view)
    public function isListingView()
    {
        $views = array('category', 'categories', 'feedbacks');

        return in_array(JRequest::getCmd('view'), $views);
    }

    // This method lets Komento know if this is the page that the comment form should be displayed on (Determine if is entry view)
    public function isEntryView()
    {
        return JRequest::getCmd('view') == 'feedback';
    }

    // This method is the main method that appends Komento on the article
    public function onExecute( &$article, $html, $view, $options = array() )
    {
        // $html is the html content generated by komento (includes listing and form)

        // Return the Komento HTML code
        return $html;
    }
    
    /******************************************************
     *
     * END
     * [BASIC FUNCTIONS (METHODS)]
     *
     ******************************************************/
     
}

Dissecting the Komento Plugin

If you have gone through the resources above (recommend) you will see that the functions are grouped into:

• Basic Functions - These are mandatory
• Extended Functions - These functions are for doing more advanced integrations. We will not needed them.
• Trigger Functions - These are functions that are triggered when various events happen.

The plugin can also be placed into either of the following locations and note that the name is changed depending where you put it.

• components/com_komento/komento_plugins/com_rsfeedback.php - The name is the same as the component.
• components/com_rsfeedback/komento_plugin.php - Komento searches all component folders to see if this file exists and this mechanisim allows 3rd Party developers to put Komento integration into their software without getting the plugin inserted into Komento's distribution package.

Objects

The objects declared at the top of the plugin $_item and $_map are self explanatory.

• $_item
  • This just stores all of the information that is built or collected such as the article_id and permalink for the article that we want to dispaly comments for.
• $_map
  • This property (array) stores all the key mappings of the required item properties to map from Komento's default key to your component's custom key. In other words this allows Komento to use its own internal naming convention for the mandatory items when the 3rd party component has other names for these items.
  • All of these fields have 'Extended Functions' that can override the fields when more advanced building is required. (com_jdwonloads.php plugin files is an excellent example)

Functions

I will now go through the functions in the order they appear in the integration plugin. My notes will give you more of a practical insight into how they work. where an example is needed I will use my RSFeedback itegration code.

The QW_com_sample.php is fully annotated so if I missed anything just use that as a reference.

public function __construct( $component )

This function is where you include and files/dependencies that you need from the component, if any. This function then runs KT class constructor with the component name as a option so it has the relevant objects and resources for that component.

The parent::__construct( $component ); must be run at the end of the function so all the relevant assets have been called before it is intialised.

public function load( $cid )

This function loads a single article into the $_item object using the mappings we defined in $_map.

This is where the configuration fun begins. There are several parts to this function that need to be dealt with.

QW Sample Version

// This method should load the article's main properties based on article ID
public function load( $cid )
{
    static $instances = array();

    if( !isset( $instances[$cid] ) )
    {
        // populate $this->_item with:
        // id_field
        // title_field
        // hits_field
        // created_by_field
        // catid_field
        // permalink_field

        // Create a Database Object
        $db = KT::getDBO();
        
        // Create SQL query to load a single article
        $query = 'SELECT `id_field`, `title_field`, `hits_field`, `created_by_field`, `catid_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` WHERE `ARTICLE_ID` = ' . $db->quote( $cid );
        $db->setQuery( $query );

        // Run the single article query and if there are no objects to load call the onLoadArticleError event 
        if( !$this->_item = $db->loadObject() )
        {
            return $this->onLoadArticleError( $cid );
        }

        // Generate the permalink for this article
        $this->_item->permalink_field = 'index.php?options=com_sample&view=article&id=' . $this->_item->id_field;

        // Call the prepareLink function and leave the rest to us
        // Unless you have custom SEF methods, then use "getContentPermalink" function to overwrite
        $this->_item->permalink_field = $this->prepareLink( $this->_item->permalink_field );

        $instances[$cid] = $this->_item;
    }

    $this->_item = $instances[$cid];

    return $this;
}

Create SQL query to load a single article

This query needs to be changed to load a single articles record for the components database. You can change the field names to match the components which can be found by looking at your database, locating the article table for your component and then rading the fild names from the top.

// Create SQL query to load a single article
$query = 'SELECT `id_field`, `title_field`, `hits_field`, `created_by_field`, `catid_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` WHERE `ARTICLE_ID` = ' . $db->quote( $cid );
$db->setQuery( $query );

So in the case of RSFeedback the code above will be changed to

// Create SQL query to load a single article
$query    = 'SELECT `id`, `title`, `hits`, `user_id`, `cat_id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` WHERE `id` = ' . $db->quote( $cid );
$db->setQuery( $query );

You will note that #__ is a Joomla substitution string for the table prefix and is absolutely needed. You now have configured the article to be loaded as needed except for the permalink. There might be some components that store their permalink in the articles record and if so just add the extra clause into the SQL statement above.

The Komento plugin for com_content.php has a more advanced article lookup where the various items are stored in different tables.

Generating a permalink

A permalink is the Non-SEF URL that Joomla uses to load pages and pretty much do most things.

To see a components permalink you need to turn off Search Engine Friendly URLs and Use URL Rewriting in Joomla's config and then browse to an article or category page for that component.

Menu Item Type Examples:

RSFeedback - Add Category
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_rsfeedback&view=category&layout=edit&Itemid=1027

RSFeedback - Add Feedback
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_rsfeedback&view=feedback&layout=edit&Itemid=1027

RSFeedback Feedbacks View (List all Feedbacks)
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_rsfeedback&view=feedbacks&Itemid=1027

RSFeedback - List Categories
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_rsfeedback&view=categories&Itemid=1027

RSFeedback - Single Feedback
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_rsfeedback&view=feedback&id=2&Itemid=1027

Browsing Examples:

RSFeedback Single Category
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_rsfeedback&view=feedbacks&cat_id=1&Itemid=1027

The Itemid=1027 - This is the menu item that my RSFeedback is displayed under. The other varibles are all straight forward.

Now we know what we need to build for Komento to understand what page to dispaly the comments on lets get on with it. there are several different methods that I have come across for build the permalink and I will list them below.

Method 1 - Simple

This is bar far the easiest and is the one that is in QW_com_sample

// Generate the permalink for this article
$this->_item->permalink_field = 'index.php?options=com_sample&view=article&id=' . $this->_item->id_field;

// Call the prepareLink function and leave the rest to us
// Unless you have custom SEF methods, then use "getContentPermalink" function to overwrite
$this->_item->permalink_field = $this->prepareLink( $this->_item->permalink_field );

As you can see it is literally is the permalink written out with the articles ID dynamically added at the end and then processed through a Komento function. The RSFeedback version lools like:

// Generate the permalink for this article
$this->_item->permalink_field = 'index.php?options=com_sample&view=article&id=' . $this->_item->id_field;

// Call the prepareLink function and leave the rest to us
// Unless you have custom SEF methods, then use "getContentPermalink" function to overwrite
$this->_item->permalink = $this->prepareLink( $this->_item->permalink );

As you can see they are exactly the same. RSFeedback uses simple permalink for its feedbacks. You will see we did not have to add the menu's Itemid as the compoenent already takes care of this. Not all compoenents will have a simple permalink like RSFeedback.

Method 2 - function getContentPermalink()

This example is taken from the JDownloads Komento integration plugin that ships in the Komento package and is in the folder /komento_plugins/ .

This function's output will override $_map->permalink but as you can see it allows for a more complex permalink to be built from various data sources much the same as JDownloads will build the links itself.

JDownloads Plugin Version

public function getContentPermalink()
{
    $link = 'index.php?option=' . $this->component . '';

    $pieces = array(
        'option=' . $this->component,
        'Itemid=' . $this->getItemId(),
        'view=download',
        'catid=' . $this->getCategoryId(),
        'id=' . $this->getContentId()
    );

    $link = $this->prepareLink( 'index.php?' . implode( '&', $pieces ) );

    return $link;
}

Example permalink:

JDownloads Single Download permalink
https://quantumwarp.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&view=download&id=41:stackideas&catid=19&Itemid=859

I have not used this method so you will need to experiment, but it should not be that difficult now that you know what this 'Extended Function' does

So the function for RSFeedback is:

// This method should load the article's main properties based on article ID
public function load( $cid )
{
    static $instances = array();

    if( !isset( $instances[$cid] ) )
    {
        // populate $this->_item with:
        // id_field
        // title_field
        // hits_field
        // created_by_field
        // catid_field
        // permalink_field

        // Create a Database Object
        $db = KT::getDBO();
        
        // Create SQL query to load a single article
        $query    = 'SELECT `id`, `title`, `hits`, `user_id`, `cat_id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` WHERE `id` = ' . $db->quote( $cid );
        $db->setQuery( $query );

        // Run the single article query and if there are no objects to load call the onLoadArticleError event 
        if( !$this->_item = $db->loadObject() )
        {
            return $this->onLoadArticleError( $cid );
        }

        // Generate the permalink for this article
        $this->_item->permalink_field = 'index.php?options=com_sample&view=article&id=' . $this->_item->id_field;

        // Call the prepareLink function and leave the rest to us
        // Unless you have custom SEF methods, then use "getContentPermalink" function to overwrite
        $this->_item->permalink = $this->prepareLink( $this->_item->permalink );

        $instances[$cid] = $this->_item;
    }

    $this->_item = $instances[$cid];

    return $this;
}

Method 3 - Using the Joomla router

Again I have not used this method but I noticed that it used a router file (route.php). This example uses the com_content.php (Joomla Content) integration plugin that ships with Komento and is in the folder /komento_plugins/ .

Firstly the router file route.php for the component (com_content is actually a component in Joomla that is responsible for your articles)

public function __construct($component)
{
    // Add com_content's router file
    $file = JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_content/helpers/route.php';
    $this->addFile($file);

    parent::__construct($component);
}

It has a much more advanced getContentPermalink() function that utilises the route.php (router file for the com_content component)

public function getContentPermalink()
{
    $slug = $this->_item->alias ? ($this->_item->id.':'.$this->_item->alias) : $this->_item->id;
    $catslug = $this->_item->category_alias ? ($this->_item->catid.':'.$this->_item->category_alias) : $this->_item->catid;
    $parent_slug = $this->_item->category_alias ? ($this->_item->parent_id.':'.$this->_item->parent_alias) : $this->_item->parent_id;

    $link = ContentHelperRoute::getArticleRoute($slug, $catslug);

    $link = $this->prepareLink($link);

    return $link;
}

public function getContentIds( $categories = '' )

This function will load all article IDs for the specified categories. I am not 100% this is used in RSFeedback but anyway.

We need to update the SQL so it loads article IDs for the specified catgories.

QW Sample Version

// This method should load all the article IDs filtered by category IDs
public function getContentIds( $categories = '' )
{
    // Create a Database Object
    $db = KT::getDBO();
    
    // Make sure the query is empty
    $query = '';

    
    // If no categories are supplied then load all article IDs
    if( empty( $categories ) )
    {
        $query = 'SELECT `id_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` ORDER BY `id_field`';
    }
    
    // If categories are supplied then load all article IDs for articles belonging to those categories
    else
    {
        if( is_array( $categories ) )
        {
            $categories = implode( ',', $categories );
        }

        $query = 'SELECT `id_field` FROM `#__ARTICLE_TABLE` WHERE `catid_field` IN (' . $categories . ') ORDER BY `id_field`';
    }
    
    // Run the query and return the results as an array
    $db->setQuery( $query );
    return $db->loadResultArray();
}

Dont forget to get the new field names by using phpMyAdmin to find out where the categories are stored and then work out the new SQL statement.

RSFeedback Version

// This method should load all the article IDs filtered by category IDs
public function getContentIds( $categories = '' )
{
    // Create a Database Object
    $db = KT::getDBO();
    
    // Make sure the query is empty
    $query = '';

    // If no categories are supplied then load all article IDs
    if( empty( $categories ) )
    {
        $query = 'SELECT `id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` ORDER BY `id`';
    }
    
    // If categories are supplied then load all article IDs for articles belonging to those categories
    else
    {
        if( is_array( $categories ) )
        {
            $categories = implode( ',', $categories );
        }

        $query = 'SELECT `id` FROM `#__rsfeedback_feedbacks` WHERE `cat_id` IN (' . $categories . ') ORDER BY `id`';
    }

    // Run the query and return the results as an array
    $db->setQuery( $query );
    return $db->loadResultArray();
}

public function getCategories()

This function is used to build the category tree in Komento Integration admin so you can select what categories you want Kommento to work on.

This is quite an important function and you need to know whether your component has a 'single level' of categories or 'nested' categories (most joomla components do). The sample function below is rigged up for nested categories and might require the help of an additional function such as setLevel( $pid, $level, $categories, &$result ) to determine level. See the integration plugin com_jdownloads.php on how it was done as I dont think this example in QW_com_sample.php is complete.

QW Sample Version

// This method should load all the category IDs of the component
// Make sure you select 'Single Level' or 'Nested' categories
public function getCategories()
{
    // Create a Database Object
    $db = KT::getDBO();
    
    // Single Level Categories
    //$query = 'SELECT `id`, `title` FROM `#__CATEGORY_TABLE`';
    
    // Nested Categories
    $query = 'SELECT `id`, `title`, `level`, `parent_id` FROM `#__CATEGORY_TABLE`';
    
    // Run query and return categories
    $db->setQuery( $query );
    $categories = $db->loadObjectList();

    // Populate category tree for Komento Admin Integration Tab for this plugin (optional)
    // This is used in Komento where you select which categories the plugin should be active on etc...
    foreach( $categories as &$row )
    {
        
        // Single Level Categories
        //$row->level = 0;
        
        // Nested Categories
        $repeat = ( $row->level - 1 >= 0 ) ? $row->level - 1 : 0;            
        
        // Build and Add the Category Tree entry
        $row->treename = str_repeat( '.   ', $repeat ) . ( $row->level - 1 > 0 ? '|_ ' : '' ) . $row->title;
        
    }

    return $categories;
}

JDownloads Plugin (com_jdownloads.php)

public function getCategories()
{
    $sql = KT::sql();
    $sql->select( '#__jdownloads_categories' )
        ->column( 'id', 'id' )
        ->column( 'title', 'title' )
        ->column( 'parent_id' )
        // ->where( 'published', 1 )
        ->order( 'ordering' );

    $categories = $sql->loadObjectList();

    $result = array();

    $this->setLevel( 0, 0, $categories, $result );

    return $result;
}

private function setLevel( $pid, $level, $categories, &$result )
{
    foreach( $categories as &$category )
    {
        if( (int) $category->parent_id === (int) $pid )
        {
            $category->level = $level;

            $category->treename = str_repeat( '.   ', $level ) . ( $level > 0 ? '|_ ' : '' ) . $category->title;

            $result[] = $category;

            $this->setLevel( $category->id, $level + 1, $categories, $result );
        }
    }
}

RSFeedback has a very simple category storage as it is only a single level and not nested. If categories are in a nested format look at the com_content.php plugin or any of the other pluign files for examples.

I have altered the sample code just by

• removed the nested categories code
• enabled the Single Level category code
• change the SQL queries to mathc RSFeedback tables
• on Build and Add the Category Tree entry I change $row->title to $row->name as the field holding the title of the category in RSFeedback is name. This is only for display and does not affect the ampping mentioned earlier.

$row->level = 0; - This is to always set a level because this does not exist in a single level category system and it keeps the category tree building routine the same. You could in theory remove it but would make the code a bit messy ans should RSFeedback ever be upgraded to nested categories it would make sthings a lot easier to figure out.

RSFeedback Version

// This method should load all the category IDs of the component
// Make sure you select 'Single Level' or 'Nested' categories
public function getCategories()
{
    // Create a Database Object
    $db = KT::getDBO();
    
    // Single Level Categories
    $query = 'SELECT `id`, `name` FROM `#__rsfeedback_categories`';        
    
    // Run query and return categories
    $db->setQuery( $query );
    $categories = $db->loadObjectList();

    // Populate category tree for Komento Admin Integration Tab for this plugin (optional)
    // This is used in Komento where you select which categories the plugin should be active on etc...
    foreach( $categories as &$row )
    {
        
        // Single Level Categories
        $row->level = 0;                    
        
        // Build and Add the Category Tree entry
        $row->treename = str_repeat( '.   ', $repeat ) . ( $row->level - 1 > 0 ? '|_ ' : '' ) . $row->name;
        
    }

    return $categories;
}

public function isListingView()

This method lets Komento know if this is the front page or category layout (Determine if is listing view)

This is very simple to understand. We need to define what pages are categories and what are articles. This particular function tells Komento what are category or listing style pages and basically dont show commenting system on these.

QW Sample Version

// This method lets Komento know if this is the front page or category layout (Determine if is listing view)
public function isListingView()
{
    $views = array('categories', 'category', 'feedbacks');

    return in_array(JRequest::getCmd('view'), $views);
}

All you need to do is find the permalinks (addressed earlier) for all of the pages you do not want to show comments on and add them into the views array. I would do this by creating a menu item for every type of option available for RSFeedback and make a list of the permalinks into 2 groups, those you want comments on (should just be single feedback page) and a list of those you so not want comments on.

Of these you do not want comments on look at the permalink and you will see a GET parameter view=xxxx where xxxx is the view type. Add all of these view types into the $views = array() statement. Does not matter if there are duplicates just add the view type in once.

RSFeedback Version

// This method lets Komento know if this is the front page or category layout (Determine if is listing view)
public function isListingView()
{
    $views = array('category', 'categories', 'feedbacks');

    return in_array(JRequest::getCmd('view'), $views);
}

public function isEntryView()

This is the opposite of above. This method lets Komento know if this is the page that the comment form should be displayed on (Determine if is entry view).

Basically follow the procedure from above but reverse it selecting only the views that you want comments on. I dont know why you need to specify view types you want comments on and not on rather that just the pages you want them on but i am sure there is a reason. There usually is only type of page(view) you want the comments to be displayed on.

QW Sample Version

// This method lets Komento know if this is the page that the comment form should be displayed on (Determine if is entry view)
public function isEntryView()
{
    return JRequest::getCmd('view') == 'article';
}

RSFeedback Verison

// This method lets Komento know if this is the page that the comment form should be displayed on (Determine if is entry view)
public function isEntryView()
{
    return JRequest::getCmd('view') == 'feedback';
}

With RSFeedback there is only 1 page type you want to display comments on, the Single feedback page.

public function onExecute( &$article, $html, $view, $options = array() )

This function outputs the HMTL code upon execution. You can also use it to append code to an article object. Tehre is not much more to this fuction.

QW Sample Version

// This method is the main method that appends Komento on the article
public function onExecute( &$article, $html, $view, $options = array() )
{
    // $html is the html content generated by komento (includes listing and form)
    
    // Select 1 of the following outputs

    // This appends the HTML to the article object
    //$article->text .= $html;
    //return;

    // Return the Komento HTML code
    return $html;
}

I uses the straight HMTL output for RSFeedback because the code in RSFeedback is geared up to recieve the HTML rather being added to the article object.

RSFeedback Version

// This method is the main method that appends Komento on the article
public function onExecute( &$article, $html, $view, $options = array() )
{
    // $html is the html content generated by komento (includes listing and form)

    // Return the Komento HTML code
    return $html;
}

RSFeedback Component Integration

We have now been through the basics of the Komento plugin with an emphasis on RSFeedback but these instruction like those before can be easily applied to other components.

Create and install the Komento integration plugin

• You can either work through the instructions above making your plugin (if not RSFeedback) or copy and paste the code from the top.
• Save the file as components/com_rsfeedback/komento_plugin.php

Examine RSFeedback code for changes that we need to make

RSFeedback supports several commenting systems out of the box (Inbuilt Comment System / RSComments / JComments / Jom Comments) but not Komento. Komento will have to be added into RSFeedback by altering some of it's core code.

Make sure you have backups and do all of this work on a test website first before working on your live site.

Because RSFeedback already has these comment systems installed I extracted the files and then did a text search to search for 'rscomments' and this return the following 3 files.

Extracted Installation Package Location

1. admin/models/fields/commentingsystems.php
2. site/helpers/rsfeedback.php
3. site/models/feedback.php

Location when installed in Joomla

1. administrator/components/com_rsfeedback/models/fields/commentingsystems.php
2. components/com_rsfeedback/helpers/rsfeedback.php
3. components/com_rsfeedback/models/feedback.php

Purpose of files

1. This file is used in order to display the commenting systems in the configuration page of the component
2. This file is used in order to include the commenting form and the comments
3. This file is used in order to include the commenting form and the comments - The public function getComments() is not actually used anywhere is RSComments so it is redundant and has been reported to RSFeedback. You can add the code here aswell if you want, it will not harm.

NB: File 3 does not make anydifference but is include for completeness

Making the Changes

We now have the location in the code where we need to make changes you should go and have a quick look at the files to see how the comment systems are integrated. With systems like this is it is failry easy to add another commenting system as there will be standard that adds each commenting system in the same way, there will just be a slight difference in the final call to the commenting system and the included files that are need to call the commenting system.

commentingsystems.php

This file adds the commenting systems as selections in the RSFeedback Joomla admin.

{add picture here}

Add the bottom of each of the groups of code I have simply added an entry for Komento giving it the option number 5, this is important for the next changes as it is the reference number we will be using for the Konto commenting system in RSFeeedback.

The following line is added to the bottom of the first group and is used as a boolean check to see if Komento is installed. You could probably use bootstrap.php instead but I am not sure about this and is not that important. Using koment.php certainly makes it easier to follow

$komento    = file_exists(JPATH_SITE.'/components/com_komento/komento.php');

The second group of code in the fuction builds up the array for the RSFeedback admin and returns the results. Commenting systems that are not present will appear greyed out. Add the following line:

$commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '5', JText::_('Komento') , 'value' , 'text', !$komento);

This will give you the full file shown below:

/**
* @package RSFeedback!
* @copyright (C) 2010-2014 www.rsjoomla.com
* @license GPL, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
*/
defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
jimport('joomla.form.formfield');

class JFormFieldCommentingSystems extends JFormField {
    protected $type = 'CommentingSystems';

    public function getInput() 
    {
        $jcomment   = file_exists(JPATH_SITE.'/components/com_jcomments/jcomments.php');
        $jomcomment = file_exists(JPATH_SITE.'/plugins/content/jom_comment_bot.php');
        $rscomment  = file_exists(JPATH_SITE.'/components/com_rscomments/rscomments.php');        
        $komento    = file_exists(JPATH_SITE.'/components/com_komento/komento.php');

        $commentsystem = array();
        $commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '0', JText::_( 'COM_RSFEEDBACK_COMMENTS_DISABLED' ) );
        $commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '1', JText::_( 'COM_RSFEEDBACK_DEFAULT_COMMENTS' ) );
        $commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '2', JText::_('RSComments!') , 'value' , 'text', !$rscomment);
        $commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '3', JText::_('JComments') , 'value' , 'text' , !$jcomment);
        $commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '4', JText::_('Jom Comments') , 'value' , 'text', !$jomcomment);
        $commentsystem[] = JHTML::_('select.option', '5', JText::_('Komento') , 'value' , 'text', !$komento);

        $html = JHTML::_('select.genericlist', $commentsystem, 'jform[feedback_commenting]', '', 'value', 'text', $this->value);

        return $html;
    }
}

rsfeedback.php

Find the public static function DisplayComments($id) and add the following code at the end of the switch list. You will note it is option 5.

This is the code that will return the HTML from Komento (which has the comments for that Feedback item and the new comment form etc..) which is then assigned to the $comments->listing object which is the generic container RSFeedback uses to hold the comments from the various systems and is then this object that gets rendered below the Feedback giving you the comments.

case '5' :
    require_once( JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/bootstrap.php' );
    $comments->listing  = KT::commentify('com_rsfeedback', $id);
    $comments->form     = '';
break;

feedback.php

This is a very similiar arrangement to rsfeedback.php except it is not used anywhere and all the code is within public function getComments(). The code here is slightly different but would do the same job if it was used.

add the following lines at the end of the switch list in the function public function getComments().

//Komento integration
case 5:
    if (file_exists(JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/bootstrap.php')) :
        require_once(JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/bootstrap.php');
        $comments .= KT::commentify('com_rsfeedback', $this->data->IdFeedback, $options);
    endif;
break;

KT:: or Komento:: or KMT::

Firstly all of these are referenced in:

{Joomla Route}/administrator/components/com_komento/includes/komento.php

What is this all about. KT:: is the new name for the Komento class and it is this that should be used going forwards when making plugins even thought the official instructions (at time of writing) tell you to use Komento:: which is confusing. However the following code at the bottom of komento.php allows the legacy use of these class names.

class KMT extends KT {}
class Komento extends KT {}

So going forwards just use KT:: so for example

require_once(JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/bootstrap.php');
Komento::commentify('com_sample', $article, $options);

should be

require_once(JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/bootstrap.php');
KT::commentify('com_sample', $article, $options);

NB: You can call KT:commentify() because it is a static function. I will not go into this further but you might notice a couple of these in the code.

Comments Count

We need to get the comments count from comment and feed this information back to RSFeedback so it can be displayed.

The function that Komento uses is getCount($component, $cid), in the  KT:: class, in the file administrator/components/com_komento/includes/komento.php approx line 1355

$commentsModel = KT::model('Comments');                                 // Create a Comments object
$commentCount  = $commentsModel->getCount($component, $cid);            // Return the Comment count

The function RSFeedback uses to display the comment count is getFeedbackCommentsCount($id) in the file components/com_rsfeedback/helpers/rsfeedback.php approx line 189

Again with previous codes there is a switch choice and we just need to add the Komento code in as option 5.

case '5' :
    require_once( JPATH_ROOT . '/components/com_komento/bootstrap.php' );   // Intialize Komento             
    $commentsModel = KT::model('Comments');                                 // Create a Comments object             
    $comments = $commentsModel->getCount('com_rsfeedback', $id);            // Return the Comment count              
break;

Translation

The last thing to do is translate the new Komento Integration Tab and the dropdown menu option used in various places for our plugin in Komento by adding these translation strings.

COM_KOMENTO_COM_RSFEEDBACK="RSFeedback"
COM_KOMENTO_SETTINGS_TAB_COM_RSFEEDBACK_SETTINGS="RSFeedback"

Thre are 2 ways of adding the translation string into joomla

• Manually add the translation via Joomla's backend language override section (recommended). This translatation should be added to the admin section
• Add the translation string as is to administrator/language/en-GB/en-GB.com_komento.ini (or whatever language you need)

Done - Recap

We have now completed all of the steps required to integrate Komento into RSFeedback and have covered most aspects of this process. So he is a quick recap of what to do.

1. Build the plugin code (or copy and paste it from the top) and create the file components/com_rsfeedback/komento_plugin.php
2. Add the Komento code into the following files
   • administrator/components/com_rsfeedback/models/fields/commentingsystems.php
   • components/com_rsfeedback/helpers/rsfeedback.php
   • components/com_rsfeedback/models/feedback.php (optional)
3. Add translation string (via Joomla admin is best)

I am unable to directly move the database from my skeleton template on my staging server to a new target server. This is due to my staging server being newer and using MariaDB than the target server and that the default table type when using MariaDB is 'Aria' which the target server does not support.

Export methods tried

• cPanel Database Backup Wizard
• phpMyAdmin Database export (phpMyadmin-->Home-->Export)
• phpMyAdmin table export (phpMyadmin-->skeleton_table-->Home-->Export)

Results

All of these exported files fail to import on the target with the following SQL error when importing in phpMyAdmin

Error

SQL query:

CREATE TABLE `xxxx_imageshow_external_source_picasa` (
`external_source_id` int( 11 ) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`external_source_profile_title` varchar( 255 ) DEFAULT NULL ,
`picasa_username` varchar( 255 ) DEFAULT '',
`picasa_thumbnail_size` char( 30 ) DEFAULT '144',
`picasa_image_size` char( 30 ) DEFAULT '1024',
PRIMARY KEY ( `external_source_id` )
) ENGINE = Aria DEFAULT CHARSET = utf8 PAGE_CHECKSUM =1;

MySQL said: Documentation
#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'PAGE_CHECKSUM=1' at line 8 

Solution

If you use an intermediate server such as xampp you can convert the 'Aria' tabels in to 'MyISAM' which will then allow for a successful import.

Instructions

• Export the databse on the source/staging server using the cPanel Database Backup wizard
• Create a table in xampp called 'skellyimport'
• Import the cPanel database backup into 'skellyimport'
• At this point tables with 'Aria' table type still exist
• Goto phpMyAdmin --> Home --> 'skellyimport' table --> Export
• Select all of the tables and export them (this option is at the bottom of the page but make sure you get all of the tables)
• Goto phpMyAdmin on the target server and import the database

The skeleton database is now migrated and there are no 'Aria' type tables as the have all been converted to 'MYISAM'. You should also note that when using xampp on Windows all table names are changed to lowercase.

Notes

If you export the database in phpMyAdmin rather than exporting the tables there will be a database create rule and some header code is missing.

Create Database Rule Error

Error

SQL query:

--
-- Database: `skellyimport`
--
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `skellyimport` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

MySQL said: Documentation
#1044 - Access denied for user 'futured1'@'localhost' to database 'skellyimport' 

To fix this, edit the SQL file and remove the following before importing

--
-- Database: `skellyimport`
--
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `skellyimport` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
USE `skellyimport`;

-- --------------------------------------------------------

Variable 'character_set_client' can't be set to the value of 'NULL'

Error

SQL query:

/*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;

MySQL said: Documentation
#1231 - Variable 'character_set_client' can't be set to the value of 'NULL' 

The missing headers causes this error when importing into the target server. I am not sure what they do. But the difference between the phpMyAdmin Database and Table exports seems to be:

/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40101 SET NAMES utf8mb4 */;

I also did a quick google search and found the following articles on the subject saying the same thing that the missing headers is what causes this particular error

Links

• mysqldump - MySQL ERROR 1231 (42000):Variable 'character_set_client' can't be set to the value of 'NULL' - Stack Overflow
• SOLVED!SQL error when import database - Configuring and using PrestaShop - PrestaShop

When you run RSSOwl it just never starts and no process is spawned.

The cause and the fix are easy.

Cause = RSSOwl requires Javascript 32-bit installed

Fix = Install Javascript 32 bit

Links

• RSS Owl | RSS / RDF / Atom Feed Reader / Discussion / Help:RSSOwl doesn't start anymore