Joomla Basics Series: Joomla Overview

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1 Joomla Basics Series: Joomla Overview Presented By - Wilma Howell

2 What is Joomla! Joomla! is a popular, free, award-winning Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP and utilizing MySQL. It is free because it is an open-source project where individuals and teams contribute their skills to its development as well as its supporting systems. Joomla! can be used for everything from simple individual sites to large corporate sites. Joomla! endeavors to separate more technical tasks from the nontechnical tasks making it easier for a non-technical person to install, update and maintain the website. In addition, (as with some other content management systems), multiple people can be given permissions to provide content or support the site in other ways. Using this system can help you build and maintain your website more quickly and easily with more features than you may have thought possible.

3 Quick Facts Joomla! has been downloaded over 25 million times. It s available in over 64 languages. Joomla! is used on about 2.7% of all internet websites in the world. There are over 9,000 Extensions available for various versions of Joomla!

4 The Advantages of A Database Driven Site The content of the site is in a database completely separate from the look and feel of the site. So it becomes possible to redesign a site without re-entering your content. This makes redesigns much simpler. Information can be entered once, but displayed in a variety of ways. In a nutshell, pages are dynamically generated, making design more dynamic as well.

5 The Core Joomla! system includes Easy Administration Menu Management Organization Management User Management Content Management Website contact formatting Advertising Management Layout and Design Management Add-on (Extension) Management And Much More

6 Joomla! Extensions Joomla! is a powerful core framework that speeds developing a website and creating functionality, but the real secret to Joomla s power lies in the wealth of extensions available to add capabilities and functions to your website. There are several kinds of extensions: Templates which provide the layout and look and feel of your site Components which are full applications Modules - which fit into a position on a page Plugins which primarily add functionality behind the scenes

7 Visit

8 The Joomla! Administrator Panel The Joomla! Administrator Panel is a powerful tool for administration of a Joomla! Site. Simply append /administrator to the end of your domain name in order to access the administration panel: The Administration Login will appear. xxxxxxxx

9 Administrator Panel

10 Page Layout Basics for Joomla! The content layout of your page is all about positions and modules. Think of the page in terms of blocks of content rather than in terms of one continuous page. Much like a newspaper editor lays out a newspaper page in blocks, positioning each element of the page, the Joomla! designer publishes blocks or modules in defined positions on the page. Templates define the number and placement of module positions. YOU determine whether or not you place something in a particular position. Modules can be published on just certain pages (determined by menu items) or on all pages.

11 Module Positions Some Templates have a lot of positions defined. Some Templates have very few positions defined You can view the positions for a particular site s template by typing as the browser url if the option is set in the Template manager.

12 What Does That Mean? While you have the advantages of a database driven site with Joomla!, you also have the capability of making each page on your site have a slightly different layout or making various content areas have different layouts. You can change these layouts at any time without affecting your core content.

13 Joomla! Menus You can define as many menus as you want for your Joomla! site. Menus are published in module positions. You decide where to place your menu on the page based on available positions. Menus don t have to be shown on every page or you can have different menus show on different pages. Menu items can be based on: Content Categories (In a blog or list format) Individual Content Articles Components External Links Wrapped content (either from another site or another application)

14 Menu Manager You can define as many menus as you want

15 Menu items can be nested.

16 Categories And Articles Content items in Joomla! Are called articles. Content articles generally belong to Categories Categories can be nested (subcategories) Categories are used to create a logical organization of content which can be particularly useful on large sites. Categories can also be used in the Menu Manager to display your content in different ways. While it is not recommended to do so, you are not required to create any categories. You can just assign your articles to the Uncategorized category. Category 1 Category 2 Article 1 Article 2 Category A Category B Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Article 4 Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Article 4

17 Content Editing Articles are generally written and edited using a WYSIWYG editor, so that you don t have to know any coding to get the fonts and styling you want. Articles can be submitted and edited from the administrator panel by users with security levels of manager or above, but anyone with author level permissions and above can submit content from the front end as well. Each content item has its own meta keywords and meta description for SEO purpose and a click of the button determines whether a particular item is published or not. Joomla even offers the capability to write an article and set a future date for publication. So you can store up lots of content and have it served up periodically to keep your site content fresh for the search engines.

18 - Create Title -Assign to Category -Set Whether or not to Publish Set article permissions or Leave at default Set Publish Dates Insert/Upload an image Create Read More Break Create Page Breaks Etc

19 Set a number of other article parameters

20 Configure which options appear to users creating or editing articles from the front end (versus the administrator panel).

21 While you can add images in the text area, the images and links area gives you the option to set one image to display when only the intro of the article is showing and a different image to show when the entire article is showing. Any links you define here will display below the title on the full article view.

22 Set MetaTag Information

23 Content Editing: Front End Registered users with the proper permissions can submit and edit articles from the front end of the website. By default, you must have Author level permissions or above to submit articles and Publisher level or above permissions to publish them. Once you are logged in from the front end, you typically have permission to edit any article that shows a pencil with a piece of paper next to the title Published and editable by you Un-Published and editable by you

24 Log In to your Joomla Site from the Front End

25 Click the Submit Article Link. The Administrator or Super User may place this link on any menu or on a specific user menu.

26 Complete the Article Submission Form and Save

27 Some Terminology Hints Save Save your edits to the current screen but do not leave the screen Save & Close Save your edits to the current screen and close the current screen Save & New Save your edits to the current screen and open a new screen to create a new item Save as Copy Save the edits to the current screen as a copy of the original item.

28 Terminology Hints for WordPress Users Modules are similar to WordPress Widgets Positions are similar to WordPress Sidebars Articles are similar to Posts

29 Access Permissions Joomla! has access permissions built into the framework. If you wish, you can give your site visitors the ability to register and sign in from your Joomla website. There are various permission levels that can be used to set what each visitor can access and what functions they can perform. For example, you can assign users author permissions to allow them to submit and edit their own content from the front end (without ever visiting the administration panel).

30 Access Permissions: User Groups User Groups form sets of permissions A user (registered site member) can belong to more than one group In 1.5, the administration permissions groups included manager, administrator, and super administrator. The Front end permissions groups included public, registered, author, editor, and publisher. These same groups still exist in 2.5, but new groups can be added with specific permissions. Groups are hierarchical and sub-groups can inherit permissions from top level groups. If deny is set for any action, you will be denied across the board even if you are explicitly allowed to do something via another group.

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32 Access Permissions: Viewing View permissions are linked to groups There are several view access levels included by default and most sites never need to add new ones. When you create a new view access level, you select which user groups are included in that level. When you set up your articles, categories, menu items, modules, etc, you can select the view access level from a drop down box.

33 When creating a new Access Level, Specify the Title and select the groups that are included.

34 Access Permissions: Authoring, Editing and Administration Most sites never need to modify the default permission assignments. There are 10 Global permissions that can be set separately or inherited for each group: Site Login, Admin Login, Offline Access, Super Admin, Access Administration Interface, Create, Delete, Edit, Edit State, and Edit Own Permissions are managed at four levels: Global Configuration, Component Options, Category, Articles If a specific permission is not explicitly allowed or denied at the global level, then it will be implicitly denied at all levels unless specified otherwise. If a specific permission is explicitly denied at the global level, it will be denied at all levels whether specified otherwise or not. If a specific permission is explicitly allowed at the global level, it will be allowed at all lower levels unless explicitly denied. If deny is set explicitly at one level, all lower levels will inherit the denial regardless of setting.

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36 Now For A Demonstration

37 Become A Part Of The Joomla! Community Find your local user group at Dallas / Fort Worth User Group On the Web Meetup.com - Our website - Linked In Joomla Dallas/ Fort worth et_ug_hm Facebook Joomla! North Texas &ref=mf Twitter