SOBI 2 - Content Construction Kit for Joomla!

SOBI 2 is one of the first CCK (CCK: Content construction kit) for Joomla!.

Already in 2006, as no one talks about CCK for the content management system Joomla! Sigsiu.NET developed a Content Construction Kit for Joomla!. Designed as a business directory (online business index) SOBI 2 could already be used for every kind of directory. Therefore everything what the operator of a website wants to get listed in a directory like companies, clubs, persons, shops or products can be created.

Content Construction using SOBI 2 Fields Manager

All fields which are necessary for your directory can be created easily using the Fields Manager. There are several field types to choose from like text input fields, text areas (w/o WYSIWYG editor), check boxes, check box groups, select lists (drop down lists), simple text fields or a calendar field.

For text inputs fields there are additional settings available. You can define a text input field to be used for an URL address, an email address, a link to an image or to a video/audio file. According to this setting the entered data will be shown in the views with the necessary syntactical format.

Each custom field created in the Fields Manager can be configured extensively. Choose if the field is required or not and define the field length (width of the field and number of possibly entered characters).

To configure the search integrated in SOBI 2, select for each custom field the desired search method. Select if the data from this field should be searchable or not and if the text to be searched for should be entered using the text input field of the search function or using a separate drop down list.

Each field can be set up in this way that it is visible only for the administrator in the Entry Manager. Thereby you can add your own notices to the entries but the author of the entry cannot see them or you can show information in each entry which the author cannot change.

SOBI 2 shows the data in two views. In an overview (Category View) all entries of the directory will be shown in such called V-Cards (similar to small business cards). Each entry has a link to its detailed description (Details View). You can define which fields should be shown in which view with a simple click in the Fields Manager. Therefore it is also possible that a field isn’t shown in any of the views. With that you can ask personal data from the authors of your entries without showing them on the site.

And if you want to earn money with your directory, you can easily define in the Fields Manager for which information the author of an entry hast to pay a fee. Also the amount of the fee is freely selectable.

You can set up the order of the custom fields either using the Fields Manager of you can use the comprehensive possibilities of the in-built template engine.

During installation, SOBI 2 creates by default several custom fields for a business directory. You can easily extend them by any number of your own fields. Or you can simply delete these standard fields and create your own fields.

Clear Overview by Classification into Categories

For a better lucidity of the directory, the entries within SOBI 2 are divided into categories. For that a Category Manager is available. With the Category Manager you can create, edit and also delete categories within your directory.

Create as many categories as you like with an unlimited nesting depth. That means, each category can contain sub categories which can contain sub categories as well, and so on.

Using the Category Manager it is also possible to add several categories at once.

An entry can be assigned to one or more categories. For a simple directory it is also possible to assign all entries automatically to a pre-defined category. Thus, the category selection by the user isn’t necessary.

Presentation of Images in your Directory

According to the configuration of SOBI 2, the author of an entry can upload up to two images for each entry. At this, the images will be reduced to a pre-defined size. These image can be shown either in the V-Cards of the overview (Category View) and/or in the detailed view of the entry.

Additionally you can install the SOBI 2 Gallery plugin. This plugin allows your users to upload an additional unlimited number of images to their entries. These images will be shown in the detailed view as small thumbnails and on click they will be shown enlarged with lightbox effect.
The sizes of the thumbnails and of the lightbox images will be setup in the administration of the plugin.

Simple Adding and Editing of Entries

Of course you can add all entries in your directory by yourself. But in the field the authors of the entries will add themselves to the directory. For that, SOBI 2 provides an entry form, which will be called from front-end of your site. This form contains the fields you defined in the Fields Manager. You can change the layout of this form if you use the built-in template engine. Thereby you have for example the possibility to divide the input data into tabs. This is useful especially if you have a lot of fields.

SOBI 2 can be configured in this way only registered users of your site can add entries to your directory. Or you allow adding entries for guests too.

Define if the authors of the entries are allowed to edit their entries or not. However, only entries made by registered users of your site can be edited by them again.
Of course only the author of an entry can edit his own entry. As administrator you have always the possibility to edit each entry also from front-end.

For the administrator of your site there is an Entry Manager in the administration panel of SOBI 2 available. With this Entry Manager you can easily create, edit or delete an entry. You can also edit those fields in the Entry Manager which are not accessible for the author of the entries in front-end.

Publishing an Entry only for a certain Period

Especially for directories with paid entries, but also to keep your directory up to date, SOBI 2 has the possibility to associate the entries with an expiration date.
Either you set up a fix period for which the entries will be published (e.g. 90 days) or you define the expiration date of an entry individually.
Additionally the author of an entry can define the expiration date by himself using a calendar field. This is meaningful especially for directories with advertisements.

If an entry is expired, it can be renewed by the author himself. A defined period prior to expiration, a message visible only to the author of the entry will be shown. By the use of an additional link the author can renew his entry.

Simple Email Generation

SOBI 2 sends out emails on occurrence of different events like adding, editing or renewing entries by the author or also if an entry is approved by the administrator. It is adjustable if only the author of the entry and/or also the administrator will get an email. The Joomla! user group which will get the administrator emails is freely selectable. Also a selection of several groups is possible.

Sending out an email can be set up separately for each event.
If an entry isn’t free of charge, an email with the list of all costs will be sent to the author in any case.

You can define the content of the emails separately for each event, comfortably in the administration panel of SOBI 2. For that different placeholders are available to address your customer individually.

A previously defined signature will be added at the end of each email.

Different Views for Presentation of Categories and Entries

As a complex Joomla! component, SOBI 2 has different views for front-end.

The main view of SOBI 2 typically consists of the presentation of the main categories. Additionally the entries within those main categories or all entries in the directory can be shown in V-Card view.

By clicking on one of the main categories, the visitor gets on the category view of the selected category. Here he will see the sub categories and V-Cards of the entries of this category or of the sub categories.

By default the visitor will get on the detailed view on an entry via the V-card of this entry.

Additionally to the category views there are other views available which will show V-cards of entries. E.g. it is possible to show the newest/latest, the most popular or recently edited entries or only the entries of a specific user.

An alpha index is available to show entries and categories (or only entries) starting with a certain letter in V-Card view. The alpha index is configurable and the letters can be arranged.

The meta keywords entered for the entries, can be used as tags. All tags of an entry can be shown in the detailed view as links to lists with all entries with the same tagged word. Using tags is recommended for a good indexing in search engines.

Why don’t adapt your SOBI ?

SOBI 2 can be used „out of the box”.
But SOBI 2 can also be adapted individually to your site. This adaption take place in different levels.

SOBI 2 has its own style sheet file (CSS). Nearly almost all elements of SOBI are addressable by CSS classes (or IDs) and therefore configurable. Change specifically margins, colors or fonts only by changing the CSS file.
The CSS file can be edited comfortably in the SOBI 2 administration panel, using an editor with syntax highlighting.

If you want to make advanced adaptations to the shown data of the entries in your directory there are separate templates available for the V-Card view and for the detailed view. With some HTML skills and using the so called template commands, you can easily create your own views.

It is also possible to create your own template for the add entry form.

All templates are editable comfortably in the SOBI 2 administration panel, using an editor with syntax highlighting.

Extensive diagnosis systems integrated:

Use the debug mode of SOBI 2 to log occurring problems in a file. You can set up the debug level by yourself. Write each notice or only severe problems into the file. The debug mode can be switched off completely.

If you create your own templates, the template parser is helpful in finding syntactical errors while developing your template.

SOBI 2 has certain requirements on your server. To detect if your server meets the requirements you can execute the SOBI 2 built-in system check. With one click you learn if there could raise problems in using SOBI 2 on this server. If you already have a problem, let SOBI 2 create a system check file with all settings of SOBI 2 to inform other helpful people about SOBI 2 on your server to get help.

SOBI 2 will be updated regularly. To know if there is a new version of SOBI 2 available, just execute the built-in version checker.

All Highlights of SOBI 2 at a glance:

• CCK with different field types and convenient custom fields manager.


• Multilevel category structure with unlimited nesting depth and convenient category manager.


• Extensive configuration possibilities via administrator settings and/or registry editor for ease of use of the configuration file in SOBI 2 administration panel.


• Individual entry form styling in front-end to add and/or edit entries by authors.


• Fast SigsiuTree script to show the categories in a tree view in administrator panel and entry form.


• Built-in image upload with automatically resize of the images to pre-set values.


• Different views available to show the content of the directory.


• Dynamical page title generation with a lot of configuration settings (SEO).


• Entry dependent meta data (keywords and description). Various settings for meta data generation for the different SOBI 2 views (SEO).


• Extended and widely configurable search function with built-in category search.


• RSS feeds for the whole directory and for each category view. Additional configuration parameters available to generate RSS feeds of newest or most popular entries or for random selection.


• Extensive diagnosis systems like error logging or version checker.


• Built-in multi state cache system for fast retrieving of data (reduction of data base queries).


• Built-in template system for creating own templates of V-Card view, detailed view and entry form.


• Send out of emails for various events. Comfortable creation of email templates in administrator panel using place holders for different data.


• Integration of Paypal and/or display of account data at the end of a paid entry.


• Integration to a router possible (way search function). Routers available in Internet can be integrated into SOBI 2. By default Google Maps will be used.


• Integration of „Google Maps“ directly in detailed view.


• A language manager to install different SOBI 2languages is also part oft he SOBI 2 administration panel. Various languages are available for SOBI 2.


• Via SOBI2 plugin interface and plugin manager of SOBI 2 administration panel you can develop your own functionality for SOBI 2 and integrate it easily.


• Different modules, Joomla! and SOBI 2 plugins are available to extend the possibilities of SOBI 2.

SOBI 2 is released under the GNU/GPL V2 license.