Post to Joomla! using Screensteps

Joomla! is a great CMS, and Screensteps is one of the best tools to write tutorials out there. What if you could combine the both? It would create one of the best ways to publish tutorials online.

Maybe you’ve checked Screensteps yourself, and you didn’t see an option to choose Joomla! from the “Export to Web” options. Neither did I. But like with all things Joomla! ‘there is a way’. This tutorial (written in Screensteps and auto-published to WordPress) will explain how to get the job done.

Of course I’m going to assume you already have Screensteps installed and a Joomla! 2.5 site that is up and running.

Download the XMLRPC plug-in

XMLRPC has been removed from Joomla! despite being pretty damn usefull, especially when you want to use blogging clients. And yeah, you guessed it. We’re going to need XMLRPC to hook Screensteps up with your Joomla! site.

But do not worry. Yoshiki Kozaki of Joomler.net has developed an xmlrpc plug-in for Joomla!.

You can download the plug-in we need here. (There is also a 3.0 version available, which we haven’t tested.)

Install the plug-in

The next step is to install the plug-in in your website, as you normally do. Instructions to install an extensions should not be necessary. 😉

Enable the XMLRPC plug-in

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The next step is to enable the XMLRPC plug-in.

Open “Extensions > Plug-in Manager”, then do the following:

  1. Search for the xmlrpc plug-in
  2. Select the plug-in
  3. Click on “enable”

Then, do the same for the ‘RDS’ plug-in.

If you need more detailed instructions, you can find them on this website.

Configure Screensteps

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It’s now time to add the website to Screensteps. To do this, open your “Settings” and click on the “Export to Web” tab.

  1. 1. Click the “Web Export” Tab.
  2. Click the + to add an account for your Joomla! site.
  3. Choose “Movable Type” as a type.
  4. For Server, enter the following: http://urlofyourwebsite.com/index.php/component/xmlrpc (Of course, you want to replace urlofyourwebsite.com with your ACTUAL URL…)
  5. For Username, use the user name of a user with enough permissions
  6. For password, provide his / her password.
  7. Click “Test connection”. If you get the message that it’s “Ok”, you can proceed!

Publishing to your site

The final step is to use Screensteps to publish tutorials to your site. Once you have written a lesson, do the following:

1. Click “Export” in the top menu, and choose Blog / Web
2. Choose the site you want to publish the tutorial to, and the category you want to post it in. Your categories will be retrieved from your site.
3. Choose a Template (Personally, I prefer “Blog HTML Neutral” as I do my styling in Joomla!)
4. Finally, click “Upload”.

The article will now be uploaded but it won’t be visible – yet. I suggest you check the article in Joomla! to see if everything looks as planned. If not, make the tweaks in Joomla. Otherwise, publish it in Joomla!

You’re done!

And you’re done! You’ve just published your first tutorial to your site, using Screensteps. That’ll make updating those tutorials easier!

4 thoughts on “Post to Joomla! using Screensteps”

  1. Pingback: Joomla CMS 3.0 « Cloud55

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