Starting a new website is very exciting. You have all those great ideas about the site and you want to implement them. You want to expand your website after a while to feature a forum or even an online shop. The problem is that the platform that you have used so far does not allow you to easily incorporate such functionality to it. As was mentioned in a previous article you should be very careful with the technology that you use and not be very greedy on future expansions. Start small. But what if the main features, that you want your website to have, cannot be found in a blogging platform or you are not very familiar with Java or PHP programming to create a dynamic website from scratch. The answer to your problem is Joomla.
A content management system and much more.
Joomla is an opensource content management system for websites. No, that is a lie. Joomla is a platform for building dynamic, professional websites that allows you to manage your content as well, and it is absolutely free. If you add to the previous statement that it is expandable beyond conception and totally customizable (since it is opensource) you will have something that is almost right. You can create a totally dynamic website that offers many features to your visitors without writing a single line of code. Everything is done through Joomla's administrator backend that allows the administrator to manage every aspect of the website through an easy-to-use interface.
How do I start.
Installing Joomla is a simple process. It requires PHP and mysql support. After you have downloaded Joomla all you need to do is place it on the directory your website will be and open your browser to the url it will show on(“http://localhost” for the case of your test site on you computer). You will be presented with Joomla's setup wizard. In order to set it up you have to provide the wizard with database name that the system will use, your administrator's name and password and that's it. You can now go to the administrator's backend and start creating your site. Joomla's website offers a step by step guide on how to get it up and running in minutes.
Most web hosts provide out of the box PHP and mysql functionality so you will not have any problem hosting your Joomla based website. In fact many web hosts provide single-click installation of Joomla so you will not even have to download and then upload it to your host.
Create your pages
Joomla allows you to create content and then assign it to pages. It uses a hierarchy of content implemented into sections and categories. That way you can organize your content and place it to wherever you want on your pages. It provides you with a WYSIWYG editor and and a media management system for you images. Everything has its own management system so you can totally control everything; how something looks, where it will be placed,etc. For example menus are handled differently so you create a menu of links and place it somewhere on the screen. These links might be links to a content on your website or a link to a full component (your site's forum for example).
A Joomla template (your website's look and feel) also provides structuring. That means the template defines the positions on screen were content can be placed (top, left, right, bottom for example). The content management system allows you to reorder your items so, for example, you can have three totally different menus on the left and put on one top of the others or completely hide it without needing to change anything on the rest. That is extremely useful since you have complete control, on what is shown, with very little effort.
There are various different types of items on Joomla; content, modules and components are some of them. Each type is handled differently and provides different functionality keeping the hierarchical approach. For example you might have a component that handles all your user's registrations which would be the backbone of your user management and on top of that you will have 2 different modules that work with it; one to show a user's profile and another to show your top users.
Expand and customize
Joomla offers a selection of components and modules to get you started and create your website. But what if you need more. What if you want to incorporate flash games or chat on a page. The answer is that you can and, not only that but, you can do it with very little effort. There are literally thousands of plugins for joomla that offer new components and modules for your web site. All you have to do is download one and install it through the build-in plugin installer. After that you just set it to show on one of your pages and that's it.
Since Joomla is opensource you can customize everything about it. With a little knowledge of PHP and HTML you can alter components' functionality, change how your template looks and transform your website to look exactly how you have imagined it. Apart from new components and modules there are thousand of templates available for free to download and install with the same painless process you install components. Thus, even if you do not want to go code-diving to customize the looks you will find a template that suits your needs.
Your one stop dynamic website builder.
Joomla may at first look complex (and it is at some point) but it is definitely worth the time spend to learn it. After a few days of “playing” with it you will be able to create fantastic stuff that you could not think it was possible to do all by yourself. Make sure you download the manual in order to speed up the process of learning. With its monumental expandability and powerful content management you will be shocked that it is totally free.
