Note: I'm trying out dictation to create blog posts. There may be errors in the post as I progress.
Joomla! is a powerful content management system (CMS), with backend technology as PHP. Joomla! can be utilized to create impressive websites and can be used to enable multiple people to collaborate and share information without having much knowledge of web development. Joomla! also features a powerful user access features enabling a website to have a public and private areas.
The initial learning curve for Joomla! is on the steep side, but once we get the hang of it, it becomes relatively straightforward.
Joomla! is backed by a number of third-party modules, plug-ins, and templates. These can be used to define the functionality of our website with little coding. At the same time, if there is a functionality that requires development, we can create our own plug-ins or modules as well. Custom user interface can be achieved by creating your own templates.
Before getting started with a Joomla! website, the first step is to plan the website properly. We should have an idea of how the website is going to be organized, what the menu structure would be, what kind of content is going to be displayed and what the target audience is.
The reason why we need this planning is because when creating content in Joomla!, we follow the “CAM” approach. The CAM stands for Category, Article, Menu. Content in Joomla! should be created strictly in this order. This is because an article should always be assigned to a category, and a menu to an article or a category.
Creating a new category using category manager
After logging in as admin,click on the category manager icon.On the top left,click on the new icon to open category editor.
Provide a category title, and select a parent category. It is the top-level category, and select parent as “No parent”. We will later and articles to this category.
Note that the alias will be auto created based on the title. Of course, we have the option of creating our own alias as well by typing in an alias.
Using Joomla!’s UAC (user access control), we can control the access permissions of this category. Basically the access permissions of a category gets applied to all articles assigned to this category. This can be overridden in an individual article.
Once all the information about a category has been entered, click on the save button at the top left hand corner.
Creating a new article and assigning it to a category
After logging in as admin, click on “Add New Article” button from the Control Panel. We can also use the menu path “Content –> Article Manager –> Add New Article”.
Give a title, and choose a category for this article. The importance of preplanning of site starts becoming apparent here. Without prior planning, the categories may not be in place and there will be confusion assigning articles to appropriate categories. Additionally, planning helps set access levels for the site users.
Use editor at the bottom of the page to create the page contents including graphics, links, page breaks …etc.
Click on the save button ones editing is complete.
Creating site menus
Till now whatever work was done on the site, that is, creation of categories and articles did not change anything on the site. This is because for the site to display content, it should be linked to a menu.
After logging in as admin, to create a new menu click on the menu manager button. Alternatively use the following menu path: “Menu –> Menu Manager”.
By default, a menu named “Main Menu” is already created and assigned to the site.
Click on “Main Menu” to open the menu for editing. Use the “new” button on top left to add a menu item.
To create a new menu, we have to specify the “Menu Item Type”. A menu can have multiple functionalities based on the chosen menu type. It can be linked to an individual article, an entire category, news feeds, contacts, and many more. The most basic menu is the link to an article. To do this, choose single article from the pop-up options after clicking on the select button.
Give a menu title, and in the required settings on right hand side, select an article to be displayed and clicking on the menu item.
