WHAT IS JOOMLA?
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Joomla is an
award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web
sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use
and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software
available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely
available to everyone.
What's a content
management system (CMS)?
A content management
system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site,
much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them.
Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about
anything you can think of. A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires
almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all
your content, you don't have to.
What are some real
world examples of what Joomla! can do?
Joomla is used all
over the world to power Web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example:
·
Corporate Web sites or
portals
·
Corporate intranets
and extranets
·
Online magazines,
newspapers, and publications
·
E-commerce and online
reservations
·
Government
applications
·
Small business Web
sites
·
Non-profit and
organizational Web sites
·
Community-based
portals
·
School and church Web
sites
·
Personal or family
homepages
Who uses Joomla?
Here are just a few
examples of Web sites that use Joomla:
·
Citibank (Financial
institution intranet) - Not publicly accessible
I need to build a site
for a client. How will Joomla! help me?
Joomla is designed to
be easy to install and set up even if you're not an advanced user. Many Web
hosting services offer a single-click install, getting your new site up and
running in just a few minutes.
Since Joomla is so
easy to use, as a Web designer or developer, you can quickly build sites for
your clients. Then, with a minimal amount of instruction, you can empower your
clients to easily manage their own sites themselves.
If your clients need
specialized functionality, Joomla is highly extensible and thousands of
extensions (most for free under the GPL
license ) are available in the Joomla Extensions Directory .
How can I be sure
there will be Joomla! support in the future?
Joomla is the most
popular open source CMS currently available as evidenced by a vibrant and
growing community of friendly users and talented developers. Joomla's roots go
back to 2000 and, with over 200,000 community users and contributors, the
future looks bright for the award-winning Joomla Project.
I'm a developer. What
are some advanced ways I can use Joomla?
Many companies and
organizations have requirements that go beyond what is available in the basic
Joomla package. In those cases, Joomla's powerful application framework makes
it easy for developers to create sophisticated add-ons that extend the power of
Joomla into virtually unlimited directions.
The core Joomla
framework enables developers to quickly and easily build:
·
Inventory control
systems
·
Data reporting tools
·
Application bridges
·
Custom product
catalogs
·
Integrated e-commerce
systems
·
Complex business directories
·
Reservation systems
·
Communication tools
Since Joomla is based
on PHP and MySQL, you're building powerful applications on an open platform
anyone can use, share, and support. To find out more information on leveraging
the Joomla framework, visit the Joomla Developer Network.
Joomla! seems the
right solution for me. How do I get started?
Joomla is free, open,
and available to anyone under the GPL
license . ReadGetting Started with Joomla to find out the basics then try out our online demo and you'll quickly discover how simple Joomla
is. If you're ready to install Joomla, download the latest version
here you'll be up and
running in no time.
FEATURES OVERVIEW
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Joomla is so much more
than just a powerful content management system. Here is a list of features
"out of the box," but the true power of Joomla is in its
extensibility.
User Management
Joomla has a
registration system that allows users to configure personal options. There are
nine user groups with various types of permissions on what users are allowed to
access, edit, publish and administrate.
Authentication is an important part of user management and Joomla support multiple protocols, including LDAP, OpenID, and even Gmail. This allows users to use their existing account information to streamline the registration process.
Authentication is an important part of user management and Joomla support multiple protocols, including LDAP, OpenID, and even Gmail. This allows users to use their existing account information to streamline the registration process.
Media Manager
The Media Manager is
the tool for easily managing media files or folders and you can configure
the MIME type settings to handle any type of file. The Media Manager is
integrated into the Article Editor tool so you can grab images and other files
at any time.
Language Manager
There is international
support for many world languages and UTF-8 encoding. If you need your Web site
in one language and the administrator panel in another, multiple languages are
possible.
Banner Management
It's easy to set up
banners on your Web site using the Banner Manager, starting with creating a
client profile. Once you add campaigns and as many banners as you need, you can
set impression numbers, special URLs, and more.
Contact Management
The Contact Manager
helps your users to find the right person and their contact information. It
also supports multiple contact forms going to specific individuals as well as
groups.
Polls
If you want to find
out more about your users, it's easy to create polls with multiple options.
Search
Help navigate users to
most popular search items and provide the admin with search statistics.
Web Link Management
Providing link
resources for site users is simple and you can sort them into categories, even
count every click.
Content Management
Joomla's simplified
three-tiered system of articles makes organizing your content a snap. You can
organize your content any way you want and not necessarily how it will be on
your Web site. Your users can rate articles, e-mail them to a friend, or
automatically save a PDF (with UTF-8 support for all languages). Administrators
can archive content for safekeeping, hiding it from site visitors.
On public Web sites,
built-in e-mail cloaking protects email addresses from spambots.
Creating content is
simple with the WYSIWYG editor, giving even novice users the ability to combine
text, images in an attractive way. Once you've created your articles, there are
a number of pre-installed modules to show the most popular articles, latest new
items, newsflashes, related articles, and more.
Syndication and
Newsfeed Management
With Joomla, it's easy
to syndicate your site content, allowing your users to subscribe to new content
in their favorite RSS reader. It's equally easy to integrate RSS feeds from
other sources and aggregate them all on your site.
Menu Manager
The Menu Manager
allows you to create as many menus and menu items as you need. You can
structure your menu hierarchy (and nested menu items) completely independent of
your content structure. Put one menu in multiple places and in any style you
want; use rollovers, dropdown, flyouts and just about any other navigation
system you can think of. Also automatic breadcrumbs are generated to help
navigate your site users.
Template Management
Templates in Joomla
are a powerful way to make your site look exactly the way you want and either
use a single template for the entire site or a separate template for each site
section. The level of visual control goes a step further with powerful template
overrides, allowing you to customize each part of your pages.
Integrated Help System
Joomla has a built-in
help section to assist users with finding what they need. A glossary explains
the terms in plain English, a version checker makes sure you're using the
latest version, a system information tool helps you troubleshoot, and, if all
else fails, links to a wealth of online resources for additional help and
support.
System Features
Speedy page loads are
possible with page caching, granular-level module caching, and GZIP page
compression.
If your system
administrator needs to troubleshoot an issue, debugging mode and error
reporting are invaluable.
The FTP Layer allows
file operations (like installing Extensions) without having to make all the
folders and files writable, making your site administrator's life easier and
increasing the security of your site.
Administators quickly
and efficiently communicate with users one-on-one through private messaging or
all site users via the mass mailing system.
Web Services
With Web services, you
can use Remote Procedure Calls (via HTTP and XML). You can also integrate
XML-RPC services with the Blogger and Joomla APIs.
Powerful Extensibility
These are just some of
the basic Joomla features and the real power is in the way you customize
Joomla. Visit the Joomla Extensions Directory to see thousands of ways to enhance Joomla to
suit your needs.
Joomla Tutorial
Joomla How-Tos for Beginners
This detailed step-by-step
Joomla 3 tutorial will show you how to use Joomla to build and manage your
website. Joomla CMS is one of the most popular free applications. It is loved
and used by people ranging from absolute beginners to professional web developers.
Millions of great websites worldwide are powered by Joomla.
The Most Common Joomla
Questions in our Joomla 3 Tutorial
How to Install Joomla?
Step-by-step Manual Joomla 3 Installation Guide
This is a step by step tutorial on how to install Joomla manually on a web server. In this article we focus on the installation of Joomla 3, as it is the latest stable branch officially recommended for all new projects.
Or Get Free and Easy Joomla installation by SiteGround!
We know that manual Joomla installation requires some time and effort. To spare you these our Joomla hosting service includes 3 easy install options that can save you the hassle:
- SiteGround Joomla Setup Wizard
- Joomla Auto-install through Softaculous
- Free manual installation by our Support Team
STEP 1Download the Needed Joomla 3 Installation Package
To start a Joomla installation on a web server, first you need to download the Joomla installation package. We recommend that you download Joomla only from the official website of the application - Joomla.org. If you download the Joomla 3 installation package from other than the official one, there is a risk of malicious code in the setup files.
Once you click on the Download button for the latest Joomla version, the installation package will be saved to your hard disk. Locate the installation package (should be named Joomla_3.0.3-Stable-Full_Package.zip or similar) that you've just downloaded and extract it to a new folder.
STEP 2Upload the Joomla Files to Your Server
Now, you need to upload the extracted files and folders to your web server. The easiest way to upload the Joomla installation files is via FTP. For detailed information on how to upload files via FTP, please check ourFTP Tutorial.
Important!If you want your Joomla 3 to be the main installation on your account and to be accessible through your main domain (i.e. www.mydomain.com), you need to upload the extracted files to your public_htmlfolder. If you want to access Joomla on a subfolder of your domain (i.e. www.mydomain.com/joomla) you should upload it to the appropriate subdirectory (i.e. public_html/joomla/).
STEP 3Create a MySQL Database for Joomla to Use
Next, you need to create a MySQL database and assign a user to it with full permissions. For detailed instructions on how to do that, please follow the steps described in our tutorial on How to Create MySQL Username and Database. Once you create your MySQL Database and User, make sure you write down the database name, database username and password you've just created. You will need those for the installation process.
STEP 4Go Through the Installation Process
If you have uploaded the installation files, simply open your browser and navigate to your main domain (i.e. http://mydomain.com), or to the appropriate subdomain (i.e http://mydomain.com/joomla), depending where you have uploaded the Joomla installation package. Once you do that, you will be taken to the first screen of the Joomla Web Installer. On the first step of the installation process, you need to add the necessary information about your site and your administrative username.
- Site Name: Enter the name of your site. Most templates will use this for the first heading of your index.
- Description: Add a brief description of your website. It depends on your template if and where this text would be displayed.
- Admin Email: Enter a valid email address. It will be used for password recovery and system messages.
- Admin Username: Your administrative username. Please select a unique username, rather than "admin" or "administrator" since those are often subject to hacker attacks.
- Admin Password: Add a password as strong as possible.
- Site Offline: Select whether your site should be taken offline after you complete the installation. For the purpose of this tutorial we will leave this option set to NO (site will be live after installation).
Once you fill in all the required fields, press the Next button to proceed with the installation.
On the next screen, you will have to enter the necessary information for your MySQL database.
- Database Type: By default this value is set to MySQLi. Leave it that way, MySQLi is an optimised version of the regular MySQL database and it is supported on SiteGround servers.
- Host Name: Once again, leave the default localhost value.
- Username: Enter the username for your MySQL database (Refer to Step 3).
- Password: Fill in the password for the database username (Refer to Step 3).
- Database Name: Enter the name of the MySQL database you want to use (Refer to Step 3).
- Table Prefix: Joomla will add this prefix to all of its database tables. This is useful if you want to host multiple Joomla sites on a single database. You should leave the default value.
- Old Database Process: If you have any existing databases, choose what to do with the existing tables that are required by the installer. The options are to remove or backup any existing data that's about to be replaced. We recommend that you leave this option set to Backup since it is the safest choice.
After you enter all the necessary information, press the Next button to proceed.
You will be forwarded to the last page of the installation process. On this page, you can specify if you want any sample data installed on your server. For beginners, we recommend you to choose the Default Sample data option since it will serve as an example/backbone, that you can use to build your actual website. Note that you can delete all sample articles, menus, etc. at any time.
The second part of the page will show you all pre-installation checks. The SiteGround servers meet all Joomla requirements and you will see a green check after each line.
Finally, hit the Install button to start the actual Joomla installation. In a few minutes you will be redirected to the last screen of the Joomla Web Installer.
On the last screen of the installation process you need to press the Remove installation folder button. This is required for security reasons, so no one can reinstall your existing site later on. Note that Joomla won't let you use your site unless you remove this folder completely!
That's it! You have a fully functional Joomla website. You can now start building your website content!
Create a Website with Joomla
How to build a website with Joomla 3?
In this group of tutorials we will teach the basic skills you need in order to create a simple Joomla site. We believe that once you understand the Joomla 3 structure and the way the application works, it will become much easier for you to create the site that you want. However, Joomla 3 has endless capabilities and it is easy for the unexperienced user to get lost in the sea of information. This is why, we have focused on the fundamental knowledge that you really need.
