joomla training document

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Making Space ± Website Page1 of 55 www.good4health.co.uk

Making SpaceTraining Course

Website Managementwith

Joomla!



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Int odu tion

Websites are repositories f or Content Text, Images, Videos, Animations, Links

to other sites.

They consist of Content managed into Pages or Articles, that may then be placed

into Categories of Pages.

Navigation of a Website, is normally perf ormed using a Mouse or Pointer. You

normally click on a Menu to f ind the Categories or Pages or you have Images

that are also Links to these same Articles or Pages.

Another method of Navigation we have incorporated into the Making Space Templates f or the Sites, is called Breadcrumbs we will look at that a litt le

further on.

Websites are authored in HyperText Mark up Languages (HTML) codes to

represent various things, such as the f ormatting of the text. An example is the

code needed to make text Bold in HTML, this is <B> placed bef ore the section to

be made bold, along with </B> af ter the section (cancelling the Bold command)

There are many, many commands in HTML and this makes the whole process of

managing and creating websites rather technical and diff icult to learn.

Good4BUSINESS has created a series of short cuts to assist in Managing your

websites. Essentially, we have created Templates that dict ate text types and styles (colours, sizes et c.) as well as the overall look and f eel of the pages. We will

never expect you to alter the template, as that would involve coding and diff icult

processes. We can, at a later date, adjust templates f or you, should that be

necessary.

In terms of managing the content, to allow it to be stored properly and assigned

the correct styles within the templates, we use a Content Management System

(CMS). The particular one we have chosen is called Joomla!

While Joomla! is a very powerful system, capable of almost anything in terms of

Internet design, we are only advocating you use a small part of it, to enable the fast creation and management of the content.

We are also always here to t ry to assist at any time. We can be cont acted by eMail

and phone f or assist ance as well as the fact we will be backing the sites up

automatically, so we can roll back to the previous version, should you

inadvertent ly muck things up!



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Managing Cont nt A content management system is made f or managing content - who would have

thought?! So the next question is: What is content?

In media production and publishing, content is inf ormation and experiences that

may provide value f or an end-user/audience in specif ic contexts (Wikipedia [1]).

A content management system is useful f or managing inf ormation that provides

value f or your audience.

Typ s of cont nt In core Joomla! you have articles, categories, web links, banners, cont acts and

f eeds. I am not sure whether creating value with banners is possible but banners are

also a kind of content.

Modules can be used f or content creation as well.

Of ten you may want to enrich your content with f iles like photos and other

media types. For this Joomla! has its Media manager. This is what Joomla! core

provides as your toolbox to manage all these bits and pieces to create value to

your audience. I am going to cover these tools in the next chapters.

Ho to create an 'About Us' PageTo give you a f irst real challenge, let's create a f irst page on your new website. It

will be an about us page on which you can write about your company, your

project, or yourself . Most of the time, a page like this cont ains a tit le, text and

perhaps a f ew images.

Static vs. Dynamic content An "about us" page is usually created once, is accessible via a menu link, and in

the fut ure all you will have to do is change it as you go. It has a st atic character. A

press release or blog ent ry, however, have a dynamic character.

y For st atic pages, in cont rast to dynamic pages, the creation date and

author do not really matter.

y St atic pages are usually accessible via a menu link whereas dynamic

pages can be accessed through lists.

The plan The 'about us' page should consist of the f ollowing components:

y a tit le,

y a text,

y an image.




Inserting an image from a URLAs a first example we are going t o use an already existing image on the web. Forexample, this one:

htt p://farm2.static.flic r.com/1198/898250237_78a0e75cba_m.jpg ( Fi g© re 3)

Mo e the cursor t o the position in the t ext at which you would li e t o insert the

image. Clic on the image icon in the edit or t oolbar and past e the URL of the




image t o the pop-up window. Configure the image with a left alignment and use 10 pixels vertical and hori ontal space

(Fi g

re 4).

The image will appear in your edit or window. Clic Save and your it em is st ored. There are several ways t o save it :

y Save - It em is saved. Form is not closed. Used f or saving when you stillwant t o continue wor ing.

y

Save & C lo

e - It em is saved and f orm will be closed. y Save & N ew - It em is saved, f orm will be closed and a new empt y

articlef orm is called.

Exit the f orm.




Step 2 - Creating a Menu LinkThe post has been creat ed but is not appearing on the websit e. For it t o appear,

we need a link! Click the N ew icon in the M en mana ger in the t op menu (M en

To p). Click the Select butt on next t o the field M en it em t ype. A window with

various links will pop up. Click on the link singl e ar t icl e (Fi g re 5 ).

Now you need t o choose the desired article. Click the butt on Sel ect / Change in

the right pane (Select Article) t o select it . You will see a search box with allarticles. In case you can't find your article on the page right away, you can filt er

the list by t yping a part of the article's title in the search box and then clicking on

the title of the correct article in the result list (Fi g

re 6).

Ent er a title f or the link "About us" and make sure that to p is select ed in the

men

locat ion. We can leave the remaining options with their settings f or now.




Step 3 - 'About us' on the websiteIf you now load the front end websit e, you will discover the new link in the t op

menu. Click it and you will see the abo t us cont ent - congrat ulations on having

creat ed your first page (Fi gure 7 ).

Step 4 - Image UploadIf your image is not already available on the Int ernet , you will need t o upload it from your PC. Let 's go through the example t ogether. Go t o the Ar t icl e M ana ger

(C ont ent Ar t icl e mana ger ). If you can't find your article, locat e it easily by usingthe search box. Select the article's title and the edit f orm will open. Delet e the

linked image from the t ext .

Below the edit or window you will find the Ima ge butt on. This butt on launches a

dialog box t o upload an image. You can choose bet ween existing images or

upload new ones (Fi gure 8).




Once the image has been insert ed int o the t ext , the f ormatting can be changed by

using the ima ge icon in the edit or's t oolbar. This separation of f unctions in Joomla! was purposely chosen because you have the possibilit y t o use diff erent

edit ors. The Joomla! Ima ge butt on will always remain the same but the image f ormatting in the edit or might diff er.

Attention: Joomla! uses the images as they are. The images will not be resi ed!




Typical ArticleThe f ollowing it ems usually have t o be taken int o consideration when it comes t o

creating an article on your websit e: 1. a t ext with one or more images

2. a t easer t ext f or list views with a read more link pointing t o the f ull

article page

3. the article should appear on the front page and needs no menu link

. nice t o have: a scheduled publication dat e

5. nice t o have: a print er-friendly version f or visit ors who would like t o

print the article

6. nice t o have: an option t o f orward the article by email

StartThe article should appear on the front page of your websit e. If you delet ed, did not install or change your sample data, your Joomla! front page will look like the

one in Fi gure 1 (Fi gure 1).

When you log int o the administration area, you will see an icon called Add N ew

Ar t icl e. You may either click on this icon or access the f orm via the main navigation C ont ent Ar t icl e M ana ger Add N ew Ar t icl e (Fi gure 2)




Article formYou are now in the article f orm, in which you will probably writ e all articles you will ever writ e in Joomla!. A very important place! The f orm is struct ured as in

Fi gure 3.



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The minimum requirement f or an article is a tit le

(1), a category (2), and a text (3). If you look at the f orm more closely, you will

notice the help texts that appear when you move the mouse across the

description of a f ield. I have marked the areas in the f orm in F igur e 3 with six

digits.

1. The most import ant part is the t itle or headline. The tit le appears as a

headline on the website (usually in the biggest size of the HTML headline t ags

<h1>) and in the browser bar at the top ( y ou a

e

ab

e or disab

e t his behav ior

!

.

The tit le is the f oundation f or the alias f ield below. The alias is automatically

generated by Joomla! when you save the article and the way it looks is

conf igurable as well. Basically, the purpose of an alias is to have a simple, short

and legible URL in the browser address bar, which can easily be used in e-mails

or chats as well. In the example of http://examp e.com/ f ir st-ar ticl e - f ir st-ar ticl e is

the alias.

2. This is about the classif ication or categorisat ion of the article. Every item

MUST be assigned to aca

tegory. If you explicit ly do not want to categorize the article, you can assign the category u"

categor ized . This is especially useful f or

more st atic content pages like l egal "

otices and the About Us page. In this area,

other import ant att ributes can be conf igured, including State ( publ ished or "

ot ),

who has Access ( Access, Per missio"

depe"

ds o"

v ar ious setti" gs), La

" guage and

F eatur ed . F eatur ed replaces the f ormer att ribute frontpage and ensures that the

items are in a predef ined blog layout f or your website frontpage. The article ID is

created af ter saving and consists of a serial number.

3. In this section you can write your text, which should be of value to your

audience . Sounds really easy, doesn't it?! :-) Technically, you are dealing with a

WYSIWYG editor (W hat You See Is W hat You Get ) here. The editor converts your

written text into HTML text f ormat. Joomla! uses the TinyMCE [1] editor as default conf iguration. TinyMCE is an independent open source project, which has

so many functions that you could write a separate book about it. (M a y #

ot be a

bad idea. )

It basically works like any other word processor: write text, highlight text, then

click on a toolbar icon and the function is applied or a dialog box opens. The

buttons below the input area are unusual and can be confusing at times. These

buttons are Joomla! specif ic and only have an indirect relationship with the

editor. The Joomla! core comes with f ive of these very practical additional

buttons.

You can add more buttons by adding Joomla! extensions:

1. Art icle: allows you to link to other existing Joomla! articles

2. Image: You can insert an existing image or photo from the M edia

M a$

ager or upload a new image.

3. Pagebreak : inserts a pagebreak in your article

4. Read More: allows you to stipulate where to place the r ead mor e link

5. Toggle Editor : swit ches the editor on and off . If it is off , you will see

the HTML code of your article.



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4. What was called Par ameter in Joomla! 1.5,

is now called Optio'

s in Joomla! 1.6, like, f or example, the Publ ishi' g Optio

' s.

Here you can specif y who wrote the article (C r eated b y ). The user who created

the article is usually allowed and responsible f or making changes to the article

later. Which name is really shown below the tit le at the webpage is conf igured in

C r eated b y Al ias. The three f ields below allow you to schedule the publishing. Simply enter the appropriate dates and Joomla! t akes care of the rest.

5. In this section you can conf igure many options by swit ching them on and

off . You can change the article layout to suit the reader's and search engine's

needs. Just st art experimenting - it's the best way to learn.

6. The sixth and f inal area concerns the permissions f or this article. This

selection will help us in many places in Joomla! 1.6 and I will cover this in

chapter User s a'

d Per missio'

s on page 100 **.

Sample articleLet's create the article out lined above together:

A text with one or more images Just write your text. To add an image or images, there are numerous possibilities:

1. The image is already available online, for example, on Flick r [23].

In this case, click the image icon in the editor toolbar and copy the

image URL to the dialog box.

2. The image is already in t he Joomla! Media Manager . In this case,

click the image button below to select the image and insert it into

your text (F igur e 4).




3. The picture i(

on your hard di( k . This is the most complex case.

Basically, you will also use the image butt on below the t ext . There you

will find an upload dialogue through which you can upload your image

"easily". Remember that Joomla! willNOT resi e the image. If you upload a phot o from your digital camera, it will be displayed in its f ull



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original size (width > 3000 pixels).

Y ou have to resize t he image before uploading . If all goes well -

congrat ulations! If it doesn't work, this could be due to many things,

such as lack of permissions in the directories of the media manager. At

best, you will get an error message.

Once you have inserted the image from the media, you can select and f ormat it by

clicking the image icon in the editor's toolbar.

A teaser text for list views with a read more lin to the full

articleThis is easy. Move the cursor to the position at which the r ead mor e link should

appear and click on the r ead mor e button below the text area.

The article should appear on the f rontpage and needs no

menu lin Select Yes in the f ield F eatur ed in Area 2.

A scheduled publication would be niceAvoid this at f irst, so you don't have to wait f or the article to appear on your

website :-). If you would like to t ry it later with a diff erent article, simply f ill the

f ields Star t Publ ishi 1 g and F i 1 ish Publ ishi 1 g with the appropriate inf ormation or

select the dates by clicking the calendar icon.

A printer-f riendly version of the articleIf you do not know at this point where the global settings are located, have a look

at the chapter Website a2

d Co2

te2

t Co2

f igur atio2

( Page 82) and verif y the

current settings. In area 5, you may swit ch the S how P r i2

ter icon to 'show'.

Forwarding of the article by e-mail Simply set the options in area 5, swit ch the S how E mail I co

3 to show . Result

Af ter saving you can reload your site and will see your article on the frontpage as

in F igur e 5 .




Structure Your Content with CategoriesJoomla! articles can be cat egorised. Generally spoken, cat egori ation is the

process of recogni ing, diff erentiating and understanding something throughabstraction. This may sound rather complicat ed but proves very usef ul when

managing several articles.

Joomla! off ers the possibilit y of creating as many cat egories as you wish. It is

possible t o build nest ed cat egories and an article can be relat ed t o one of these

cat egories.

Newspapers, f or example, use cat egories t o bett er diff erentiat e bet ween theirarticles. Here is an example from a Joomla! t emplat e [1] (Fi gure 1).

They are using the cat egory Wor l d N ews and under this cat egory there are

additional cat egories like P ol it ics, Wor l d , W ar , Disast ers and more. Sometimes

t wo levels are sufficient like in this example; sometimes you may need more. In

Joomla! 1.5 it was not possible t o have more than t wo levels. With Joomla! 1.6 you can have as many levels as you want . Joomla! no longer has sections - only

cat egories.

In the Cat e gory M ana ger ( Administ rat ion C ont ent Cat e gory M ana ger) , you

can manage your cat egory tree and filt er up t o 10 levels (Fi gure 2).




Like an article, a cat egory consists of a title, a description and many other

attribut es and options. It can have an additional image that can be used in

diff erent layouts. The image can be select ed in the basic settings. A cat egory can

also contain images in the description (Fi gure 3).

When you access your Joomla! websit e you can see exactly these cat egories in the example data. The navigation uses links t o the cat egories t o show all the

articles and sub cat egories (Fi gure 4). Even the breadcrumb navigation reflects

this struct ure.




In the Menu Manager ( Administ rat ion M enu About J ooml a!) , you can see

these menu it ems, which link t o the articles in a cat egory (Figure 5).

You can choose from diff erent layouts f or the articles. In Fi gure 5 you can see

which layout is used f or which link. You can select the layout in the edit f orm of amenu it em (Fi gure 6).

Possible layouts: � a list of all cat egories

� a blog layout (like on the front page)

� a cat egory list




Depending on the layout you have plent y of options t o configure the appearance andbehavior of sub cat egories and articles.

A list of all categoriesThis layout lists all the sub cat egories from one chosen cat egory ( Fi gure 7).

In this case the cat egory description from the t op level cat egory Ex t ensions is

shown. One level of sub cat egories with their descriptions is also shown on the page, even empt y cat egories. The articles in the t op level cat egory are hidden.

Example: Administ rat ion M enus About J ooml a! Using Ex t ensions Edit .



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A blog layout (like on the frontpage)The blog layout lists all the articles from one chosen cat egory ( Fi gure 8).

In this case the cat egory description from the cat egory C omponent s is shown. Allthe articles relat ed t o C omponent s are shown with their t easer t ext in one

column. More columns are also possible. The first seven articles in the t op levelcat egory are hidden. Example: Administ rat ion M enus C omponent s Edit

(Fi gure 9).




A category listThe cat egory list layout lists all the articles from one chosen cat egory in a table

struct ure ( Fi gure 10).

In this case the cat egory description from the cat egory named J ooml a! is shown.

All the articles relat ed t o J ooml a! are shown in a configurable table. You can

choose t o have parts of the table hidden and various sorting options are

available. Example: Administ rat ion M enus C omponent s Ar t icl e Cat e gory l ist

Edit .

ConclusionThe cat egory syst em in Joomla! 1.6 is very powerf ul and easy t o use. You can

easily struct ure your entire websit e by using a set of nest ed cat egories in a very

user- friendly way. One article can be assigned t o one cat egory.




Media ManagerThe media manager is Joomla!'s little Digital Asset Management Syst em[1]

(DAM). If you are managing cont ent , you will need a place t o st ore the files. Filesare all the images, PDFs and what ever you decide t o mention in your cont ent .

Usually these digital assets consist of the file and additional meta data. In this

case, we need an easy-t o-use t ool t o manage our files. Let 's have a look at what is

possible with the Joomla! core media manager.

How it worksTo me it looks more like a file manager. Everyone knows the Windows exploreror the OSX finder. In Joomla! they call it "media manager". It has a base direct ory

where all the files are st ored. You can look at your files in t wo diff erent ways

using your browser: via a T humbnail View (Fi gure 1) and a Det ail ed View (Fi gure 2). It is possible t o navigat e through the f olders by clicking on them.

You can creat e as many additional f olders as you wish. In the Det ail ed View , you

areable t o delet e f olders and files. Youll find the same struct ure in the

Joomla!administration backend as you can see in your FTP client (Fi gure 3), but

you have t o be caref ul: In core Joomla! you will also find a media direct ory.

This direct ory is NOT the home of the media manager. The home of the media

manager in core Joomla! is the ima ges direct ory.




When you look in the t oolbar you will discover the O pt ions icon - go ahead and

click on it (Fi gure 4).




If you go through the options, you will notice that you can limit file t ypes by ext ension, maximum si e of a file and you can also

separat e ima ges from fil es. Well, an image is a file, t oo, but I like the idea of separating them. The thumbnail view, e.g., makes a lot more sense f or images but

not f or non-image files. The biggest advantage of that separation is the

possibilit y t o Rest rict Uploads t o users lower than the manager role. You can allow regist ered users t o upload images but you do not have t o give permission

t o upload other files. This is, in some cases, very usef ul. The next options you see

are MIME [2] t ypes, nowadays oft en called I nt er net M edia T ype. If you are aWindows user, you usually only distinguish diff erent file t ypes by their

ext ension. I nt er net M edia T ype is another way t o recogni e the t ype of a file even without a file ext ension. You can permit or f orbid as many file t ypes as desired.

The Flash Upload e 6 is one of the most sophisticat ed f eat ures that is oft en

f orgott en about . In Joomla! 1.5 it didn't always work properly but the version

coming with Joomla! 1.6 is excellent f or uploading more than one file at a time.

The F l ash Uploader simply works and is easy t o use! Try it ! (Fi gure 5 ).

As you notice, the Joomla! media manager is no rocket science [3] but it is areliable, easy t o use t ool t o manage your images and other files.

If you need a more sophisticat ed product , Joomla! off ers other solutions in the ext ension direct ory in the cat egory Fil e M ana gement [3].

Media manager and the editorNow you know about the central place of your files but how can you manage t o

connect them t o your cont ent?Anywhere you see an edit or in Joomla!, it is usually possible t o add media from

the media manager by clicking the image butt on below. We have already talked

about this in Chapt er A T ypical Ar t icl e ( pa ge 58) (Fi gure 6).




Media Manager in other placesThere are other places where the media manager plays a role, like in cat egories. It is possible t o link an

image t o a cat egory (Fi gure 7 ).




This image will appear in a list of cat egories if you configure it in the M enu I t emsO pt ions.




Contact FormWith a contact f orm the f ollowing question arises: "Is this cont ent?". I think it isand have, theref ore, writt en it as a sub chapt er of the M ana ging C ont ent chapt er ,

pa ge 51** .

On a contact f orm it first becomes obvious that something like a CMS is being

used. Manually creat ed HTML pages cannot send emails as this requires a script

language like PHP, f or example, and a configured server. PHP scripts can be

embedded as contact f orms int o HTML pages, but then that part of the websit e

will oft en look diff erent from the rest of the sit e. In Joomla! the contact f orm isalready int egrat ed and you "only" have t o configure it .

Usually, if your Joomla! is running on a web server at your provider, you won't

have problems with sending emails. Locally, it 's a bit more difficult because you

would have t o set up a mail server first . Generally, this is not a problem but it isn't really necessary. ;-)

Joomla! sends emails in diff erent ways. You will see an overview of this in Global

C on fi gurat ion Server (Fi gure 1). Nat urally, you would use the standard

activat ed PHP Mail f unction (read more at pa ge 82**: W ebsit e and C ont ent

C on fi gurat ion).

Creating a contactIn order t o include a contact on your sit e you need at least : � a contact cat egory

� a contact




� a link in a menu

Maybe you still have a cat egory from the example data ( Sampl e-dat a cont act ). If

not , go ahead and creat e one. In the next st ep you will creat e a new contact . To do so, open C omponent s C ont act s in your administration area and click on the

icon N ew . Then fill in the appearing f orm (Fi gure 2). I have labeled some areas in

the screenshot f or bett er orientation.

1. The first and last name of the contact person, or the name of the

department or company if it is not a person. The contact can be

connect ed with an existing user account . He has t o be assigned t o a

cat egory, should be public ( S t at e = Publ ished) and presumably not

appear on the front page ( Feat ured = No ). 2. The t ext area can be used f or additional inf ormation, e.g. opening

hours or jurisdiction. 3. The Publ ishing O pt ions relat e t o the user who can lat er make changes

t o that cont ent , who creat ed the cont ent , and the timing f orpublishing. The latt er is used rather seldomly f or 'normal' websit es.

. In C ont act Det ail s there are numerous fields available, which you can

choose t o fill in or leave blank.

5. In Displ ay O pt ions you decide which fields will be displayed. This areais important as you specif y here whether a contact f orm will be shown

or not (Show C ont act F orm). You can also specif y whether the sender

should receive an email copy and you'll be able t o configure some spam prot ection settings (Banned E-M ail , Banned Subj ect , etc). Against

"real" spammers, however, this prot ection is rather "pathetic". 6. In the field C ont act Redirect, you can ent er another email address t o

which the cont ents of the f orm should be sent . 7. The M et adat a O pt ions are, like the Publ ishing O pt ions , available on

each single page (Read more: Sear ch engine o pt imizat ion TO DO).




Creating a menu itemYou now have a contact but still no f orm on your websit e. That is exactly what

we are going t o creat e in this next st ep. Due t o the fact that you can link nestable

cat egories t o contacts, you may either have a single contact f orm or many of

them. It is definit ely possible t o creat e a contact f orm f or each employee of a big

company like Volkswagen (approx. 370,000 employees). How does such a

dynamic CMS display this on a websit e?

To manage this, Joomla! has its own M enu M ana ger with diff erent layouts. In the

M enu M ana ger , you get t o decide whether you want t o have a list of contacts or

cat egories or just a single contact f orm. At first glance this may seem somewhat conf using but it is well thought out and helpf ul.

Let 's link a single f orm in the menu f or the contact we have just creat ed. Open

M enus - To p and click the N ew icon. You need three things f or a menu link: 1. the M enu I t em T ype (t ype of link) f or displaying the sit e and,

depending on your choice, a contact or a cat egory 2. a t ext displayed as a link 3.

3. the menu, in which the link should appear

For number 1, click on the Sel ect butt on next t o the field M enu I t em T ype. A

window will open and you will see a choice of t ypes. Click Singl e C ont act (Fi gure

3).

The window will close again. Since you only want one contact , you will now have

t o choose the contact in Required Sett ings (Fi gure 4).




At last , insert the t ext f or the link (M enu T itl e) and then save everything. The

menu is already regist ered correctly by opening the f orm. On your websit e, an

addit onal link in the To p M enu should be appearing, which is linked t o the

corresponding contact (Fi gure 5 ). You can get t o the act ual contact f orm by clicking the plus sign in the right field. Now you can send messages via your

websit e.



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Statuses, Trash and Check-Ins

In Joomla! your content can have several st at uses. Depending on the type of

content there can be a minimum of three st at uses: published, unpublished and

trash. What does that mean? Af ter saving your fresh content f or the f irst time, it

exists in the Joomla! dat abase and depending on its st at us, it will appear (or not )

in diff erent areas of your website.

The usual lif e cycle of content in Joomla! is:

1. unpublished until you are f inished with editing and reviewing

2. publ ished or schedul ed (and possibly f eatur ed on the frontpage)

3. still publ ished but may be removed from the frontpage

4. archiv ed

Sometimes it is necessary to u9 publ ish content and sometimes you may put it

into the t r ash. The content itself will, of course, continue to exist. It has not been

deleted. You can f ilter most of the t ables in the administ ration interface by the

desired st at uses and assign diff erent st at uses to your content as of ten as you

would like.

Unpublished No website visitor is able to see the content. It is the phase in which you edit and

review your content.

Published It depends on the users and visitors permissions whether they will be able to

view the content but generally the content on your website should be visible

because it has been published!

Featured The f eatur ed 'f eat ure' is a swit ch you can use f or your most import ant and latest

content and is usually shown at the frontpage. It is an additional st at us because it

is only relevant to articles. This is why it is possible f or an article to be

u@ publ ished and f eatur ed .

Archived

There will come a time when you'll st art thinking about an archive f or yourarticles. Just set the st at us to archiv ed and you've almost created an archive.

Joomla! knows the creation date of your articles and off ers an archive module to

be shown on your site. The archive module is included in the example dat a. If it is

not available, just create one in M odul es A

ew Archiv ed Ar ticl es. Your articles

will then be shown like in F igur e 1. Read mor e at page 1 29 iB

chapter M odul es.




TrashThe second last stat us is t rash. If a cont ent it em ends up here it still exists and can be retrieved. You can place modules, menu it ems, cat egories, articles,

contacts, and even more cont ent in your trash. You can see the cont ents of your

trash can by filt ering it (Fi gure 2).




In the filt ered view the T rash icon changes t o Empt y t rash. This is your

opport unit y

t o delet e cont ent .

Check InThe ChecC I n icon in Joomla! may not be the kind you know from Foursquare [1]or other location-based services. It is a securit y f eat ure f or editing your cont ent . As soon as a user starts editing cont ent , Joomla! locks this cont ent f or all other

users. The advantage of this behavior is that changes by another user cannot be overwritt en. That 's a very convenient f eat ure. One big problem, however,

appears when the user editing the cont ent accidentally closes the browserwindow, allows the session t o expire or the power plant shuts off the power or ...

you get mypoint :-). Then the cont ent is locked and no one else can edit it !

No one else (except a user with proper permission, e.g. you as the administror)

can chec C in the cont ent again t o allow others t o edit it . Unf ort unat ely, you will

only notice unchecked cont ent by a small lock being displayed near the title (Fi gure 2) or by a cry f or help from one of your users :-).




Website and Content ConfigurationJoomla! has diff erent levels of configurating options. These options are

transmitt ed from the highest t o the lowest level.

y Global configuration

y Options f or articles, components, modules, plug-ins, languages

andt emplat es

Global ConfigurationIn the Global C on fi gurat ion section you can define all the settings that are valid

f or the entire websit e. Most values of the variables are saved in the con fi gurat ion.php file. Vital inf ormation like user name, database name and

password f or the database server, f or instance, and 'lesser' paramet ers such asthe pre-det ermined length of displayed lists are st ored in this file. The work area

is divided int o f our tabs:

y Sit e Settings

y Syst em Settings

y Server Settings

y Permissions

The work area of every tab consists of dozens of fields, check boxes, switches and

t ext areas.

The easiest way t o get a glimpse is t o move your mouse across the labels t o read

the help t ext , which appears in a small yellow t ooltip (Fi gure 1).

Most of the options are self-explanat ory. I'll mention a f ew settings that are new in Joomla! 1.6 with great er detail.




Site SettingsThe Sit e sett ings have a new field f or setting the default access level f or new

users. Configurable access levels are a new f eat ure (Read more on pa ge 100:

Users and Permissions). The M et adat a sett ings now contain the option t o add C ont ent Ri ght data. Joomla!

will add your data t o the meta declaration ri ght s in your HTML code. Depending

on your search engine optimization (SEO) 'religion', it is good or bad t o have this

declaration in your meta profile. Now Joomla! serves both :-)<meta name="rights" content="© 2011 cocoate.com EURL,

France" />

In SE O sett ings , the new options are

y U nicode Al iases You set aliases f or article titles. With this f eat ure, URLs

like htt p://example.com/ are possible.

y I ncl ude Sit e N ame in Pa ge T itl es With this f eat ure the article title willappear in the browser's document title bar.

C oo D ie sett ings are a wonderf ul f eat ure f or evaluating a cookie on diff erent sub

domains. You will need this f eat ure if you have a sit e (exampl e.com) and one or

more sub domains (blog.exampl e.com) and you want t o off er your users the

service t o login on exampl e.com and post on blog.exampl e.com. Without this

f eat ure, the user should login again t o post something on blog.exampl e.com.

System SettingsThe user and media settings are no longer in this area. You will now find them in

the User and M edia M ana ger . The cache settings are diff erent because the underlying cache syst em was

rewritt en and now provides more possibilities. In general, a cache makes your

sit es fast er by st oring parts of the HTML in files. The web server can deliver

these files extremely fast . It is possible t o cache pages, component views and

modules. You can purge and clear the cache in Sit e M aint enance.




Server SettingsAll the server settings are the same as in Joomla! 1.5. Nevertheless, I'll mention

the option F or ce SSL. This option is getting more and more att ention. You can

off er your users a complet ely secured traffic. It is necessary t o have SSL

configured in your web server and you need a SSL certificat e.

PermissionsHere is the place t o set your global permissions f or your user groups.

Fort unat ely, it is not always necessary t o change the default settings. If you

change the setting f or a group, it will apply t o this and all sub groups,

components and cont ent . Basically you allow, deny and inherit the permissionsSit e Login, Admin Login, Super Admin, Access C omponent , Creat e, Del et e, Edit , Edit

S t at e and Edit Ow n. Every group has their own set of permissions (Fi gure 4).

Options for content components modules plug-ins

languages templatesIn every manager, you'll find an O pt ions icon where you can launch aconfiguration f orm. In some cases the options window has an additional

permissions tab, e.g. the Cat e gory and the Ar t icl e M ana ger . In this permissions




tab, you can use your global permissions f or the whole websit e or you can change them depending on your needs f or all

cat egories and articles.

In both cases you'll also find a T ex t Filt er tab (Fi gure 5 ). The t ext filt er is a

concept , which allows you t o search contribut ed t ext f or patt erns like HTML tagsand filt er them. It 's possible t o set diff erent filt ers f or diff erent groups. Let 's say a

regist ered user is allowed t o post t ext with HTML tags inside but without an

iframe. Only your individual group 'iframers' has the right t o post iframes!




N

avigationEvery sit e needs an easy t o understand navigation, otherwise it will not be possible f or a user t o find what he is looking f or. This may sound simple but is

not easily done. In a perf ect world it should be possible t o access any page on a

websit e with t wo or three clicks. Another fact is, that oft en, if not always, your

visit ors will come from a search engine or social media sit e and will land

anywhere on your sit e but your front page. This is a reason t o think about a

"Home" butt on on every page!

A websit e oft en has a primary and a secondary navigation. The primary navigation is usually at the t op or on the left or right side. Secondary navigation

is at the bott om or at the t op, but mostly a bit smaller than the primary navigation. It contains links like contact , about us and legal notices. The idea

behind this is t o have these links at the sit e but not at a very important position.

As a general rule, do not put more than f our t o eight links in a navigation level.

BreadcrumbsA 'breadcrumb trail' is a navigation aid. The t erm comes from the trail of

breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gret el [1] in the Brothers Grimm fairytale.

Usually breadcrumbs are positioned horizontally on the t op of a web page. Two struct ures are used:

y showing links back t o each previous page the user clicked through t o get

t o the current page y showing the parent pages of the current one

Breadcrumbs are a way t o prevent visit ors from f eeling lost on your sit e. Ideally

visit ors should always know where they are on the sit e and how t o go back. Joomla! provides a breadcrumb module f or this task and most t emplat es have a

breadcrumb position reserved f or it (Fi gure 1).




Joomla! MenusJoomla navigations are creat ed by so-called menus. You can creat e as many

menus as you need f or your websit e. Each menu may contain any number of

nest ed menu it ems and you can even filt er the level. Amenu it em is assigned t o a

component or an ext ernal URL. Modules and t emplat e st yles can be assigned t o

menu it ems. In the example data, a f ew menus are shown that have already been

creat ed.

Let 's have a look at t wo examples of primary navigation with static pages and

dynamic cat egories.

First example: a static catalog or book structureSometimes you need a navigation f or a book, a catalog or a guide. You'll find this

configuration in the example data in the About J ooml a! menu. Let 's say we're

writing a short book consisting of three chapt ers. The navigation should be linked t o all pages and look like fi gure 2.

PreparationCreat e a book struct ure with a f ew chapt ers.

�The Joomla book � Introduction

� Cont ent

� How t o use A

� How t o use B

� Templat es

Bef ore creating menu it ems, you have t o creat e individual articles (pages) first . Go t o C ont ent Ar t icl e M ana ger Add new ar t icl e (Fi gure 3). You may assign the uncat e gorized cat egory t o these articles or you can creat e a boo E cat egory in

advance and assign it t o the chapt ers.




Step 1: Creating the menuYou can use an already existing menu as your primary links or you can create a new one by accessing Menus

Menu Manager Add new Menu and filling out the form ( Figure 4).

Step 2: Creating the menu itemsGo t o M enus Primary l inF s and add the six articles as links. Choose Singl e Ar t icl e

as M enu I t em T ype. Select the article and ent er a M enu T itl e (Fi gure 5 ). If you have f orgott en how t o do that , have a look at the chapt er H ow to creat e an 'About

Us' Pa ge ( pa ge 52**).




Step 3: Creating and assigning the moduleThis st ep is a bit tricky. You now have the articles, the menu and the menu it ems

but you'll also need a module t o position on your sit e. Let 's go ahead and creat e

one. Go t o Ex t ensions Modul es N ew Modul e and fill in the f orm. In the Field

Sel ect M enu in Basic Sett ings , choose Primary l in G s. Select Yes in the field Show Sub menu it ems (Fi gure 6).

The last st ep is the t emplat e position. Click the Sel ect posit ion butt on, filt er f ort emplat e Beez_20 and choose position- . Save everything and you're done.




Second example: Linking to categories (News magazine)It is possible t o link t o a f ew pages like in the first example but what will you do if

you have thousands of articles? The answer is easy in Joomla! 1.6: Build a

struct ure with cat egories, assign the articles and link it t o a cat egory layout .

PreparationsWe'll need a f ew cat egories with articles: Categorie H

: � News

� World

� Africa

� Europe

� Technology � Int ernet

� Cars

Creat e them or use existing cat egories (Read more: Struct ure Your Cont ent with

Cat egories, page 64**).

Step 1: The menuIt's up to you how to continue. The easiest way is to use the existing P rimary Links menu. But if you want, you cancreate a News Menu, like me.

Step 2: The menu itemsWhen dealing with cat egories you have t o think about what should be shown aft er you have clicked on the link. The expect ed behavior in our case is

� Cat egory News = all news should come up

� Cat egory News World = we want world news only

and so on (Fi gure 8).




To achieve the expect ed behavior, creat e a menu it em with the t ype Cat e gory

Blog. In Required sett ings, choose your newly creat ed cat egory N ews. In Blog

Lay out O pt ions, choose I ncl ude Sub Cat e gories - All and # Leading Ar t icl es = 0 . Continue with creating nest ed menu it ems f or each additional cat egory and you're done (Fi gure 9).

Now you can handle thousands of articles. Your navigation is prepared f or that and your visit ors will understand the syst em immediat ely (Fi gure 10).




Some tweakingAs you have seen, there are nearly infinit e possibilities of setting options. Many

things are possible and there is usually a way t o achieve your goals. Concerning

the navigation design, it is possible t o filt er the level of the menu it ems in the

module. It is possible, f or example, t o putthe first level of our N ews menu at the

t op position and the second and third level in the the left or right sidebarthe

whole menu on t op and use drop down menus (depending on the capabilities of

the t emplat e)

If you play around a bit , you will find a solution f or nearly every case. The

Joomla! navigation syst em may be a bit complex on one hand but is very powerf ul on the other.




Users andP

ermissions

People simply try t o use the Joomla! websit e that you have creat ed f or them - in an active or passive way. The bett er the experience, the bett er the websit e will

be perceived. Joomla! - as every CMS diff erentiat es bet ween visit ors and

regist ered users with diff erent permissions. Visit ors usually arrive via search

engines or social media sit e recommandations and can become users by

registrating. Already regist ered users mostly know what they are looking f or and

come t o your sit e with certain expectations.

The more users your sit e has, the more complex the t opic users and permissionsbecomes. In versions preceding Joomla! 1.6, there was a static syst em consisting

of user groups, permissions and access levels that could not be changed. With

Joomla! 1.6, the old syst em is still alive as the default configuration of a very powerf ul so- called access control list (ACL).

Every sit e access will be evaluat ed by a Permission Gr oup, even an access from a

visit or. Aft er regist ering on your Joomla! websit e, the user will aut omatically

become a member of a Permission Gr oup. The group has predefined permissions

and belongs t o an access l evel . One Access Level can have any number of

Permission Gr oups. One group can have any number of users/visit ors.

Permissions can be passed down and overwritt en in several places. Let 's begin by having a look at the registration process.

Registration and LoginThe first registration process in your websit e's lif e cycle was complet ed with the

installation of Joomla!. In the last st ep you were prompt ed f or a user name, an

email address and a password. The person who installed Joomla! is now the super duper administrat or, who has permission t o do everything on the sit e. This

is why every Joomla! websit e has at least one user account . It 's up t o this user

only t o modif y the behavior of the sit e in Users - User M ana ger - O pt ions (Fi gure

1).




The advantage of the form, which is delivered by login module, is that there is no necessity for the user to click alink before the log in form appears. If this behavior is not necessary or you don 't want to have the login form as a

module, it is also possible to create the form via a component. Therefore you have to create menu items with theappropriate menu item types concerning your needs ( Figure 4).

Additional profile fieldsIn the past it was only possible with additional ext ensions, t o have additional

fields in the registration f orm. To solve that issue and t o connect the user data t o




the contact component , Joomla! 1.6 core comeswith a plug-in called User Pr o fil es. In Ex t ensions - P l u g-in M ana ger you can

activat e and configure the plug-in (See al so C ont act component ) The module provides several additional fields, even a T erms o f service option, which user

have t o check during the registration process t o accept the t erms of service

(Fi gure 5 ).

User groupsThe idea of a user group is t o creat e sets of permissions. "If you want t o be an author on our sit e, you'll need the f ollowing permissions."

Inst ead of assigning these permissions t o every user they are assigned t o a

group. The user can be assigned t o one or more groups. Imagine you have 10.000

users in f our diff erent groups. It 's easy f or the administrat or t o manage the permissions f or the groups. Without groups you have t o change every user

account manually. If you use groups you only have t o change permissions once! In Joomla! 1.6 it 's up t o you t o configure any number of user groups. In User

M ana ger - Gr oups, you have an overview of all the groups, which are in core Joomla! (Fi gure 6).




The default set up is t he same as it was for Joomla! 1.5 . If your are happy with

thestruct ure it is not necessary to change anyt hing. Def ault permissions for

website f ront end user groups

y Registered group A regist ered user can log in, edit his own credentials

and see parts of the sit e that non-regist ered users cannot see.

y Aut hor group The author can do everything that a regist ered user can.

An author can also writ e articles and modif y his or her own cont ent . There is generally a link in the user menu f or this.

y Editor group The edit or can do everything that an author can. An edit or

can also writ e and edit all articles that appears in the front end.

y Publisher group The publisher can do everything that an edit or can. A

publisher can also writ e articles and edit every piece of inf ormation that

appears in the front end. In addition, a publisher can decide whether

articles are published or not .

Def ault permissions for website back end user groups y Manager group A manager can creat e cont ent and can see various pieces

inf ormationabout thesyst em. He or she is not allowed t o:

o Administ er users

o Install modules and components

o Upgrade a user t o super administrat or or modif y a superadministrat or

o Work on the menu it em Sit e | Global Configuration

o Send a mass mailing t o all users




o Change and/or install t emplat esand language files

y Administ rator An administrat or is not allowed t o: o Upgrade a user t o super administrat or or modif y a super

administrat or

o Work on the menu it em Sit e | Global Configuration o Send a mass mailing t o all users

o Change and/or install t emplat es and language files

y Super Administ rator or Super user o This user is allowed t o execut e all f unctions in Joomla!

administration. Only a super administrat or can add other super

administrat ors.

Access levels

User groups can be assigned t o access levels. So we have a user, connect ed t o agroup, connect ed t o an access level (Fi gure 7 , Fi gure 8)

Why access levels?As we have seen, access levels are a bundle of groups. With the combination of

group permissions and access levels it is possible t o solve every use case. In an article e.g. you can limit the accessibilit y t o an access level (Fi gure 9).

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