OSTips-Can You Manage Your Joomla Site On An iPad?

It’s April 14, 2010. I’m on a motorcycle on my way from where I live, outside of Cincinnati, to a town called Sussex, New Brunswick up in Canada to teach at a university for the week. I’m in a massive traffic jam just south of Portland, when I get a call from a client in San Jose who’s asking, “There’s something wrong with this joomla website. Can you help?” Well of course! So, I pulled out my Macbook Pro, tethered it to my iPhone 3, and in about 20 minutes, his problem was fixed. So the question for today is: Has anything about that scenario changed?

Thanks for joining me today, and of course the answer is YES! A ton has changed.

Keep reading to learn!

Hi, my name is Rod Martin, and this is OSTips from OSTraining.

These days I travel with an iPad most of the time, so the question is now this:  Can I manage my Joomla website with an iPad which is of course much smaller and has cellular connectivity?

The answer  is: Yes, you can.  Let’s take a look.

So like most modern CMS’s there’s good news, and there’s bad news.

First the good news…

You can for the most part manage your Joomla site with your iPad. I’m using a 12.9 inch iPad pro and the Apple Pencil (2nd Gen). 

The site we are using today hasn’t been launched yet.  Let’s head over to the administration side.  You’ll notice I can scroll, click and tap, and go pretty much anywhere I want on the site. I can add  and edit articles.

Obviously, I’m using JCE here, and I’ve added some text, a picture, and again just tapping on the screen gives me the ability to insert and update an article pretty much anywhere I want.  If you have an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil, you can even write content with your pencil: 

That’s pretty cool! 

If you’re using a magic keyboard, you also have cursor control.  You can click and drag, and change the size of your images.  Interestingly though, you can NOT do that with your finger. It just doesn’t work with your finger or the Apple Pencil, BUT if you have an external mouse or the track pad, you’re good to go.

Another thing on the plus side of things is that most modern page builders also support editing on the iPad. I’m using SP Page Builder here, and I’m clicking around. I can click, and drag and drop, and by the way, that DOES work with your finger or the Apple Pencil just fine. I can click and drag new elements; literally, I can do everything in SP Page Builder on my iPad that I can do on a PC or a Mac.

So that’s the good news! 

The bad news isn’t too bad…

What it boils down to is external mouse support. Not everything is going to work with the touch screen.

You’ll absolutely need a mouse or the built-in trackpad on the Magic Keyboard in order to make these things work.

I’m here in RSForms! Pro, and if I’ve got the trackpad, I can rearrange things any way I want:

Again, if you are using your finger or the Apple Pencil, well then you are out of luck.  So if you’ve got your Magic Keyboard, you’re okay. 

If all you have is your iPad (no mouse, keyboard, or pencil), well there’s a few gotchas here. One of them can be found anywhere there’s a box like the following:

You would typically just click and select one of the items, and you can still do that; however, you can NOT actually delete an item by clicking on the “x”! It’s frustrating, and this kind of issue can be found all throughout Joomla. In order to delete an item, you have to use the backspace key, and then add the correct one back in manually.

So with just a couple of minor glitches and work arounds, the answer is: Yes. You CAN manage your Joomla website completely on your iPad.

Well this has been OSTips from OSTraining. My name is Rod Martin thanks for joining me today!