YOOtools is part of the YOOtheme template club line of products; you join YOOtheme and you get access to the YOOtools as well at no additional cost.

These modules and mambots work on any template, not just YOOtheme templates and these tools are a great addition to any site. Of course, you are limited to the number of templates your YOOtheme membership allows as YOOtools is not available for purchase outside YOOthemes.

The reason why we chose to review YOOtools seperate from a YOOtheme template is twofold, the first reason, since most YOOthemes use any number of these YOOtools, by reviewing the YOOtools seperately, you wouldn't need to read about them in each YOOtheme template review and the second reason is they are THAT cool, it is almost a shame you cannot buy them seperately from YOOthemes.

There are actually several different ones, at the time of this writing, there's a total of seven modules and two mambots (plugins).

YOOtheme YOOtools Mambots

• YOOeffects
• YOOtooltips

YOOtheme YOOtools Modules

• YOOaccordion
• YOOcarousel
• YOOdrawer
• YOOlogin
• YOOmap
• YOOsnapshots
• YOOtoppanel

YOOtools Mambots

YOOeffects

To be honest, this is probably my favorite YOOtool, as it allows you to do a lot of really nifty things.

The YOOeffects mambot is an easy to use lightbox image/movie/URL overlay popup integrator.

It allows you to link to any kind of media content on the page that the visitor is at without opening a new window/tab in their browser.

For instance, you could display an image or YouTube video in a lightbox popup or even a web page.

YOOeffects also allow you to to do a smooth fading between two images while hovering an element; and not only that but it also allow you to create an automatic reflection on any image.

For more information check out: YOOeffects

To be honest, this is probably my favorite YOOtool, as it allows you to do a lot of really nifty things.

The YOOeffects mambot is an easy to use lightbox image/movie/URL overlay popup integrator.

It allows you to link to any kind of media content on the page that the visitor is at without opening a new window/tab in their browser.

For instance, you could display an image or YouTube video in a lightbox popup or even a web page.

YOOeffects also allow you to to do a smooth fading between two images while hovering an element; and not only that but it also allow you to create an automatic reflection on any image.

For more information check out: YOOtools YOOeffects.

YOOtooltip

This is a really nifty addon that allows you to add a mouseover tooltip to your content and lets you show additional information.

It allows you to make the tooltip sticky, include text, an image or HTML content and easily set the width of your tooltip.

For more information check out: YOOtooltip

This is a really nifty addon that allows you to add a mouseover tooltip to your content and lets you show additional information.

It allows you to make the tooltip sticky, include text, an image or HTML content and easily set the width of your tooltip.

For more information check out: YOOtools YOOtooltips.

YOOaccordion

The YOOaccordion module displays a collection of articles and creates a virtual accordion effect with smooth sliding when selecting an article.

All articles can display HMTL formated content like text/images/flash and you can even use the "loadposition" plugin to display another module inside an article.

It slides the entire page as you open and close the different tabs, working in an "accordion" way, hence the name.

For more information check out: YOOtools YOOaccordion.

YOOcarousel

The YOOcarousel module is a very flexible module for Joomla. It shows a category of articles, creates a slide or fade transition when cycling through the articles.

It is allows you cycle through content automatically, only once or off; in off position, the reader needs to click or hover over the tabs to change the content.

You can easily just fade or scroll images or text without any tabs, or you can set up an interactive informational box with tabs set in a list styling.

The YOOcarousel comes with a lot of different styles. All styles work out of the box and can be used with any YOOtheme template or any other template for that matter, so it is very easy to integrate in your current web site.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOcarousel.

YOOdrawer

YooDrawer slides 'drawers' up and down (vertically) when you hover over an item with your mouse.

When it slides up and down it will expand the current drawer and shrink the other drawers. Each YOOdrawer uses an article to display its content and all articles can display any kind of HTML formatted content like text, images or flash and you can even use the "loadposition" Joomla plugin to display another module inside of an article.

It is a very easy way to display the intro of articles in a limited space, the module is a fixed height and will not scroll the rest of the page unlike YOOaccordion.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOdrawer.

YOOlogin

YOOlogin is an enhanced version of the default Joomla login module. It comes with several different stylings and enables you to use icon buttons instead of the default "Lost password" link.

There are a total of 14 parameters which makes this a pretty flexible module and it looks better than the stock login box.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOlogin.

YOOmaps

YOOmaps allows you to integrate Google Maps into your Joomla site in a very easy way.

This very powerful module, allow you to nclude all Google features like Zoom Level, Zoom Controls, Map Type and minimap are fully controlled through the YOOmaps module configuration.

There is even a small box that you can enter from address to get direction to the destinaton pin, and the direction output is right underneath the map on the same page. No more lost visitors because you had to send them to a seperate site for directions.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOmaps.

YOOsnapshots

YOOsnapshots is a lightweight module that integrates the features provided by snap.cominto your Joomla site by generating high quality link previews for your visitors to create an informative and sticky experience for your visitors.

You can set YOOsnapshots to be on by default on all links automatically; there is also a class option to turn the snapshot feauture on or off on an individual link (snap_shots and _snap_noshots) which will override the default settings.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOsnapshots.

YOOtoppanel

Now this is a really nifty module that allow you to have a cleverly hidden module, commonly placed at the top of your template, and by clicking on the "Top Panel" button, it smoothly slides down, and to hide the Top Panel, you just click on the "Close" button in the upper right hand corner or hit the "Top Panel" button again.

This "hidden" module is a great place to put the login/registration module or include legal information or anything else you desire. With the "loadposition" Joomla plugin you can easily display another module inside the toppanel article.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOtoppanel.

YOOscroller

YOOscroller allows you to display images to your visitors in a really easy way by showing a category in a scrollbar that scrolls through the articles.

Like most, if not all YOOtools, the articles can include any kind of HTML formatted content like text, images and flash and you can even include plugins in the articles by using "loadposition".

The YOOtools YOOscroller module comes with a lot of different styles, and they of course work flawlessly in both YOOtheme templates and any other template.

For more information, check out: YOOtools YOOscroller.

Verdict

As you can tell, there are a lot of really nice modules and mambots in the YOOtools toolchest and they work on non-YOOtheme templates as well.

Now, you cannot purchase the YOOtools seperately, they are included with the YOOtheme templates and they have three different club plans.

A single domain with access to all current templates plus 3 more with unlimited extension usage start at only €39 and there is also more flexible club membership packages.

For more information about club packages, go to: YOOtheme Signup.

My favorite extension of all of them, has got to be the YOOeffects Mambot, but as I have been playing with these extensions on both YOOtheme templates and other templates, I have really grown to appreciate the versitility of these modules.

The YOOtoppanel is a great place to hide the login box, the YOOtooltip is a great way to give additional information on a link in an unabtrusive tooltip box, and YOOmap makes it virtually hasslefree to include a live map from Google.

Again, we wrote this review on YOOtools seperate from our (upcomming) reviews of YOOtheme templates, because many of the templates include these tools and rather than re-writing the same information we figured we would just point to this article for additional information but even if you are not looking for a new template, getting a Silver account with YOOtheme for any or all of these extensions, is absolutely worth it and best of all, they are all Joomla 1.0x and 1.5x compatible.

Some of them are a little confusing to get started with since there are a lot of parameters and options available to some of them, just remember there are tutorials to check out and an active forum for members.

We will add modules and extensions to this review as YOOtheme releases more of their quality extensions.

Purchase: YOOtheme