Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide

Table of Contents

• Preface

• Chapter 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

• Chapter 2: Installation: Getting Joomla Up and Running
• What do you need to start?
• Hosting space
• FTP software
• A great browser (think Firefox)
• Installing Joomla in four steps
• Time for action – downloading the Joomla files
• Time for action – placing the files on the web server
• Time for action – creating a database
• Time for action – running the Joomla installation wizard
• Got stuck? Get help!
• Summary

• Chapter 3: First Step: 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 the frontend?
• The frontend: the website as the user sees it
• Time for action – tour the example site
• Exploring the example content
• Taking control: administering your site in the backend
• Time for action – log in to the backend
• Taking a closer look at the Control Panel
• Top menu
• Shortcut buttons
• Preview and Info Bar
• Information panels
• Understanding backend tools and controls
• Getting your feet wet: start administering your site
• Three types of backend tasks
• Content management example: let's create some content!
• Time for action – publish your first article
• Extension management example: adding a module

• Time for action – add a module to the site
• Site management example: configuring basic site settings

• Time for action – set Joomla preferences
• Summary

• Chapter 4: Web Building Basics: Creating a Site in an Hour
• What you will be making
• Meet your client
• Cleaning up: removing the sample data
• Step 1: remove sample content
• Time for action – deleting articles and categories
• Step 2: delete menus and other modules
• Time for action – deleting menus
• Building your new site in three steps
• Step 1: customize the layout
• Time for action – preparing a new logo image
• Replacing the header image
• Time for action – replace the header image
• Time for action – tweak the design details
• CSS stylesheets? Come again?

• Have a go hero – explore layout settings
• Step 2: add content
• Create a foundation first: make categories

• Time for action – create a News category
• Add articles to the category

• Time for action – create an article
• Making content visible on the site: create a menu link

• Time for action – add a menu link
• Now that's the all-important power of menus

• Create menu links to the new content
• Add individual content pages: uncategorized articles

• Time for action – add uncategorized articles
• Put some content on the home page—at last!
• Add items to the home page

• Time for action – adding items to the home page
• Step 3: add extras through extensions
• Components and Extensions, what's the difference?
• Add a contact form

• Time for action – create a contact
• Time for action – create a Contact Form menu link
• Add a special message block

• Time for action – create a message block
• Wrapping up: change site settings
• Time for action – change site configuration
• Summary

• Chapter 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
• Transferring your site map to Joomla
• How do you turn a site map into a website?
• Creating categories and subcategories
• Time for action – create a category and subcategories
• In what case do you need more subcategory levels?
• Adding content to new categories
• Displaying main categories and subcategories on your site
• Time for action – create a link to point to a main category
• Refining your site structure
• Time for action – move content from one category to another
• Renaming categories
• Time for action – rename a category
• Changing category settings
• Building a site without using categories
• How do you go about building a small site?
• Summary

• Chapter 6: Creating Killer Content: Adding and Editing Articles
• Articles, content pages: what's the difference?
• Creating and editing articles: Beyond the basics
• Making your words look good: formatting article text
• Time for action – add styling to article text
• Adding images to articles
• Time for action – upload images
• Time for action – inserting and aligning images
• Extending the possibilities of the Media Manager
• Time for action – enabling the Flash image uploader
• 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
• Creating multi-page articles
• Time for action – using page breaks to split up an article
• Tweaking the details: changing article settings
• Article Permissions
• Setting general preferences for all articles
• Articles tab
• Category tab
• Categories, Blog/Featured Layouts, List Layouts, and Shared Options tabs
• Integration tab
• Text Filters tab
• Permissions tab
• Archiving articles
• Time for action – creating a news archive
• Summary

• Chapter 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 the home page is arranged
• Time for action – rearrange the layout of articles on the home page
• Adding items to the home page
• Controlling the order of home page items manually
• Setting criteria to automatically order home page items
• Time for action – show the most recent items first
• The Featured Articles menu item type – an overview of all options
• Creating more than one page containing Featured Articles
• Another type of home page: using a single article

• Time for action – creating a different home page
• Creating category overview pages
• Two main choices: Blog layout and List layout

• The first type of overview page: Creating Category Blog layouts
• Time for action – create a facebook using the Blog layout
• Showing full articles on a category overview page
• Blog Layout Options, Article Options, Integration Options, Link Type Options, Page Display Options, and Metadata Options
• Category Options

• The second type of overview page: Lists
• Time for action – add a link to a Category List layout
• Customizing lists: exploring Category List options
• Required Settings
• Category Options
• List Layouts
• Article Options, Integration Options, Link Type Options, Page Display Options, and Metadata Options

• How are multi-level categories displayed in Lists?
• Summary

• Chapter 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 – changing menu item order
• Option 2: Create submenu items
• Time for action – creating a secondary menu item
• Option 3: Add a separate new menu
• Time for action – creating a new, empty menu
• Time for action – moving hyperlinks to the new menu
• Time for action – telling Joomla where to display the menu
• Creating split submenus
• Exploring menu module settings
• Two ways to switch to the menu module screen
• Details
• Menu Assignment
• Basic Options
• Advanced Options
• What types of menu links are available?
• Creating plain text links
• Time for action – creating text links
• Summary

• Chapter 9: Opening up the Site: Enabling Users to Log in and Contribute
• What are the default user groups and their permissions?
• Public—the guest group
• Registered users—the user group that can log in
• Author, Editor, and Publisher—the frontend content contributors
• Manager, Administrator, and Super User—the backend content contributors and administrators
• Shop Suppliers and Customers—two example user groups
• Enabling users to log in and contribute content
• Time for action – adding a user with frontend authoring permissions
• Enabling content contributors to log in to the frontend
• Time for action – put a Login Form on the home page
• Time for action – logging in as a frontend content contributor
• Reviewing and publishing team content submissions
• Time for action – reviewing and publishing submitted content
• Find out what editors and publishers can do
• Find out what backend users can do

• Enabling self-registration—allowing visitors to register
• How do you enable users to create their own account?
• Displaying a Login menu link

• Time for action – register yourself and log in
• Hiding content for non-registered users

• Time for action – hiding content for non-registered users
• Getting your visitors to 'register to read more'

• Time for action – partially hiding content from non-registered users
• Creating custom-made user groups
• What are the permissions you can assign to user groups?
• What Viewing Access Levels are available?
• Creating a custom user group to manage contacts

• Time for action – create a user group
• Time for action – tell Joomla what the group can see
• Time for action – tell Joomla what the group can do
• Time for action – add users to the new group
• Summary

• Chapter 10: Getting the Most out of your Site: Extending Joomla
• Extensions in all shapes and sizes
• The big ones—Components
• The medium ones—Modules
• The tiny ones—Plugins
• Where do you get extensions from?
• Enhancing your site using core extensions
• Highlighting articles using the Newsflash module
• Time for action – adding a Newsflash to the home page
• Creating a list of contacts using the Contacts component
• Time for action – add a series of contacts
• What extensions are part of the Joomla core?
• Enhancing your site using third-party extensions
• Trying out an alternative Newsflash module
• Time for action – downloading and installing an extension
• Time for action – putting the extension to work
• Showing images in a lightbox gallery
• Time for action – create an image gallery
• Do you want more from your photo gallery?
• Using extensions to enhance your work space

• Time for action – replace Joomla's default text editor
• So much more to explore
• Updating extensions

• Summary

• Chapter 11: Creating an Attractive Design: Working with Templates
• This is what templates do
• And this is why templates are so much fun
• Where can you get a new template for your site?
• Changing the settings of the current template
• What are Template Styles?
• Customizing the current template using built-in options
• Time for action – changing the site color and layout options
• Changing to a different template
• Previewing available templates
• Setting a different template as the default
• Time for action – activating a different template
• Time for action – changing the logo and header image
• Applying Template Styles to individual pages
• Time for action – creating a Template Style for one specific page
• Downloading and installing a new template
• Time for action – downloading and activating a new template
• Time for action – place modules in new template positions
• Time for action – replace the logo file
• Time for action – adding a banner module
• Customizing a template: tweaking CSS styles
• Understanding the very basics of CSS
• Tweaking the banner image CSS
• Diving deeper into Joomla CSS: using Firebug
• Time for action – editing CSS on the fly using Firebug
• Expanding your CSS toolkit
• Expanding your CSS knowledge
• Editing the template HTML

• Time for action – removing the fixed footer text
• Backing up and restoring a customized template
• Creating your own template
• Template building resources

• Summary

• Chapter 12: Attracting Search Engine Traffic: Tips and Techniques
• Why do you need to accommodate for search engines?
• Optimizing articles for findability
• The article title: Make it meaningful
• The article structure: Use clear formatting
• Adding H3 through H6 headings
• Adding an second H1 page heading
• Time for action – adding a page heading to an article
• Page Heading and Page Title—what's the difference?
• The article body text: Use relevant keywords
• Update articles regularly
• The images: Explain what they're about

• Configuring HTML page titles
• Time for action – setting the HTML page title
• Adding the Site Name to the page title

• Adding meaningful metadata
• Time for action – personalize the site metadata
• Choosing what metadata to set

• Use search engine friendly URLS
• Adding extra links to site content
• Creating an automatically generated list of hyperlinks

• Time for action – add a list of links to popular articles
• Redirecting visitors to pages that have been moved
• Time for action – creating page redirects
• Redirecting multiple old URLs in one go

• Getting to know more about your site traffic
• More SEO resources
• Summary

• Appendix A: Keeping the Site Secure
• Update regularly
• Choose a safe Administrator Username
• Choose a strong password
• Protect files and directories
• Setting File Permissions
• Using extensions to secure your site
• Have a backup ready
• Creating a Backup with Akeeba Backup
• Restoring a backup
• Stay informed!

• Appendix B: Pop quiz Answers

• Index