Joomla! is one of the most popular open source content management systems. It's powerful, it's relatively easy to learn, and it's freely available, which explains why over the last few years it's become the engine behind millions and millions of websites worldwide. In January 2011, the much awaited version 1.6 was released. Version 1.6 is the third major release since the introduction of Joomla! in 2005.
Joomla! 1.6 is a big step forward, introducing great new features such as a flexible content categorization system (enabling you to organize content in as many categories and subcategories as you want) and a new Access Control Levels system, allowing you to control in great detail what logged in users are allowed to see and do on the site. But there's much more to Joomla! 1.6—a huge number of improvements in usability and functionality that make it more fun, and even less hassle to create state-of-the-art, user-friendly websites. Joomla! 1.6 First Look introduces you to all major new features. It focuses on practical examples and helps you to get the most out of the innovations of this new release.
Chapter 1, Stepping up to Joomla 1.6, introduces you to what's new in Joomla! 1.6. You'll learn what's needed to install the new Joomla! release and to upgrade from the previous version, Joomla! 1.5.
Chapter 2, Exploring your Enhanced Workspace, shows you what's changed in the Joomla! backend interface: a new design, new screens, changes in menus and toolbars. You'll learn the practical effect this has on creating and maintaining sites with Joomla!.
Chapter 3, Organizing and Managing Content, covers key changes in Joomla! 1.6 that affect organizing, adding, and editing articles. You'll learn the benefits of using the new system to organize content and you'll learn to use some powerful new ways to present content on your site.
Chapter 4, Managing Menus and Menu Modules, covers enhancements in the way you work with menus and menu modules. Joomla! 1.6 not only makes it easier to manage menu contents and the menu modules, there are also new menu item types available.
Chapter 5, Managing Site Users with Access Control, introduces you to one of the biggest changes in Joomla! 1.6—the all-new Access Control Levels system. You'll learn how to use this complex system in a practical and efficient way and to control which users are permitted to view and manage content on your site.
Chapter 6, New Flexibility in Using Templates, explains what's new in selecting, using, and editing templates. You'll learn all about a new feature called Template Styles and about the great set of brand new templates that come with Joomla! 1.6.
Chapter 7, Unleashing the New Power of Extensions, focuses on using and maintaining extensions in Joomla! 1.6. The extensions screen has been overhauled, installed extensions can be updated automatically, and some great new modules have been added to the Joomla! default package.
Chapter 8, SEO Improvements, covers the new features for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In this chapter, you'll find out in what respects Joomla! has become more SEO-friendly and you'll learn more about the techniques you can use to help search engines to find and rank important content on your site.
To be able to follow along and try out the new features of Joomla! 1.6 for yourself, you need to have Joomla! 1.6 (and the sample data that come with it) installed on your computer or a web server. In Chapter 1, you'll find some useful information on installing Joomla! and the server requirements for Joomla! 1.6.
Joomla! 1.6 First Look is targeted at existing Joomla! users and developers. If you've some experience in using Joomla! 1.5, you're probably curious to find out what's new and how the improvements can help you to create better websites with less effort. You don't want to dive into the basics of Joomla, but you do want to learn about the main new features and try them out for yourself. This book helps you with clear step-by-step instructions, well illustrated with screenshots.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Moreover, all heading elements—previously styled with proprietary Joomla! style names, such as contentheading—are now outputted according to web standards, using the H1 (Heading 1) style for the main title, H2 for secondary titles, and so forth."
A block of code is set as follows:
<li> id="current" class="active item435"> <a class="customstyle" ref="/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured& Itemid=435">Home </a> </li>
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
<li> id="current" class="active item435">
<a class="customstyle"
ref="/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured&
Itemid=435">Home
</a>
</li>
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Go to Menu Manager | Menus and click on the Main Menu name in the Title column".
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