YOOtheme Widgetkit version 1.5 (i.e. old !) for Joomla! 5 – featuring Polaroid picture effect
Before anything else: because of the contradictory * YOOtheme Proprietary Use License on which the Widgetkit was originally published, I prefer to NOT provide here the Widgetkit package for download. Instead, I will only provide this version as an update for those websites that are still using the original old Widgetkit 1.5 version once purchased and therefore where the Joomla! version itself is still old, such as 2.5 or 3 and who thus want it to upgrade, while still keeping the exact effects setup provided by the original Widgetkit 1.5 version.
Specifically, the Polaroid ** pictures effect. More info in the article below.
* Contradictory, because once it says “The Software is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL)” and then it states that “These Terms of Service do not grant you any right, title or license to copy, reproduce, sell, or otherwise distribute any part of the intellectual property”, a statement which effectively breaks the GPL license terms.
** Addressed to those who still know what a “Polaroid” picture is :)
Just recently I had to fix a technical trouble to an old Joomla! based website. That web site used a picture layout effect called “Polaroid” (as I found out from the page code), that turned out to be part of an old version of an extension called “Widgetkit”, developed by YOOtheme GmbH.
While I was trying to convince the owner of that website about the need to update Joomla! to the latest version (which in the end I didn’t succeeded), I investigated the availability of that extension in terms of compatibility with the latest Joomla! versions. So I found out that the Widgetkit extension still exists and is actively maintained, but to my surpise I also found out that the Polaroid effect was removed many years ago, inspite of a few random user requests for this effect to remain available in the newer versions.
Because (one) I happened to find the effect interesting, because (two) I considered abandoning it a loss (well, at least for some) and because (three) I considered plain stupid to stick a web site to an older Joomla! version just because of an extension, I tried – and succeeded – to adapt that old Widgetkit to become compatible with Joomla! version 5. Not quite all of its widgets, but most of it – just read next or
Things working as expected:
- (frontend) all widgets, except for Map (in fact, Google Maps) and Twitter (as it was called in the old days)
- Map actualy seems to be working somehow, but only showing a darkened and “For development purposes only” watermarked version map, most likey due to API version change (even by providing the most up-to-date API KEY)
- likewise, the Twitter/X API(s) were changed in the mean time and so now it gives an access token error, most likely related to the OAuth authentication protocol (where now OAuth 2 is required)
- (backend) all widgets creation and edit – even for Map and Twitter/X, fooling the fact that actually these two are not working properly
Things known to be not working (yet) quite as it should:
- (frontend) Map and Twitter/X widgets, as already mentioned above
- (backend) for those widgets that require text editing, all native Joomla! text editors work only in plain text mode; specifically, Code Mirror lacks the line numbering and TinyMCE lacks all rich text UI controls, requiring manual code editing for any desired rich text style (and therefore some minimal knowledge in this area); however, by using the third-party JCE editor (for example), then all rich text UI controls are working well with it, so if classic word processor interface is really a must (or WYSIWYG style, if you like to call it that), then the JCE editor is a reliable alternative
Regarding the Map widget, on the one hand, this shows up live and well on their newer Widgetkit versions, therefore here is no big deal about this not-so-well-working old version: if required, then just pick up and use the newer Widgetkit version; on the other hand, maybe I will try to fix the broken API version change someday, considering it doesn’t seem that difficult. As for the Twitter/X widget, I simply have no opinion, because I don’t know what use it would have had; if it would have been useful to you (under Joomla! version 5), then bad luck :)
I also have to mention that this old Widgetkit includes a section related to something called “ZOO”, but because this sounds like a short for zoological garden (and the same for Tiergarten in German) and since I was never interested in animals on web, I never bothered to take a look at it.
During some other Joomla! 5 project I was working on, to my astonishment I discovered something more:
- besides the Polaroid effect, another two (!) widget effects seem to have been abandoned in their newer Widgetkit version – namely Slideshow with vertical tabbed list navigation and Slideshow / Showcase with off-canvas thumbnail navigation ***
- in spite of their claimings that Widgetkit versions 1.x and 2.x cannot run both at the same time (that is, in the same Joomla! instance), in practice I used my converted 1.5 version together within a Gantry 5 based template, which template used Uikit for its widget effects, which Uikit is the basis for the YOOtheme Widgetkit versions 2 and 3 ****
*** I could not find any reference for tabbed list slideshow navigation in their current demo – and so I assume this effect is not implemented – and at the same time I could not find any reference for off-canvas thumbnail slideshow navigation, but only on-canvas (overlay) thumbnail navigation.
**** I am not really sure about this, but the actual possibility of simultaneous operation could be due to the adding of namespaces I performed during conversion, a mechanism that was not used at the time of the original 1.5 version creation.