A Joomla site is made up of a variety of parts, the 4 main ones are

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1 Overview Joomla is a Content management System, Open Source, with huge resources available on line. Add ons are available for nearly any function you would like. Joomla is scalable and can be used for small and large sites alike. A Joomla site is made up of a variety of parts, the 4 main ones are Articles Modules Menu(s) Media (images, movies, sound files..) These parts can be grouped into Categories and should be. Articles and modules can have publishing dates associated with them, so an article will appear on a certain date and disappear on another. If you use this feature make sure you have a replacement item if using as a single article. Handy if you want to start or remove an item by a particular time and want to set this up in advance. The site is described in two parts The backend or administrator section, where you edit, add and delete content. Any number of users can be registered to add, alter or amend or simply view content The front end - what the public see. Can be restricted to registered users, for example content you may want to charge a fee for. The look of the site - The Template Is governed by a template made up of 1000 s of lines of code. Changing can be both easy and / or hard depending on the sites functions. The template(s) can be applied to the content. We can have more than one template for say different sections. There is a template is for the backend as well which we rarely change. The template is pre designed for your web site and cannot be changed easily - the Template however has a variety of positions or place holders where things like menus, text blocks, log in forms and more can go. More a little later.

2 Getting Started - the work flow: The easiest way to remember the Joomla workflow is via CASH Categories These can be simple or be nested into sub categories and organized in any manner you prefer. Before going too far have a look at the categories of information you might like and think about them. Apply the KISS principle to these! A simple way to start could be Admin Marketing! Sales talk (maybe for Blog)! New products Education Maybe write some ideas out before you start, these can be changed and reorganized at any time, so no stress about it. Articles This where the main content is organized into Categories and content added and formatted. Articles can include images and other items. There is an editor not dissimilar to Word to format, however the Template will look after most of this automatically. Modules are another important form of content, discussed later. Show (menus) Menus are the way to SHOW the articles (and display modules), these are organized across the top of the site or vertically, into nested drop down menus again as deep as you like. Again apply the KISS principle, there is nothing wrong with a single level.

3 The Template The Template is designed to format your web site. Fonts, sizes and other settings have been pre set here. Where content is displayed is also set here. The template has a variety of module positions which determines where common. Content modules can be assigned a position and appear on any pages associated with a menu.. It can be published or unpublished as required. This position graphic can be found under Extensions -Templates, click the small image..

4 Creating Categories, Articles, Menus and Modules All items can be created using a menu similar to the one below, try to give items unique names that you understand. On most sites we use the titles of the documents and menu items in the headings and titles. Use the NEW button to commence a new item. Articles and Categories are straight forward, simply click, name, (categorize for articles) and enter the content. Menu and Modules have a different selection of styles to choose from. The one below is the Module selection. The menu item has a similar looking selection. Mostly they are logical, some you won t understand, and should t try just yet. For Modules the most used will be Custom HTML for articles or info you want to appear in a position somewhere other than the main article position. If you have an image rotator for example, you would set it up in Modules and then select what pages you want it to show on. Menus have a similar selection. The easy way to see what to do is click on a Module or Menu item and see what is selected.

5 The Category and Article Manager is the place you should visit first, it is a filing system which enables you to find things easily. Categories (and sub categories) can be created as you please and can be changed, deleted or added to as required. All articles should be assigned to a Category. If you forget you can come back and do it later, or change the category any time.

6 Creating an article Go to article manager - click new Enter title - this should be a unique name where possible. Select a category Select published / unpublished Save as you go If you want to work on an article and don t want it published just yet, select unpublished till you are ready to show it.

7 Adding content Enter text directly or use the Paste from Word or Paste as Text buttons. Paste as Text should be used when taking text from web pages, formatted documents such as PDFs or anywhere that stray code may become part of the site. If you forget, just delete and start again. Images can be added with image button in the editing panel, if uploading an image use the image button on the bottom of the panel.

8 Showing Pages or Content Pages which you see on the web site are created by specifying a menu item. These link to your articles. Your pages can be set up as a single article, if you want more than one article to show use the Category Blog, which will show all articles in that Category. It can be in single column format or multiple columns. If the article is too long, an introduction can be shown with a read more link attached to it, on clicking it will present as a single page. This enables you to place the intro text of multiple articles which you want to promote on the home page for example without the page becoming too deep. Key points: Articles in a Blog will need to be in a specific category. A page break (read more) break needs to be added to shorten an article if it is too long for the page. The tool to do this is at the bottom of the edit screen. The ordering of articles can be changed in a variety of ways, including publish date, create date, and various other ways. It is flexible.