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Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide Second Edition - Third Edition

By : Eric Tiggeler

4.8 (4)

Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide Second Edition

4.8 (4)

By: Eric Tiggeler

Overview of this book

An easy to use, step-by-step guide to creating professional, mobile-friendly websites with the free Joomla CMS. The Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide Second Edition is the ultimate guide for web developers who wish to build upon their skills and knowledge on creating websites. Even if you’re new to this subject, you won’t have any difficulty understanding the clear and friendly instructions and explanations. No prior knowledge of HTML and CSS is required.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Time for action – heading

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. A New and Easy Way to Build Websites

1. A New and Easy Way to Build Websites

Join the CMS revolution

Why would you choose Joomla!?

What kind of sites can you build with Joomla!?

Learning to use Joomla!

Summary

2. Getting Joomla! Up and Running

2. Getting Joomla! Up and Running

What do you need to start?

Installing Joomla! on a web server

Time for action – downloading the Joomla! files

Time for action – placing the files on the web server

Time for action – creating a database

Time for action – running the Joomla! installation wizard

Installing Joomla! on your own computer

Time for action – installing XAMPP

Time for action – creating a MySQL database

Time for action – downloading Joomla! and running the installation wizard

Upgrading from previous versions of Joomla!

Got stuck? Get help!

Summary

3. First Steps – Getting to Know Joomla!

3. First Steps – Getting to Know Joomla!

Building websites the Joomla! way

Introducing the frontend and backend – the Joomla! interface

Exploring the frontend – the website as the user sees it

Time for action – touring the example site

Administering your site in the backend

Time for action – logging in to the backend

Getting your feet wet – start administering your site

Time for action – publishing your first article

Time for action – adding a module to the site

Time for action – setting Joomla! preferences

Summary

4. Web Building Basics – Creating a Site in an Hour

4. Web Building Basics – Creating a Site in an Hour

What you will be making

Removing the sample data

Time for action – deleting articles and categories

Time for action – deleting menus

Building your new site in three steps

Time for action – creating a copy of the current template

Time for action – preparing a new logo image

Time for action – tweaking the design details

Time for action – creating a news category

Time for action – creating an article

Time for action – adding a menu link

Time for action – adding uncategorized articles

Time for action – assigning articles to the home page

Time for action – creating a contact

Time for action – creating a Contact Form menu link

Time for action – creating a message block

Wrapping up – changing site settings

Time for action – changing the site configuration

Summary

5. Small Sites, Big Sites – Organizing Your Content Effectively

5. Small Sites, Big Sites – Organizing Your Content Effectively

Building on the example site

Grouping content – a crash course on site organization

Time for action – creating a future-proof site map

Creating categories and subcategories

Time for action – creating a category and subcategories

Displaying main categories and subcategories on your site

Time for action – creating a link to point to a main category

Refining your site structure

Time for action – moving content from one category to another

Time for action – renaming a category

Using tags to label and organize content

Time for action – creating a tag

Summary

6. Creating Killer Content – Adding and Editing Articles

6. Creating Killer Content – Adding and Editing Articles

Articles and content pages – what's the difference?

Creating and editing articles – beyond the basics

Making your words look good – formatting article text

Time for action – adding styles to the article text

Extending the text editor

Adding images to articles

Time for action – uploading images

Time for action – inserting and aligning images

Changing the way the article is displayed

Time for action – creating intro text

Time for action – using page breaks to split up an article

Displaying images and links with articles

Time for action – adding images and links to an article

Restoring a previous version of an article

Tweaking the details – changing article settings

Archiving articles

Time for action – creating a News archive

Summary

7. Welcoming Your Visitors – Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages

7. Welcoming Your Visitors – Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages

Why do you need overview pages anyway?

Mastering the home page layout

Time for action – rearranging the layout of articles on the home page

Time for action – showing the most recent items first

Time for action – creating a different home page

Creating category overview pages

The first type of overview page – creating Category Blog layouts

Time for action – creating a face book using the Blog layout

The second type of overview page – lists

Time for action – adding a link to a Category List layout

Creating overview pages that show tagged articles

Time for action – creating a tagged items overview page

Summary

8. Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want – Managing Menus

8. Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want – Managing Menus

How many menus can you have?

Creating user-friendly navigation – cleaning up Main Menu

Time for action – changing the order of menu items

Time for action – creating a secondary menu item

Time for action – create a new, empty menu

Time for action – moving hyperlinks to the new menu

Time for action – telling Joomla! where to display the menu

Using the horizontal drop-down menu as the main menu

Time for action – displaying Main Menu links in Top Menu

Exploring menu module settings

What types of menu links are available?

Creating plain text links

Time for action – creating text links

Summary

9. Opening Up the Site – Enabling Users to Log in and Contribute

9. Opening Up the Site – Enabling Users to Log in and Contribute

Working with the default set of user groups

Time for action – adding a user with frontend authoring permissions

Time for action – putting Login Form on the home page

Time for action – logging in as a frontend content contributor

Time for action – reviewing and publishing submitted content

Enabling self-registration – allowing visitors to register

Time for action – registering yourself and logging in

Time for action – hiding content for nonregistered users

Time for action – partially hiding content from nonregistered users

Creating custom-made user groups

Time for action – creating a user group

Time for action – telling Joomla! what the group can see

Time for action – telling Joomla! what the group can do

Time for action – adding users to the new group

Summary

10. Getting the Most out of Your Site – Extending Joomla!

10. Getting the Most out of Your Site – Extending Joomla!

Extensions in all shapes and sizes

Enhancing your site using core extensions

Time for action – adding the Newsflash module to the home page

Time for action – adding a series of contacts

Enhancing your site using third-party extensions

Time for action – downloading and installing an extension

Time for action – putting the extension to work

Time for action – creating an image gallery

Time for action – replacing the default text editor of Joomla!

Managing the site language

Time for action – removing or replacing default texts

Summary

11. Creating an Attractive Design – Working with Templates

11. Creating an Attractive Design – Working with Templates

What do templates do?

Why are templates so much fun?

Changing the settings of the current template

Time for action – changing the site color and layout options

Switching to a different template

Time for action – activating a different template

Applying template styles to individual pages

Time for action – creating a template style for one specific page

Downloading and installing a new template

Time for action – downloading and activating a new template

Time for action – adding the logo file

Time for action – adding a menu module

Time for action – placing modules in new template positions

Customizing a template – tweaking CSS styles

Time for action – customizing the background color using CSS

Backing up and restoring a customized template

Where can you get a new template for your site?

Creating your own template

Using a template framework as the base for your own template

Summary

12. Attracting Search Engine Traffic – SEO Tips and Techniques

12. Attracting Search Engine Traffic – SEO Tips and Techniques

Working on search engine optimization

Optimizing articles to make them easy to find

Configuring HTML page titles

Time for action – setting the HTML page title

Adding meaningful metadata

Time for action – personalizing the site metadata

Using search engine friendly URLs

Adding extra links to the site's content

Time for action – adding a list of links to popular articles

Adding microdata to your content

Redirecting visitors after pages have been moved

Time for action – creating page redirects

Getting to know more about your site's traffic

More SEO resources

Summary

A. Keeping the Site Secure

A. Keeping the Site Secure

Choosing a web host that meets your security requirements

B. Creating a Multilingual Site

B. Creating a Multilingual Site

Creating a new site with multilingual capabilities

Creating a translated version of an existing site

C. Pop Quiz Answers

Chapter 2, Getting Joomla! Up and Running

Chapter 3, First Steps – Getting to Know Joomla!

Chapter 4, Web Building Basics – Creating a Site in an Hour

Chapter 5, Small Sites, Big Sites – Organizing Your Content Effectively

Chapter 6, Creating Killer Content – Adding and Editing Articles

Chapter 7, Welcoming Your Visitors – Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview Pages

Chapter 8, Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want – Managing Menus

Chapter 9, Opening Up the Site – Enabling Users to Log in and Contribute

Chapter 10, Getting the Most out of Your Site – Extending Joomla!

Chapter 11, Creating an Attractive Design – Working with Templates

Chapter 12, Attracting Search Engine Traffic – SEO Tips and Techniques

Index

Index

Time for action – adding a menu module

The template we've downloaded, Ice Future, comes with a couple of free modules. You don't really need them in order to be able to use the template. However, they can add useful functionality to your site. Especially the IceMegaMenu module has many advantages in comparison to the Joomla menu module, and it renders a menu that blends in nicely with the template design. Let's add this module.

Navigate to Extensions | Extension Manager and click on the Upload Package File button. Then, click on Browse to navigate to the downloaded menu module, that is, the mod_icemegamenu_v.3.0.2.zip file. Install this module.
Next, select the plg_icemegamenu0.zip plugin and install this plugin too.
Enable the plugin. Go to Extensions | Plug-in Manager and locate the IceMegaMenu plugin. Click on the red cross in the Status column. It will change into a check mark, which means that the plugin is now active.
Now, we can also enable the menu module and change...

Visually different images

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