Before you do any installations & tests, check the system requirements for Jollom and once your system meets them go to www.mollom.com and get a KeyPair. The registration, membership and usage of Mollom (and of course Jollom) are free!

System requirements

• Joomla! 1.5.* or Joomla 1.0.*
• PHP >= 5.1.2
• PHP with curl installed (should be in 99% of all cases)

After that go to the Jollom download and get the Jollom package from there. Install and enable it together with the visual protection tool.

If you want to use the plugin only then go to its settings and add the public and private keys there.

If you want to use the visual protection tool then choose "Jollom" from the component menu in the Joomla! admin and follow its instructions. Also read the Quicktips in the packages readme.

From here only people who want to use the Jollom Script should continue reading. The visual protection tool users may need to follow the instructions given in the component or just watch the tutorial here!

The default setup is awaiting for Jollom Scripts to be added. So, if you want to protect a form like com_fireboard, com_contact, com_mailto, com_easybook or com_sobi2 then go to our forums and get the definition scripts from the Jollom Scripts section. This howto will then only be for further explanations.

If there is no Jollom Script available for your form you might want to read a little deeper into this howto and make your form work with it on your own. But do not worry, it is simple. It would be nice if you could post your Jollom Script then into the forums! If you want to protect an extremly ajax'ed form then ask in the main Jollom forum for further help.

Ok, first things first: What are Jollom Scripts?

In short:

They enable any component to use captchas for its forms (except forms that are extremely Ajax'ed) and also check submitted data for "bad content"

In long:

Jollom Scripts are just CSS-Class like properties where you can set which components should receive spam AND bad quality protection.

Ok, what is the difference between spam and bad quality?

We all know what spam is I guess, so the difference between spam and bad quality is, that "bad content" is not meant to be spam but in any way against your standards of quality (and likely submitted by human beings). As Example: You offer a submit content service with Joomla and do not have the time to read all the new incoming texts.

So, why not installing a little plugin then that helps you decide, just by looking at a small number instead of reading a huuuuuge text, that doesnt say nothing?

This can be done now with Joomla. And this can be done with all components that use forms.

And how to achieve that?

Well, here is an example for com_easybook to show you how simple it is to set up a custom form:

com_easybook {
  submitTrigger: task=save&controller=entry; 
  subjectName: null;
  bodyName: gbtext;
  authorNameName: gbname; 
  authorUrlName: gbpage;
  authorEmailName: gbmail;
  authorOpenIdName: null;
  authorIdName: null;
  formMethod: post;
  indexFile: index.php;
  blockQualityBelow: 0.3;
} 

First of all, and it is very important to know: All properties have to be in that order and no single property mustn't left out. Instead, unused properties get a value of "null" (at least the optional ones).

You can put your own script in the plugin settings into the textbox where it says "Put the scripts for your custom components here."

You can add as many components you want, but each component may only occur once and all components are sperated by a comma, like:

com_contact {

....

}

,

com_easybook {

....

} ,

and so on

Now all elements explained:

necessary

the component name

necessary

marks on which pattern Jollom should react.
the triggers are both, get and post parameters mixed up and can be enhanced like that

task=submit&id=1&...and so on

you may also use the ? placeholder for values you do not know like

task=submit&id=?

If you want to protect more than one form per component, then you can seperate the triggers by using | like that:

task=save|task=update&id=?|task=delete&id=?

If you protect more than one form and add them like that, all the content fields below (marked green) have to reflect that too, meaning that the names of the form elements should appear in the same order like the triggers you defined. E.g.:

submitTrigger: task=save|task=update&id=?|task=delete&id=?;

subjectName: title|title|null;

bodyName: newMessage|updateMessage|null;

<
optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input of a value that can be described as a subject (like a subject in a contact form, or a subject in a forum post)

Concatente form field names using the + symbol. E.g. subjectName: subject+title+username

optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input in a form that can be described as "Body" in meaning of a message.

It is optional, too but recommended if you have to handle content and don't know where it fits best.

Concatente form field names using the + symbol. E.g. bodyName: subject+title+username 

optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input for the message's author

optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input for the author's email website

optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input for the author's email address

<<authorOpenIdName>>
optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input for the author's openId

optional, disable with "null"

The name of the form-input for the author's identity (may depend on the form application like userid's or customer numbers etc.)

necessary

The form's action method

necessary

Here you can decide on what file to jump to after a submit and after the data was checked

necessary

In combination with the spam protection, this is the most powerful feature. The submitted content is checked for its quality. The quality is indicated as a double between 0 and 1, where 1 means very good content with dense information and 0 means simply "useless".

Hope you have fun to add and test components like I have. It would be nice if you would post your definitions into our Jollom forum!

Before I forget: If a form doesn't work for you, e.g. because it is an AJAX form then you can also use the plugins' included framework (only available for the Jollom for Joomla 1.5 Edition!). If you do not have enough coding experience ask in the forums to implement a jollom integration for your component. It is quite easy, too!