Z-Ray for Joomla

Hi guys. This article will describe another Z-Ray extension developed by the PHP community, this time for Joomla.

The extension was developed by Jisse Reitsma from Yireo, and can be found on GitHub here: https://github.com/yireo/Z-Ray-Joomla

Overview

Let’s first take a  look at the information the extension displays.

Config

This first panel in the extension is kind of an overview panel providing general info on the application’s configuration, including info on the app’s version and the template it’s using, and values for various configuration directives such as ‘debug’ and ‘error reporting’.

Events

The Events panel lists all of the Joomla events that were fired by the page. You’ll be able to see the event name, its execution time, how many times it was triggered and passed arguments.

Files

This panel provides a list of all the various files used by the Joomla app during execution, including the file’s absolute and relative path.

Modules

The Modules panel is extremely useful for Joomla developers as it gives visibility into all modules loaded by Joomla core regardless of their output – information that otherwise would be very time consuming to retrieve.

The panel shows the module title and name, it’s position on the page, an indication on whether the module is cached or not, and execution time – a crucial detail to improve performance.

Plugins

Another important panel in the extension is the Plugins panel which gives you a list of all the triggered Joomla plugins on the page. So used in tandem with the Events panel, Z-Ray will help you see which plugin does what, and at which event.

Request

And last but not least, in the Request panel you’ll be able to see some general info on the request, such as the component used, and the view and layout.

Installation

Installing the Joomla extension for Z-Ray is easy:

1. Create a folder in the Zend Server 8 installation files, as follows:
   • Mac and Linux: /usr/local/zend/var/zray/extensions/Joomla
   • Windows: C:Program Files (x86)ZendZendServerdatazrayextensionsJoomla
2. Copy the extension files from the GitHub repo to this folder.
3. Access the Zend Server UI , go to the Configurations

   Read more : Z-Ray for Joomla