Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide
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About this ebook
Joomla! is one of the most popular open-source Content Management Systems, actively developed and supported by a world-wide user community. Although it's a fun and feature-rich tool, it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and build a site that meets your needs perfectly. Using this book you can create dynamic, interactive web sites that perfectly fit your needs.
This practical guide gives you a head start in using Joomla! 1.5, helping you to create professional and good-looking web sites, whether you want to create a full-featured company or club web site or build a personal blog site.
The Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide helps beginners to get started quickly and to get beyond the basics to take full advantage of Joomla!'s powerful features. Real-life examples and tutorials will spark your imagination and show you what kind of professional, contemporary, feature-rich web sites any developer can achieve with Joomla!. It gives you a head start and explains what's good and useful about Joomla! features and what's not. The focus is on clear instructions and easy-to-understand tutorials, with minimum of jargon. This book provides clear definitions, thoroughly covering the concepts behind the software and creating a coherent picture of how the software works. This book is not about what Joomla! can do-it's about what you can do using Joomla!.
This clear, hands-on guide to building web sites helps you to get the most out of Joomla! 1.5's many powerful features.
ApproachWritten with a fast-paced but friendly and engaging approach, this Packt Beginner's guide is designed to be placed alongside the computer as your guide and mentor to meet real-world web building challenges. Step-by-step tutorials are bolstered by explanations of the reasoning behind what you are doing. You will quickly pick up the necessary skills, tips, and tricks for building a successful Joomla! web site with practical examples that help you to learn by experiment and play.
Who this book is forIf you want to build and maintain your own web site, the Joomla! Beginner's Guide is perfect for you. It helps you build on the skills and knowledge you may already have on creating web sites-but even if you're new to this subject, you won't have any difficulty understanding the clear and friendly instructions and explanations. You learn how to build and maintain web sites without having to dive deep into HTML and CSS.
Eric Tiggeler
Eric Tiggeler is the author of the Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide and has written several Dutch guides on Joomla! and other content management systems, all of which got excellent reviews. Eric writes tutorials for several computer magazines and Joomla! community websites. Over the last ten years, Eric has developed numerous websites, big and small, many of them using Joomla! Eric is fascinated by the Web as a powerful and creative means of communication, and by revolutionary software such as Joomla!, which enables anyone to create beautiful and user-friendly websites. His passion is making complex things easy to understand.
Read more from Eric Tiggeler
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Joomla! 1.5 Beginner's Guide - Eric Tiggeler
Table of Contents
Joomla! 1.5
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Time for action—heading
What just happened?
Pop quiz - heading
Have a go hero—heading
Reader feedback
Customer support
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Introduction: A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
Join the CMS revolution
Why would you choose Joomla!?
What kind of sites can you build with Joomla!?
Learning to use Joomla!
What you'll learn using this book
About the example site
Summary
2. Installation: Getting Joomla! Up and Running
What do you need to start?
1. Hosting space
2. FTP software
3. A great browser (think Firefox)
Installing Joomla! in four steps
Time for action—step 1: Download the Joomla! files
What just happened?
Time for action—step 2: Place the files on the web server
What just happened?
Time for action—step 3: Create a database
What just happened?
Time for action—step 4: Run the Joomla! installation wizard
What just happened?
Got stuck? Get help!
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of installing Joomla!
Summary
3. First Steps: Getting to Know Joomla!
Making the switch: Building websites the Joomla! way
Sorry, web pages have ceased to exist
Why is this a good thing?
A website built of blocks
Introducing frontend and backend: The Joomla! interface
Your workspace: The backend
And what's that frontend thing, then?
The frontend: The website as the user sees it
Time for action—tour the example site
What just happened?
Have a go hero—get familiar with the example site contents
Taking control: Administering your site in the backend
Time for action—log in to the backend
What just happened?
Taking a closer look at the Control Panel
1. Menu bar
2. Shortcut buttons
3. Preview and Info Bar
4. Information panels
Understanding backend tools and controls
Getting your feet wet: Start administering your site
Three types of backend actions
Content actions example: Let's create some content!
Time for action—publish your first article
What just happened?
Extension actions example: Managing modules
Time for action—rearranging page layout
What just happened?
Site actions example: Configuring basic site settings
Time for action—set Joomla! preferences
What just happened?
Have a go hero—explore the configuration options
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of the Joomla! way of web building
Summary
4. Web Building Basics: Creating a Site in an Hour
What you will be making
SRUP's the word
Cleaning up: Removing the sample data
Step 1: Hide the unnecessary stuff
Time for action—hiding modules
What just happened?
Step 2: Remove sample content
Time for action—deleting articles, categories, and sections
What just happened?
Have a go hero—clean up those menus
Building your site is a three step process
Step 1: Customize the layout
Customize the color scheme
Time for action—choosing a color variation
What just happened?
Time for action—preparing a new header file
What just happened?
Time for action—display the new header image file
What just happened?
CSS ... stylesheets? Come again?
One last thing: Clean up a little whatchamacallit
Time for action—remove the whatsis
What just happened?
Have a go hero—explore layout settings
Step 2: Add content
Create a foundation first: Make sections and categories
Time for action—create a section and some categories
What just happened?
Add articles to the categories
Time for action—create an article
What just happened?
Have a go hero—add your own images to articles
Making content visible: Create a menu link
Time for action—add a menu link
What just happened?
Have a go hero—create more articles
Now that's the all-important power of menus
Add some individual content pages: Uncategorized articles
Time for action—add uncategorized articles
What just happened?
Have a go hero—clean up the Main Menu
Put some content on the home page—at last!
Add items to the home page
Time for action—adding items to the home page
What just happened?
The Front Page is not the home page (or is it?)
Step 3: Add extras through components and extensions
Components and extensions, what's the difference?
Add a contact form
Time for action—create a contact
What just happened?
Time for action—create a Contact Form menu link
What just happened?
Add a Poll
Time for action—create a Poll
Time for action—display the Poll
What just happened?
Wrapping up: Change site settings
Time for action—change site configuration
What just happened?
Pop quiz - test your basic Joomla! knowledge
Summary
5. Small Sites, Big Sites: Organizing your Content Effectively
Building on the example site
Grouping content: A crash course in site organization
Designing a site map
Time for action—create a future proof site map
What just happened?
Transferring your site map to Joomla!
How do you turn a site map into a website?
Creating content containers: Sections and categories
Time for action—create a new section and a category
What just happened?
Have a go hero—add some articles
Displaying sections and categories on your website
Time for action—create a link to point to a section
How are sections and categories displayed?
Have a go hero—create some new sections and categories
Add sections and categories
Add links
Remove an unneeded article
Refining your site structure
Time for action—move content from one category to another
What just happened?
Have a go hero—moving entire categories
Renaming sections or categories
Time for action—rename a section
What just happened?
Have a go hero—name and rename!
Changing section and category settings
Building a site without sections or categories
What sites can you build with uncategorized content only?
How do you go about building a small site?
Have a go hero—organize a site!
Pop quiz - test your site organization knowledge
Summary
6. Creating Killer Content: Adding and Editing Articles
Articles, content pages, what's the difference?
Creating and editing articles: Beyond the basics
Making it look good: Formatting article text
Time for action—add styling to article text
What just happened?
Have a go hero—change the formatting
Adding images to articles
Time for action—upload images
What just happened?
Time for action—inserting and aligning images
What just happened?
Have a go hero—adjust the image settings
Changing the way the article displays
One lump or two? Split the article in an intro text and main text
Time for action—creating an intro text
What just happened?
Creating multi-page articles
Time for action—using page breaks to split up an article
What just happened?
Use it wisely
Tweaking the details: Changing article settings
Parameters (Article)
Parameters (Advanced)
Metadata Information
Archiving articles
Time for action—creating a news archive
What just happened?
Pop quiz - test your site article expertise
Summary
7. Welcoming Your Visitors: Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages
Why do you need overview pages, anyway?
Creating the perfect home: Mastering home page layout
Changing the way your home page is arranged
Time for action—rearrange the layout of articles on the home page
What just happened?
Have a go hero—tweak the home page settings to your liking
Adding items to the Front Page
Controlling the order of Front Page items manually
Setting criteria to automatically order Front Page items
Time for action—show the most recent items first
What just happened?
Have a go hero—try out the Front Page settings
Parameters (Basic)
Parameters (Advanced)
Parameters (Component)
Parameters (System)
The alternative way: Creating a single article home page
Time for action—creating a different home page
What just happened?
Have a go hero—undo!
Creating section and category overview pages
Blog Layout or List Layout?
The first type of overview page: Creating Blog Layouts
Time for action—create a facebook using the Blog Layout
What just happened?
Have a go hero—add a category description
Showing full articles on a category overview page
Have a go hero—experiment with Blog Layout settings
The second type of overview page: Lists
Creating Section Lists
Time for action—change a Blog Layout to a List Layout
What just happened?
Have a go hero—undo!
Customizing lists: Exploring Section List Layout parameters
Parameters (Basic)
Parameters (Advanced)
Parameters (Component)
Parameters (System)
Using Category Lists
Parameters (Basic)
Parameters (Advanced)
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of home pages and overview pages
Summary
8. Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want: Managing Menus
How many menus can you have?
Creating user-friendly navigation: Cleaning up the Main Menu
Option 1: Change the order of menu items
Time for action—change menu item order
What just happened?
Option 2: Add a separate new menu
Time for action—step 1: Create a new, empty menu
What just happened?
Time for action—step 2: Move hyperlinks to the new menu
What just happened?
Time for action—step 3: Tell Joomla! where to display the menu
What just happened?
Tweaking the menu styling
Time for action—tweak the menu position and orientation
What just happened?
Option 3: Creating submenu items
Time for action—create a secondary menu item
What just happened?
Creating split submenus
Have a go hero—arrange menus any way you like
Exploring menu module settings
Details
Menu Assignment
Module Parameters
Advanced Parameters
Other Parameters
Have a go hero—try out available menu settings
Creating menu links
Have a go hero—try out some Menu Item Types
Why do you have to create menu links manually, anyway?
Creating plain text links
Time for action—creating text links
What just happened?
Pop quiz - test your menu knowledge
Summary
9. Opening Up the Site: Enabling Users to Contribute and Interact
Creating user accounts for team members
What different types of user accounts can you create?
1. Registered users
2. Frontend content contributors
3. Backend content contributors and administrators
Time for action—giving a user frontend authoring permissions
What just happened?
Enabling team members to log in to the frontend
Time for action—create a Login Form
What just happened?
Time for action—logging in as a frontend content contributor
What just happened?
Have a go hero—create a frontend User Menu
Reviewing and publishing team content submissions
Time for action—reviewing submitted content
What just happened?
Have a go hero—explore different User Group permissions
Find out what editors and publishers can do
Find out what backend users can do
Allowing visitors to register
How do you enable users to create an account?
Displaying a link to a Login Form
Time for action—register yourself and log in
What just happened?
Hiding content for non-registered users
Time for action—hiding content for non-registered users
What just happened?
Have a go hero—change access level settings
Getting your visitors to 'register to read more'
Time for action—partially hiding content from non-registered users
What just happened?
Enabling users to rate articles or write comments
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of Joomla! user management
Summary
10. Getting the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla!
Extensions in all shapes and sizes
Where do you get them from?
Enhancing your site using core extensions
Time for action—adding a Newsflash to the home page
What just happened?
Have a go hero—change the Newsflash settings
Creating a custom HTML block
Time for action—add a short content block
What just happened?
What other extensions are part of the Joomla! core?
Enhancing your site using third-party extensions
Trying out an alternative News flash
Time for action—downloading and installing an extension
Time for action—putting the extension to work
What just happened?
Have a go hero—experiment with News Show settings
Showing images in a gallery
Time for action—create an image gallery
What just happened?
Do you want more from your photo gallery?
Using extensions to enhance your work space
Time for action—replace Joomla!'s default text editor
What just happened?
So much more to explore
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of Joomla! extensions
Summary
11. Creating an Attractive Design: Working with Templates
This is what templates do
This is why templates are so much fun
Where can you find templates?
Changing the default template
Time for action—activating a different template
What just happened?
Have a go hero—adjust the template settings
Downloading and installing a new template
Time for action—step 1: Downloading and activating a new template
What just happened?
Time for action—step 2: Getting the Main Menu module to display
What just happened?
Have a go hero—fill those module positions!
Find out which positions are available
Assign content to empty positions
Customizing a template: Tweaking CSS styles
Understanding the very basics of CSS
Tweaking template CSS, part one: Changing site colors
Time for action—adjusting the template colors
What just happened?
Tweaking template CSS, part two: Adding a graphic logo file
Creating an image file
Time for action—replace the header text with an image
What just happened?
Have a go hero—tweak the layout to your taste
Diving deeper into Joomla! CSS tweaking
Time for action—editing CSS on the fly using Firebug
What just happened?
Expanding your CSS toolkit
Expanding your CSS knowledge
Editing the template HTML
Time for action—removing the fixed footer text
What just happened?
Backing up and restoring a customized template
Creating your own template
Template building resources
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of Joomla! templates
Summary
12. Attracting Search Engine Traffic: Tips and Techniques
Why do you need to accommodate for search engines?
Optimize your articles
1. The article title: Make it meaningful
2. The article structure: Use clear formatting
3. The article body text: Use relevant keywords
4. The images: Explain what they're about
Update articles regularly
Add meaningful metadata
Time for action—personalize the site metadata
What just happened?
Have a go hero—find metadata to fit your site
Entering metadata for individual articles
Time for action—add metadata information for an article
What just happened?
Have a go hero—explore the art and science of metadata
Don't forget to choose the perfect site name
Use search engine friendly URLS
Time for action—enable search engine friendly URLs
What just happened?
Have a go hero—make your URLs even prettier
Add extra links to your content
Time for action—turn article titles into hyperlinks
What just happened?
Creating an automatically generated list of hyperlinks
Time for action—add a list of links to popular articles
What just happened?
Have a go hero—add link lists
Using a site map
Time for action—adding a site map component
What just happened?
Have a go hero—tweak that site map
Make it easier to discover new content: Using RSS
Time for action—enable RSS feeds
What just happened?
Have a go hero—provide a newsletter service
Getting to know more about your site traffic
More SEO resources
Pop quiz - test your knowledge of Joomla! search engine optimization
Summary
A. Keeping the Site Secure
Tip 1: Upgrade regularly
Tip 2: Change the default Administrator Username
Tip 3: Choose a strong password
Tip 4: Protect files and directories
Choosing file permissions
Tip 5: Use extensions to secure your site
Tip 6: Have a backup ready
Creating a Backup with JoomlaPack
Restoring a backup
Tip 7: Stay informed!
B. Pop quiz - Answers
Chapter 2
Installation: Getting Joomla! Up and Running
Chapter 3
First Steps: Getting to Know Joomla!
Chapter 4
Web Building Basics: Creating a Site in an Hour
Chapter 5
Small Sites, Big Sites: Organizing your Content Effectively
Chapter 6
Creating Killer Content: Adding and Editing Articles
Chapter 7
Welcoming Your Visitors: Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages
Chapter 8
Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want: Managing Menus
Chapter 9
Opening Up the Site: Enabling Users to Contribute and Interact
Chapter 10
Getting the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla!
Chapter 11
Creating an Attractive Design: Working with Templates
Chapter 12
Attracting Search Engine Traffic: Tips and Techniques
Index
Joomla! 1.5
Eric Tiggeler
Joomla! 1.5
Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author nor Packt Publishing and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: February 2010
Production Reference: 2230210
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-847199-90-4
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (<vinayak.chittar@gmail.com>)
Credits
Author
Eric Tiggeler
Reviewers
Jose Argudo
Jennifer Marriott
Acquisition Editor
David Barnes
Development Editor
Rakesh Shejwal
Technical Editor
Hithesh Uchil
Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Editorial Team Leader
Akshara Aware
Project Team Leader
Lata Basantani
Project Coordinator
Poorvi Nair
Proofreader
Jeff Orloff
Graphics
Geetanjali Sawant
Production Coordinator
Melwyn D'sa
Cover Work
Melwyn D'sa
About the Author
Eric Tiggeler is an experienced writer of tutorials on Joomla! He writes how-tos for computer magazines and for the Dutch Joomla! community website. He has published a Dutch Joomla! manual, which got excellent reviews. Over the last ten years, Eric has developed numerous websites, big and small—many of them using Joomla!.
Eric is fascinated by the Web as a powerful and creative means of communication, and by revolutionary software such as Joomla!, enabling anybody to create beautiful and user-friendly websites without requiring any technical knowledge.
On a daily basis, Eric works as a consultant and copywriter at a communication consultancy company affiliated with the Free University of Amsterdam. Over the last few years, he has written more than ten Dutch books on writing and communication. His passion is making complex things easy to understand.
Eric Tiggeler is married and has two daughters. He lives and works in Hilversum, the Netherlands. On the Web, you'll find him on www.schrijfgids.nl (in Dutch) and www.joomm.net (in English).
Turning an idea into a book is by no means something you do all by yourself. I would like to thank the Packt team—David, Rakesh, Poorvi, and Hithesh—for their encouraging commitment to this project. Thanks also to both reviewers Jose Argudo and Jennifer Marriott for their helpful comments and detailed feedback.
I especially want to thank the three beautiful women in my life who managed to put up with my hours of invisibility during the writing of this book. Big truckloads of thanks go to my personal proofreader whose harsh, but honest You've lost me heres
helped me to keep this book clear, down to earth, and focused on what real people want to know.
About the Reviewers
Jose Argudo is a web developer from Valencia, Spain. After finishing his studies he started working for a web design company. Then, six years later, he decided to freelance.
Now that some years have passed as a freelancer, he thinks it's the best decision he has ever taken because that let him work with the tools he likes, such as Joomla!, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, jQuery, and other known open source technologies.
His desire to learn and share his knowledge has led him to be a regular reviewer of books from Packt, like Joomla! With Flash, Joomla! 1.5 SEO, Magento Theme Design, and Symfony 1.3 web application development.
Recently, he has even published his own book, CodeIgniter 1.7, which you can also find at Packt's site. If you work with PHP, take a look at it!
If you want to know more about him, you can check his site www.joseargudo.com.
To my girlfriend and to my brother, I wish them the best.
Jennifer Marriott is a Canadian musician and a web designer/developer now located in Oklahoma, USA. She has studied Broadcasting and Communications, has been involved in Information Technology since the mid-1990s, and has been a long-time contributor and community member of the Joomla! Project.
Jennifer, along with her business partner Wendy Robinson, runs Marpo Multimedia—a boutique multimedia/web development company.
Jennifer is currently busy with her own book and two new music projects to be released in 2010.
I would really like to thank the Joomla! Project and the entire Joomla! Community for such a great software!
Preface
Joomla! is one of the most popular open-source Content Management Systems, actively developed and supported by a world-wide user community. It's a free, fun, and feature-rich tool for anyone who wants to create dynamic, interactive websites. Even beginners can deploy Joomla! to build professional websites, although it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and build the site that completely meets your needs. This book will help you to start building websites with Joomla! quickly and get the most out of its advanced features.
What this book covers
In Chapter 1: Introduction: A New and Easy Way to Build Websites, you'll learn why you want to use Joomla! to create an advanced, cool-looking site that's easy to expand, customize, and maintain.
In Chapter 2: Installation: Getting Joomla! Up and Running, you'll learn how to install Joomla! on your own computer or on a web server, and how to create a sample site.
In Chapter 3: First Steps: Getting to Know Joomla!, you'll get familiar with the basic concepts of Joomla!, the Joomla! interface, and the principles of a website constructed out of 'building blocks'.
In Chapter 4: Web Building Basics: Creating a Site in an Hour, you'll face a real-life challenge of using Joomla! to build a basic but expandable website fast. You'll customize Joomla!'s default sample site to fit your needs, adding content, menu links, and change the site's look and feel.
In Chapter 5: Small Sites, Big Sites: Organizing your Content Effectively, you'll make it easy to add and find information on your site by designing a clear, expandable, and manageable structure for your content.
In Chapter 6: Creating Killer Content: Adding and Editing Articles, you'll learn to create content pages that are attractive and easy to read, and you'll learn about different ways to tweak the page layout.
In Chapter 7: Welcoming Your Visitors: Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages, you'll create a home page and overview pages to entice visitors to actually read all your valuable content.
In Chapter 8: Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want: Managing Menus, you'll learn how you can help the visitor to find what they want easily by designing clear and easy navigation through menus.
In Chapter 9: Opening Up the Site: Enabling Users to Contribute and Interact, you'll learn how to enable users to log in and allow them to create content and manage the website.
In Chapter 10: Getting the Most out of Your Site: Extending Joomla!, you'll learn how to extend Joomla!'s capabilities using all sorts of extensions—using an image gallery to attractively display pictures, automatically showing article teasers on the home page, or enhancing your workspace by installing an easier content editor.
In Chapter 11: Creating an Attractive Design: Working with Templates, you'll see how templates will give your site a fresh look and feel, and make it easy to create an individual look, different from a typical
Joomla! site. You'll also learn to install and customize templates.
In Chapter 12: Attracting Search Engine Traffic: Tips and Techniques, you'll see how to increase your site's visibility for search engines by applying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, such as creating friendly URLs.
In Appendix A: Keeping the Site Secure, learn some simple, common sense steps you can take to keep your site safe from hackers or data loss.
What you need for this book
To follow the tutorials and exercises in this book, you'll need a computer with Internet access. It's recommended to have a web hosting account so that you can install Joomla! online.
Who this book is for
The Joomla! Beginner's Guide is aimed at anyone who wants to build and maintain a great website and get the most out of Joomla!. It helps you build on the skills and knowledge you may already have of creating websites—but if you're new to this subject, you won't have any difficulty understanding the instructions. Of course, we'll touch upon basic terms and concepts (such as HTML and CSS), but if you're not familiar with these, you'll also find references to some Web resources.
Conventions
In this book, you will find several headings appearing frequently.
To give clear instructions of how to complete a procedure or task, we use:
Time for action—heading
Action 1
Action 2
Action 3
Instructions often need some extra explanation so that they make sense, so they are followed with:
What just happened?
This heading explains the working of tasks or instructions that you have just completed.
You will also find some other learning aids in the book, including:
Pop quiz - heading
These are short multiple choice questions intended to help you test your own understanding.
Have a go hero—heading
These set practical challenges and give you ideas for experimenting with what you have learned.
You will also find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Change the width and height values to reflect the size of the new image. To shift the image a little