The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Joomla
Ash Nallawalla
ash@melbpc.org.au

It has never been easier for you to install and maintain a professional-looking Web site. You don't even need to know HTML or any computer language. How can this be possible? I will show you the basic steps of setting up such a site.

Step 1
 
You need to find a Web hosting account whose list of features includes the following magic words: cPanel and Fantastico (Figure 1). Most hosting accounts come with a control panel. Some Linux-based hosts offer a control panel called cPanel. A control panel hides the complexity of running a Web site; in fact, these days site owners don't even think of it as complex. With a control panel you can set up email accounts, check your visitor statistics, host other sites on the same account, perform backups and so on.


Figure 1

You need to find a Web hosting account whose list of features includes the following magic words: cPanel and Fantastico (Figure 1). Most hosting accounts come with a control panel. Some Linux-based hosts offer a control panel called cPanel. A control panel hides the complexity of running a Web site; in fact, these days site owners don't even think of it as complex. With a control panel you can set up email accounts, check your visitor statistics, host other sites on the same account, perform backups and so on.

Most, but not all of them offer a script known as Fantastico, which is an installation control panel in itself. They couldn't have picked a better name because you can install dozens of scripts such as blogs, picture galleries, help desks, classified ad managers, and more. For this article we will install a Content Management System (CMS) called Joomla.

Think of a CMS as just a fancy name for a Web site that is easy to maintain without having any technical skills. Most portal sites or onling maagzines use a CMS that enables many people to add content without fear of breaking something. It doesn't really matter if the control panel is not cPanel with Fantastico, as long as it has the feature to install Joomla. Several control panels do this.

 


Figure 2

Step 2

Log into your control panel and scroll down to find the Fantastico icon. This displays the Fantastico menu. On the left, choose the Joomla option and click it. This opens the Joomla installation menu (Figure 2) where you should click the words "New Installation". You will now come to the next stage of the installation (Figure 3), where you supply the requested information, which you can edit later if you wish. Click the "Install Joomla" button. I used one of my domain names englandtourist.com for the article, but you will not find anything there now.
 


Step 3

Unlike discrete Web pages that you might have built in the past - get this - Joomla is just one page! This seemingly impossible situation is possible because most of the textual content lives inside a MySQL database called (in our example) england_joom1. This is created silently as part of the installation process you have started. The username of this database is also england_joom1. Click on "Finish installation" to continue.

I chose to install Joomla in the main directory of the domain englandtourist.com, so that the visitor is directly taken to Joomla at the address http://www.englandtourist.com/. You can see the default installation in Figure 5.

Administration
To customise Joomla, you enter the Administration menu at http://www.englandtourist.com/administrator/ using the credentials you set up during installation. The Joomla control panel is nice but I prefer to use the drop-down menus at the top (Figure 6) to perform various actions because the control panel does not present all the options.

There is a detailed Help system within Joomla, so I will not try to repeat it. I will point out some high level concepts to guide your way:

  • Get familiar with the site http://www.joomla.org and its Extensions site. For help, go to its Forum.

  • Use Google to look for Joomla bits and pieces. They are known as Components, Modules, and Mambots. Download them to your PC but do not unzip them. The Installers menu enables you to install them by uploading the zipped file.

  • After installing a component, module, or mambot, use their respective drop-down menu to configure them or to turn them on or off.

  • Joomla divides its single page into named Positions - rectangles - such as Banner, Left, Right, Top, and so on. Look at the Modules menu to get a grasp of what this means to the visibility or positioning of something you see on the home page. For example, the sample poll is on the right.

  • The Content menu is where you will spend most of your time once the initial set-up is finished. Get accustomed to the terminology and edit the sample content to see what happens.

  • Learn how the menus work. Some are linked to components or modules; some are linked to other sites.

  • If you break something (usually it isn't really broken but is merely hidden), you can go back to Fantastico and uninstall Joomla and reinstall it.

  • The appearance of Joomla can be improved by replacing its template with one of hundreds of third-party offerings. I subscribe to a paid service that releases a new template each month and you can see the result of a slightly customised installation at http://www.zuneusergroup.com/. Be sure to play with the supplied template before trying a new one because the latter might not include all the layout elements. For example, the banner may never display until you find out how to make it visible again.
Conclusion
I admit there is a lot more to Joomla than I have covered, but give yourself about two weeks of experimentation and you will agree that it is a very simple and powerful script. Once you have installed a new component or module, the next will become easier and before you know it, you will look for new features to install. Enjoy!

Reprinted from the December 2006 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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