Foundations of Joomla!

Foundations of Joomla is a step by step practical guide that explains building web sites and blogs using Joomla - a very popular and powerful content management system (CMS). The book takes you through the steps of installing Joomla, configuring your database, creating a blog and a website, followed by instructions on creating new posts and adding content to your site. Even if you are an absolute beginner and don't have any programming experience, you can build responsive, powerful, and fully featured websites quickly. Following clear and easy to understand instructions, you'll master Joomla 3 by building a sample site throughout the book. What you’ll learn Plan, design, create, secure, and administer your site Add menus, modules, articles, images, and other content to your site Apply different templates to make your site attractive and appealing Enable visitors to create accounts and add their own content Add extensions to your site to extend its capabilities, like selling products from your site, etc. Make your site multilingual and search engine friendly Who this book is for Foundations of Joomla addresses beginners who don’t have deep experience in programming languages. The book teaches how to build professional fully featured websites using Joomla 3. It explains all the topics that are required in designing, creating, and managing a dynamic and interactive web site through clear and step by step instructions. The book will be very beneficial for developers and instructors too who want to learn or teach building websites. Table of Contents 1: Introduction to Joomla 2: Installing Joomla 3: Your First Steps in Joomla 4: Managing Images and Banner 5: Creating Users and Contacts 6: Creating Interaction 7: Dealing with Menus 8: Adding Modules 9: Adding Extensions 10: Making It Global Contents at a Glance 3 Contents 491 About the Author 498 About the Technical Reviewer 499 Acknowledgments 500 Introduction 4 Chapter 1: Introduction to Joomla 6 What Is a CMS? 6 Why Are CMSs So Popular? 7 What Is Joomla? 8 Structure of a Joomla Web Site 8 Joomla Characteristics 9 Advantages of Joomla 11 Summary 12 Chapter 2: Installing XAMPP and Joomla 13 Web Request Life Cycle 13 Prerequisites to Installing Joomla on the Local Server 14 XAMPP 15 Installing XAMPP 15 Using XAMPP Control Panel 19 Administering XAMPP 22 Using phpMyAdmin 25 Creating a Database 29 Requiring User Authentication 31 Installing Joomla Locally 37 Step 1 39 Step 2 39 Step 3 41 Deleting the Installation Folder 44 Installing Joomla on a Remote Server 48 Using One Click Installers 48 Using Administer Interface 54 Summary 55 Chapter 3: Your First Steps in Joomla 56 Key Terms 56 Elements of the Administrator Interface 58 Control Panel 59 Using the Category, Article, and Menu Managers 61 Let’s Make This 63 Creating a Category with the Category Manager 65 Creating a Camera Subcategory 78 Creating an Article with Article Manager and Publishing It in a Category 80 Creating a Menu Item to Access the Category 83 Viewing the Contents 88 Working with the Home Page 92 Applying a Different Template 94 Other Control Panel Managers 99 Module Manager 99 Language Manager 100 User Manager 101 Global Configuration 102 Summary 103 Chapter 4: Managing Images and Banners 104 Working with Media Manager 104 Making a Client Banner, Step by Step 105 Creating a Folder 106 Uploading a File 107 Displaying a Banner Ad 109 Displaying a Client’s Banners 109 Uploading the Client’s Banner Image File 110 Creating a Category for the Banner Using the Banner Category Manager 111 Creating a Banner Category 113 Category Manager Toolbar 119 Creating a Banner Client Using the Banner Client Manager 120 Creating a Banner Client 121 Creating a Banner Using the Banner Manager 124 Creating a Banner 124 Using Banners 125 Defining Publishing and Meta Info for the Banner 128 Applying Meta Tags and Keywords to Banner 130 Understanding the Banner Manager Toolbar 132 Configuring Client Options for a Banner 134 Configuring History Options for a Banner 135 Configuring Permissions Options 135 Using the Banners Module to Display the Banner on the Web Site 137 Understanding Module Manager Columns 137 Module Section 139 Menu Assignment Section 140 Module Permissions Section 141 Advanced Section 142 Displaying the Finished Product 144 Installing a Banner Component 145 Summary 149 Chapter 5: Creating Users and Contacts 150 What Is a Contact? 150 Working with the User Manager 151 Different Types of User Groups 151 Creating Users 152 Configuring Basic Settings of a New User 155 Understanding User Manager Columns 157 Let’s Login 158 Creating a Contacts Category 160 Contacts Category Manager Toolbar 161 Defining Publishing Info of a Contacts Category 163 Setting Permissions for a Contacts Category 164 Defining an Image for the Contacts Category 164 Introduction to Contacts Category Manager Columns 166 Creating Contacts 167 Introduction to the Contact Manager Toolbar 167 Creating the First Contact 168 Entering Additional Info for the Contact 171 Defining Publishing and Meta Info for the Contact 171 Defining What to Display or Hide 172 Configuring the Contact Form 175 Creating a Second Contact 176 Introduction to Contact Manager Columns 177 Creating Menu Items to Link to Contacts 179 Selecting a Menu Item Type 179 Entering Info for the New Contact 181 Summary 188 Chapter 6: Creating Interaction 189 Newsfeeds 189 Creating Categories for Newsfeeds 189 Creating Newsfeeds 193 Adding a Search Facility 203 Using the Basic Keyword Search 203 Using Smart Search 212 Enabling the Content - Smart Search Plug-in 213 Indexing the Site 214 Unpublishing the Search Module 218 Enabling Smart Search Plug-ins 219 Applying Search Filters (Optional) 220 Configuring the Smart Search Component 222 Creating a Menu Item 226 Summary 231 Chapter 7: Dealing with Menus 232 Creating a Menu 233 Creating Menu Items 235 Articles 239 Archived Articles 240 Moving Menu Items 244 Doing the Groundwork for Other Menu Item Types 248 Single Article 253 Create Article 256 Category Blog 262 Category List 267 Featured Articles 271 List All Categories 276 Configuration Manager 282 Contacts 282 Newsfeeds 283 List All News Feed Categories 285 List News Feeds in a Category 290 Single Feed Layout 291 Search 292 Smart Search 293 System Links 293 External URL 294 Menu Item Alias 295 Text Separator 297 Tags 298 Users Manager 298 Login Form 299 Registration Form 303 Username Reminder Request 304 Password Reset 305 Registration Form 306 Edit User Profiles 307 Web Links 309 List All Web Link Categories 311 List Web Links in a Category 313 Submit a Web Link 315 Wrapper 317 Summary 319 Chapter 8: Modules 320 Module Manager 320 Module Section 326 Menu Assignment Section 329 Archive 330 Banners 332 Breadcrumbs 332 Feed Display 335 Footer 338 Latest News 340 Login Form 341 Main Menu 344 Most Read Content 346 Articles - Newsflash 349 Random Image 352 Search 355 Statistics 355 Syndication 358 Who’s Online 360 Wrapper 362 Summary 364 Chapter 9: Adding Extensions 365 Extension Manager 365 Installing Extensions 367 Upload Package File 367 Install from Directory 367 Install from URL 368 Installing New Templates 368 Adding E- commerce 372 Installing an RSS Feed Reader 399 Adding a Chat Feature to a Joomla Web Site 405 Uninstalling Extensions 420 Summary 422 Chapter 10: Making it Global 423 Global Configuration Settings 423 Site Tab ( Global Configuration) 424 Site Settings (Site Tab) 426 Metadata Settings (Site Tab) 436 SEO Settings (Site Tab) 438 Cookie Settings 440 System Tab (Global Configuration) 440 System Settings (System Tab) 442 Debug Settings (System Tab) 443 Cache Settings (System Tab) 445 Session Settings (System Tab) 446 Server Tab (Global Configuration) 446 Server Settings (Server Tab) 448 Location Settings (Server Tab) 450 FTP Settings (Server Tab) 450 Proxy Settings (Server Tab) 450 Database Settings (Server Tab) 451 Mail Settings (Server Tab) 451 Users Configuration 453 Configuring Media Manager 459 Changing the Language of the Web Site Front End 460 Providing a Multilingual Facility to Visitors 466 Summary 479 Index 480 __Foundations of Joomla__ is a step by step practical guide that explains building web sites and blogs using Joomla - a very popular and powerful content management system (CMS). The book takes you through the steps of installing Joomla, configuring your database, creating a blog and a website, followed by instructions on creating new posts and adding content to your site. Even if you are an absolute beginner and don't have any programming experience, you can build responsive, powerful, and fully featured websites quickly. Following clear and easy to understand instructions, you'll master Joomla 3 by building a sample site throughout the book. ## What you’ll learn ## Who this book is for __Foundations of Joomla__ addresses beginners who don’t have deep experience in programming languages. The book teaches how to build professional fully featured websites using Joomla 3. It explains all the topics that are required in designing, creating, and managing a dynamic and interactive web site through clear and step by step instructions. The book will be very beneficial for developers and instructors too who want to learn or teach building websites. ## Table of Contents 2: Installing Joomla 4: Managing Images and Banner 6: Creating Interaction 8: Adding Modules 10: Making It Global This is a step by step practical guide that explains building web sites and blogs using Joomla - a very popular and powerful content management system (CMS). The book takes you through the steps of installing Joomla, configuring your database, creating a blog and a website, followed by instructions on creating new posts and adding content to your site. You will learn how to plan, design, create, secure, and administer your site; add menus, modules, articles, images, and other content to your site; apply different templates to make your site attractive and appealing; enable visitors to create accounts and add their own content; add extensions to your site to extend its capabilities, like selling products from your site, etc.; make your site multilingual and search engine friendly. -- Edited summary from book Front Matter....Pages i-xxii Introduction to Joomla....Pages 1-7 Installing XAMPP and Joomla....Pages 9-51 Your First Steps in Joomla....Pages 53-100 Managing Images and Banners....Pages 101-146 Creating Users and Contacts....Pages 147-185 Creating Interaction....Pages 187-229 Dealing with Menus....Pages 231-318 Modules....Pages 319-363 Adding Extensions....Pages 365-422 Making it Global....Pages 423-479 Back Matter....Pages 481-487