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Hello, i am working on an application and i have been following the 18 part guide for hello world.

im at about page 9, and had i big realization.

i can do all this with php on one single page.

all i need is access to the variables and database.

is there any easier way to use a php document and have access to all variables and the database?

i dont really care about the languages or install. this is basically a personal extension.

i also dont need backend.

my main concerns are:

-getting usernames and other profile info like access level.
-showing breadcrumbs information to joomla.

It depends on what you're trying to do with your application (your "main concerns" doesn't really give me a clear explanation of what you're trying to do). If you want a page to show up inside of joomla that you can make a menu item to (like you can for articles, or login pages, or a joolma forum) then you need at least a Component extension with a Site (frontend) side and use MVC architectural. This means you have to have an installer (ie, the component xml file), but you don't need most of the stuff that the guide give you.

The guide is pretty good about telling you what's optional and what's not (I believe). Ie, if you don't want to have language support you don't need to include it (just leave it out of your .xml file); You don't need to use an install script (ie <scriptfile>script.php</scriptfile>); You don't need to have an administrator side of the component.

However you'll need at least to create the MVC style (at least a controller.php and /view/ ) else you'll not be able to make a menu link to your component. If you don't need to make a menu link to the component (ie, you'll be running it manually or via a cron using joomlasite/index.php?option=componentname) you can probably even drop those requirements also. You really only need the main componentname.php and componentname.xml files to have a working component extension (I've not tested this claim on J2.5, but that's how J1.5 was, so you'll need to try it out and see).

Thanks for your input, this is for an alpha version of a community.

i plan to make it basically, display code, tweek it until it works for my situation, then compile the code leaving out parts made just for my site and publish it.

how do i display database info in my php code?

the data i am requesting is from the:
-joomla user table(s?)
-tables created by my extension

are there different methods for calling these information? <--did ten mins of research and i think thats the best wording lol

i think it might be best to redefine the variables i will use somewhere else like the header but i dont know how that works in joomla!

Just look at the code of any component that comes with joomla. Look in the model for retrieving data, look in the view for displaying the retrieved data.

The banner and weblink component are very good to nderstand when yo have no knowledge of Joomla programming. There are also some good books to get some nice information

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