Using Joomla!

With Joomla you can create anything from a simple personal website to a complex ecommerce or social site with millions of visitors.

This section of the sample data provides you with a brief introduction to Joomla concepts and reference material to help you understand how Joomla works.

When you no longer need the sample data, you can can simply unpublish the sample data category found within each extension in the site administrator or you may completely delete each item and all of the categories.

Administrator Components

All components are also used in the administrator area of your website. In addition to the ones listed here, there are components in the administrator that do not have direct front end displays, but do help shape your site. The most important ones for most users are

  • Media Manager
  • Extensions Manager
  • Menu Manager
  • Global Configuration
  • Banners
  • Redirect

Content

The content component (com_content) is what you use to write articles. It is extremely flexible and has the largest number of built in views. Articles can be created and edited from the front end, making content the easiest component to use to create your site content. Help

Archive Module

This module shows a list of the calendar months containing archived articles. After you have changed the status of an article to archived, this list will be automatically generated. Help

{loadmodule articles_archive,Archived Articles}

Related Items Module

This module displays other Articles that are related to the one currently being viewed. These relations are established by the Meta Keywords.  All the keywords of the current Article are searched against all the keywords of all other published articles. Help

{loadmodule related_items,Articles Related Items}

Options

As you make your Joomla! site you will control the details of the display using options also referred to as parameters. Options control everything from whether the author’s name is displayed to who can view what to the number of items shown on a list.

Default options for each component are changed using the Options button on the component toolbar.

Options can also be set on an individual item, such as an article or contact and in menu links.

If you are happy with how your site looks, it is fine to leave all of the options set to the defaults that were created when your site was installed. As you become more experienced with Joomla you will use options more.