ASTITrainings

Introduction

If you’ve opened this document, I imagine you’ve already appreciate how easy Joomla is, for you to run your web site or blog. Like me, you may be astonished that the excellent Joomla developers have created such a solid, professional content management system and then made it free for the entire world to use. Joomla has grown from being used on a few hundred rudimentary web sites to literally having millions of advanced site deployments.

Joomla has evolved to become such a comprehensive system that you can literally do anything on a Joomla site that is possible on an expensive, custom web site. And most of the time, there is a free extension available that augments the Joomla core to do exactly what you want—with your only investment being the time it takes to install and configure. Even if you don’t have a development background, the information presented here will provide you to understand how the Joomla system operates from a foundation level all the way up to using some of its cooler bells and whistles.

If you’ve never written a line of code, as long as you can use a text editor as simple as Notepad, you can take advantage of most of the technology presented in this document.

What is Joomla!?

Joomla is a great Content Management System with a lot of flexibility and with an easy-to-use user interface that a lot of people get intimidated about when they realize how many options and configurations are available.This manual is meant to serve as a guide to Joomla’s basic features and help you install and start your first Joomla website. We have all been beginner users at some point, so I hope this guide helps answer some of the questions you might have.

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What is a CMS (Content Management System)?A Content Management System is a series of programming pages connected to a

database that allows one to retrieve information from that database in the form of content. Sounds complicated? You’ve used one more often that you think. Have you ever updated your Facebook page or created a blog? Have you ever bought a book from Amazon.com or bid on something on eBay? Have you ever read The New York Times Online or checked something out on Wikipedia? All of these sites work with a type of Content Management System. The ones we will be focusing on are ones that allow you to manage your own website from a simple interface, to creating your own pages and menus without the need for knowing how to program yourself.

About JoomlaJoomla is a platform based on PHP and MySQL which was created in 2005 by a team of open source developers. It currently has 200,000 community users and contributors. Joomla is free to anyone who wants to download it and use it to create a website. It is also open to anyone who wants to create extensions and templates. The most current version of Joomla can be downloaded from http://www.joomla.org/download.html

Why Joomla?There are three main free CMSs available today, and endless other less popular ones. The most popular Content Management Systems available are: Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress. The differences among them are quite significant, although they are basically meant to do the same thing – to help you create and manage your website. There have been many heated arguments between the Joomla and the Drupal users over which one is best. As someone who has used them both, my take is that they each have their good and bad points.

JoomlaPros:

Joomla is usually easier to get up and running and tends to have a quicker learning curve.

Joomla tends to have better looking templates and a friendlier community, even towards beginner users.

Cons:

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Joomla’s code can be messy at times and loading time tends to be longer because of that.

Its architecture limits how many levels of sub categories can be created.

DrupalPros:

Drupal has a more flexible infrastructure, allowing you to create multiple sub-categories and with more advanced user features.

Fast loading time and reasonably clean code.Cons:

Longer learning curve and usually a longer install to launch time. Although the community is supportive, there is less tolerance to new users and

people asking very basic questions.

Basically, they are both excellent CMSs and which one you choose should depend on your particular needs and willingness to work through each CMS’s individual problems.

Also pay attention to what modules and themes each CMS has as you may require one that is not on both platforms. It is best to weigh up the pros and cons of each CMS before you go ahead and create your website.

Wordpress is different in many ways. Wordpress truly is built to serve primarily as a blogging platform. It also has a large community and flexibility to evolve beyond a simple blog, but it works best as a delivery medium for always changing material exactly the way blogs are supposed to be. That being said, you can create nice websites using Wordpress that are not blogs.

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Installation

For WindowsStep 1 – The XAMPP Setup

In order to set up Joomla, you first need to have a server installed on which Joomla can run. The easiest way to set up a server on your own computer is to use XAMPP. If you are installing Joomla on a web host, please check out the “Official Joomla 3.X Installation Guide” at http://help.joomla.org. Do not install the sample content and skip ahead to the “Sections, Categories, and Articles” chapter after your installation is complete.

Note: The following instructions are based on a Windows install. Other operating systems will be similar but slightly different. Please refer to the XAMPP installation manual for your operating system.

1. Download the XAMPP installer for your version of Windows from the XAMPP website: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html.2. After downloading XAMPP, run the setup and follow the given instructions. Installing Apache and MySQL as services is recommended:

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3. Once you have completed the installation, make sure that the installation was successful by visiting http://localhost/. If you have been successful, you should see the following screen:

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4. Congratulations, XAMPP is now correctly installed; now let us go get Joomla setup!

Step 2 – Download & Unzip Joomla!Now that you are done setting up the server, it is time to download and unzip Joomla.1. First, we need to make a folder for Joomla. Open the folder that you installed XAMPP into – usually C:\XAMPP or C:\Program Files\XAMPP on Windows.2. Open up the folder “htdocs:”

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3. Create a new folder in “htdocs” titled “joomla3X.”4. Now we need to download the latest copy of Joomla 3.X from the net. Go to http:// www.joomla.org and find the latest joomla 3.X click to open the download page:

5. Then download the file with the “.zip” ending.6. After completing the download, use unzipping program to unzip the files into the “joomla3.X” directory that we created:

Great! Now we are ready to setup Joomla.

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Step 3 – Uploading Joomla Files

Joomla Installation

1. Open your xampp and click the Apache and MySQL

2. Open your browser and type http://localhost/joomla3.X or http://localhost/name of the folder where you extracted the joomla 3.X.3. Your Browser will show the exact fields in the picture below.

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4. Fill out and follow the instructions.

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5. After the installation process don’t forget to remove the installations folder.

6. After you remove the installation folder, now you view the frontend of you site or you can login in to the backend of your site as the site administrator or super user.

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This is your website look like when you finish the installation.

This is the administrator looks like when you finish the installations.

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Installation

For LinuxStep 1 – Install the Lamp Sever

Joomla developed using php script, database MySQL and running on apache web server. So, before install joomla 3.0 in ubuntu server you need to install LAMP Server (Linux Apache MySQL PHP). Login to ubuntu server machine via ssh then install it.

sudo apt-get install lamp-serveror you can install lamp server using command tasksel then select LAMP Serversudo apt-get install taskselsudo tasksel

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Install Apache MySQL and PHPsudo apt-get apache2 mysql mysql-server php5'It will prompt you to set the root password for mysql - take note of it, you will need it when you create database.Install the additional PHP extensionssudo apt-get install php5-curl php5-gd php5-intl php5-xmlrpcRestart apache for the installation to completesudo service apache2 restart

Step 2 – Downloading Joomla Download joomla 3.X zip file from http://www.joomla.org/download.html, then create directory joomla in the default apache folder/var/wwwsudo mkdir /var/www/joomlaExtract the zip file at /var/www/joomlaChange access /var/www/joomla to apache user and goup (www-data) and set permission/var/www/joomla 3.Xcd /var/wwwsudo chown -R www-data.www-data /var/www/joomla/sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www/joomla/

Step 3 – Create Database mysql -u root -pCreate database for joomla with command below, in case we’ll create database with name “dbjoomla”CREATE DATABASE dbjoomla;Create a new user of username joomlauser, with following command below:CREATE USER joomlauser;Create password “joomlapwd” for user “joomlauser”;SET PASSWORD FOR joomlauser = PASSWORD("joomlapwd");Grant user joomlauser all permissions on the database.GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON dbjoomla.* TO joomlauser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'joomlapwd';FLUSH PRIVILEGES;Log out from mysql server.exitNow joomla ready to install on ubuntu server

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Step 4 – Setting Up Using Webrowser

Open your browser and type http://localhost/joomla3.X or http://localhost/name of the folder where you extracted the joomla 3.X.Your Browser will show the exact fields in the picture below.

Fill out and follow the instructions.

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After the installation process don’t forget to remove the installations folder.

After you remove the installation folder, now you view the frontend of you site or you can login in to the backend of your site as the site administrator or super user.

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This is your website look like when you finish the installation.

This is the administrator looks like when you finish the installations.

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In making a website you need to plan what your website look like is.When you have planned already then you may start building your website.

First you need to Create Category or Categories.In creating category

1. Click the content.2. Under the content click the category manager.3. Click “New” to create the category.

4. Fill out the fields with an *. These fields cannot be empty

5. Click Save & Close or click the Save & New to create another category.

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6. If you click Save & New, just follow steps 4 and 5 to create another category.

To Create Article1. Click the content.2. Under the content click the article manager.3. Then click new to create the article.

4. Fill out the field with an * it cannot be empty and choose the appropriate category for that article.

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5. Click save & close or click the save & new to create another article.

To install extensions such as components, plugins & module1. Click extensions.2. Under the extensions click the extensions manager.

3. Browse the extension you want to upload, the extension must be in ".zip" extension.

4. Then click the upload & install.

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To create a custom HTML1. Click the extensions.2. Under the extensions click the module manager.

3. Click the new button.

4. Look for the custom HTML and click.5. After choosing the custom HTML put the title of that particular module.6. Then write the html codes. 7. Click save & close or click save & new to create another html blocks.

To set up the captcha-recaptcha1. Go to plugin manager

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2. Find the captcha-recaptcha

3. In new tab, go to www.google.com/recaptcha4. Click the red button

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5. Then Sign-up

6. Type the name of the website you built and copy the private and public key.

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7. Back to plug-in manager go to the basic option

8. Paste the private and public key then save & close.

Drop down menu1. Go to module manager.2. Click the main menu and go to options.

3. Once you on the options click the advanced option.4. Type (nav-pills) in the menu class suffix5. Then save & close.

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