We have released a new color picker tool for Joomla developers.

This tool for is designed to generate a color picker custom form field for use in Joomla extensions. It is compatible with Joomla 1.5 and 1.6, with mootols 1.1 and 1.2, and does not require any other javascript library, so no conflicts with the Joomla admininstrator template. It is very lightweight, consisting of a single javascript file, plus the the Joomla element and formfield classes necessary to generate the custom parameter. It can be used in component, module or plugin parameters to generate a color picker from which the user can select a color.

We are pleased to announce the release of two new Flash extensions for Joomla 1.5 and Joomla 1.6, modules Featured Items Flash, and Featured Items Flash 3D. These modules display images from your Joomla articles as Flash slideshows, with clickable links to the articles - a great way to enliven your Joomla site.

Unlike many Flash extensions, these are fully integrated into the Joomla content management system, so there is no messing about with XML data files, you just choose the articles to display in the module administration. The modules will automatically detect the article images and display them in the slideshow gallery. You can choose to display selected articles, the most recent or randomly selected articles from a category or section, or many other combinations.

The modules are also search engine friendly, as the content is initially rendered on your site as html, with the slideshow constructed from this, so search engines can follow the links to your articles as normal.

As well as being compatible with the Joomla core content component, these modules support Mighty Extensions Resources, and the K2 content component. They can integrate with social components such as Community Builder, Mighty Touch and JomSocial, to show images from articles by the currently profiled user.

We are happy to announce the release of major updates to our Flash Slideshow modules for Virtuemart, Mod VM Flash Slideshow and Mod VM Flash 3D Slideshow.

These module extensions for the Joomla 1.5 CMS can be used as a replacement for the Virtuemart featured products, top products, random products or recent products modules. They display product images as a Flash slideshow, with a link to the product details page. The modules can also be used to display category images with a link to the product categories.

From 8th November 2010 Amazon changed the way that customer reviews are handled through the Amazon Product Advertising API (formerly known as Amazon Associates Web Services).

Since that date customer reviews are no longer returned as data, instead a link is returned, which can be displayed in an iframe. This means that the old system of displaying reviews will no longer work. We have updated our Amazon Web Services plugin for Joomla to take account of these changes. Existing customers who have previously bought the plugin can download the new version using their existing download link.

We have also introduced a new template system for the Amazon plugin. This will make it much easier to edit the layout of the plugin output, and even allows for template overriding. See http://www.spiralscripts.co.uk/FAQ/using-templates-with-the-amazon-web-services-plugin.html for further information.