B. Resources
There are many resources for helping you make and improve your site. We have gathered a few of them that we have found useful here, but as you gain experience as a Web site administrator, you will find many more. The Joomla! community is always sharing links, advice, and information about various sites in the social networking sphere. Join Joomla! on Facebook, Twitter, and on the People site (http://people.joomla.org).
Basic Joomla! Resources
The Joomla! Project operates one of the largest families of Web sites in the world. Each of the sites serves a different purpose.
http://joomla.org
The main site provides basic information about the Joomla! Project and software. Major project announcements are posted here.
http://forum.joomla.org
The Joomla! forums are the place to get (and give) support.
http://docs.joomla.org
The documentation site includes detailed documentation for all aspects of Joomla!
http://extensions.joomla.org
Known as the JED, the Joomla! Extensions Directory is the best central location for finding extensions for Joomla!
http://resources.joomla.org
The Joomla! Resources Directory (JRD) is the best place to find Joomla! professionals, ranging from hosts, designers, and template houses to consultants, trainers, and others.
http://community.joomla.org
The community Web site is the center for information for people who are contributors to the Joomla! Project. The team blogs that are posted here are important sources of information about what is happening in the project. The site also has information about Joomla! User Groups and translations.
http://joomlacode.org
The code site is where the actual code that makes up Joomla! is stored and developed. It also hosts the Issue Tracker where bugs for the Joomla! CMS can be reported and is the development site for thousands of Joomla! extensions. If you ever develop an extension, you can use JoomlaCode to manage it.
http://api.joomla.org
This is the place where information for developers using the Joomla! framework is presented. If you want to understand the code behind Joomla!, this is an essential resource.
http://people.joomla.org
People is the social networking site for users and people active in various parts of the Joomla! world. It is a fun resource where you can meet other people from around the world who are interested in similar topics.
http://developer.joomla.org
Developer is a site aimed mainly at Joomla! software developers, including both those working to develop the Joomla! CMS and Joomla! Platform and those building extensions and applications using them. It includes information such as the developer manual, the results of unit testing, planned release dates, development policies, and other items of interest to developers.
https://github.com/joomla
Although not on the joomla.org family of sites, GitHub is the center of core Joomla! development activity. If you register for an account, you can easily track changes in the Joomla! CMS and the Joomla! Platform. You can even contribute bug fixes and code improvements right on the site.
The following are important specific pages that are on the family of Joomla.org sites.
Vulnerable Extensions List
http://docs.joomla.org/Vulnerable_Extensions_List
The vulnerable extensions list is the place to check an extension prior to installing it and also to monitor your extensions over time.
Site Showcase
http://community.joomla.org/showcase
The Site Showcase features thousands of beautiful Joomla! Web sites that can inspire you. This is a great place to look for ideas.
Download
This is the page from which to download Joomla! You can also check here to make sure you have the current version and sign up for the security notification mailing list.
Tools for Web Site Creators and Site Developers
There are a large number of online tools that site developers can use to help build and manage their sites.
Web-site-map
This site will help you produce a proper XML site map to submit to Google. These site maps work with Joomla! and a number of Joomla! extensions. The same site also offers a broken-link checker for your site. This is useful because broken links are annoying to your users and may hurt your search engine ranking.
Lispum.com
This site generates the classic Lorem Ipsum dummy text that you can use to work on your site design before your content is completely ready.
W3.org
http://validator.w3.org www.w3.org
There are established standards for Web site HTML and CSS. These are designed for accessibility and performance and to encourage browsers to work consistently in the ways that users and designers expect. You can test whether your site validates by entering a URL in the online validator. The www.w3.org/ site provides extensive information on Web standards.
Search Engines
You want to make sure that people can find your Web site. These are the main places you should work on, as described in Chapter 9.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
The best way to get results into Google is to integrate Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. Follow the instructions on the sites.
Bing
www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx
Bing only requires you to submit your domain.
DMOZ
The Open Directory Project only requires a submission with a suggested category for your domain. Think carefully about what category makes the most sense for your domain.
Learn HTML and CSS Skills
Joomla! is designed for easy content creation without the need to know the underlying languages of the Web, HTML and CSS. However, to take total control of your site and to be able to format exactly the way you want, you will need to learn basic HTML and CSS. If you have worked through the sample sites in Chapters 11, 12, and 13, you will have already seen the power of this.
W3Schools
This site has one of the largest collections of reference materials and tutorials for Web site developers, including extensive materials on CSS and HTML. It also contains tutorials for PHP and MySQL, which are useful if you want to understand the code in the files that make up the Joomla! software.
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS
Wikipedia provides a wealth of information on HTML and CSS.
CSS Play
These sites contain a wealth of information that help you explore CSS in depth.
HTML, CSS, and Color Cheat Sheets
There are many reference documents for HTML and CSS. We find these short cheat sheets useful: www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors.
If you look for reference materials on the Web, make sure to check the date published since in many instances old guidance will not work well with modern browsers or meet current Web standards.
Improve the Design of Your Site
These sites can help you learn about design and improve the attractiveness of your site by showing inspirational examples or by supplying design elements such as images and media.
Google Web Fonts
http://code.google.com/webfonts
Google provides access to a set of fonts you can use to move beyond the limited number of Web-safe fonts as described in Chapter 11.
CSS Zen Garden
CSS Zen Garden is the best-known site for seeing examples of how to use CSS to radically change the way that Web content is presented.
Color Pickers and Schemers
www.colorschemer.com/online.html
Color Schemer, Colour Lovers, and Kuler are all useful sites to try various color schemes and to produce color-theory-informed schemes with a specific base color. All these sites have active communities that will give feedback and advice on schemes you develop and share schemes that they create.
A List Apart
This is a favorite Web site for Web site designers and developers because of its well-thought-out and useful articles.
Smashing Magazine
This is a favorite online magazine for site designers and developers for its excellent articles, advice, and downloadable royalty-free graphics, icon sets, vectors, and other goodies.
Stock.XCHNG
This is a really useful source of royalty-free images. We got our images for the toy store example site from this site.
Morgue File
This is a great source for royalty-free photos.
WikiMedia Commons
This is a source for a variety of images and videos that are licensed for your use. In our nonprofit Web site, we obtained the image in the news article from WikiMedia Commons.
Bootstrap
http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
The official home of Twitter Bootstrap, which is the CSS and JavaScript framework underlying the Joomla! user interface starting with Joomla! 3.
Bootswatch
A source for ready-made CSS packages using Twitter Bootstrap.
Style Bootstrap
This is a neat alternative to the official Bootstrap site for generating your own Bootstrap.css. It has a more visual interface than the official site.
Web Standards, Usability, and Accessibility
Jakob Nielsen
Jakob Nielsen has a really ugly but highly usable site that features his research on Web usability.
Usability.gov
A resource from the Department of Health and Human Services with detailed information on usability issues.
Web Accessibility Initiative
This group develops the guidelines regarded as the international standard for Web accessibility.
Section 508
This is the official Web site for Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act.
Europa
This is the official site of the European Commission. There are areas on this site that specifically detail initiatives taken in Europe regarding accessibility, usability, and Web standards.
Underlying Software of Joomla!
Joomla! builds on a number of underlying applications. Although it is not necessary to master or even know much about these (because Joomla! takes care of that for you), you may want to learn more or increase your understanding.
PHP
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/index.php
PHP is the language in which most of Joomla! is written. We love the PHP online manual, and it’s really useful for things like looking up how formatting dates work, which you need to know to customize calendars.
MySQL
www.mysql.com/?bydis_dis_index=1
MySQL and MySQLi are the databases that Joomla! uses to manage content and other information. Manuals for different versions of MySQL are available on the MySQL sites.
JQuery
JQuery is the JavaScript framework included in Twitter Bootstrap and used in Joomla! starting with version 3.
MooTools
MooTools is the JavaScript framework that powers much of the Joomla! back end in Joomla! 2.5 and provides many useful visual effects.
Apache
www.apachefriends.org/en/index.html
Your Joomla! site is hosted on a server. Apache is the most common server software used for Joomla! hosting. You can also download the application XAMPP from the Apache Web site, which will allow you to have Joomla! on your regular computer. Many experienced users like to have an installation on their own computers to test and experiment on before uploading to their host.
IIS
www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/joomla.aspx
IIS is an alternative to Apache and is a Microsoft Windows–based server. You can learn more about IIS at the main site, or you can download the Joomla! installation package to set up a local installation of Joomla! on a Windows computer.
Other Resources for Business
There are thousands of resources for businesses, and of course many companies provide services for business Web sites.
PayPal
As discussed in Chapter 11, PayPal is one of the simplest-to-use payment processors.
Google Wallet
Google offers its own payment processor. Click on the link that says Information for Sellers.
U.S. Trademark Office
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office provides useful information about trademarks. Other countries have their own offices, but you may find the general information about trademarks at USPTO useful.
World Intellectual Property Organization
The WIPO site contains information on trademarks for all countries that are signatories of the Madrid protocol.
U.S. Library of Congress Copyright Office
The U.S. Copyright Office provides information about copyright protection for works in the United States.
Other Resources for Nonprofits and Organizations
There are many organizations that provide support services of various kinds that can be integrated with your Joomla! site. Some of these are discussed in Chapter 12, although if you are managing a nonprofit Web site, you should watch for new opportunities.
TechSoup
This is a site where many nonprofit opportunities are announced and discussed by nonprofit professionals.
GuideStar
GuideStar lists information about all 501(c)3 organizations, and donors use the information there to learn about yours. Make sure that the information GuideStar reports is accurate and up-to-date. Providing a link to your GuideStar listing is a good way of helping donors to be confident in your organization.
Network for Good
Network for Good assists nonprofits with donation processing by managing some of the complex legal issues involved in soliciting donations on the Internet. They also provide important information about your organization to donors and volunteers.
YourCause
YourCause provides another way for your constituents to raise funds for your nonprofit.
eBay and Related Sites That Tie into eBay for Charitable Giving
eBay provides several services specifically for nonprofits wanting to leverage eBay sites for fund-raising.
Other Resources for Schools and Education
Schools have some special needs to consider, especially schools that are kindergarten through twelfth grade. Frequently the network administrators of districts or schools that deal with minor children have to use specific Internet content filtering and other network security protocols. This can make finding resources that are usable in the classroom difficult. Resources that are child safe can be an important part of any school’s curriculum. Check with your school’s administrators for a list of online resources that are available to use in the content of your site, such as videos, streaming media, and images. You can also research what online chat and video software is available to connect your classroom to the world.
Google Apps
www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html
Google provides a free special edition of its application suite to schools. Many of its elements can be integrated into your Joomla! site.
Youth Voices
Youth Voices provides a safe environment for students and teachers to collaborate on the Web.
TeacherTube
Many schools have policies that prohibit the use of general video sites such as YouTube. TeacherTube provides an alternative.
National Geographic Online Education Resources
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education
This is a child-friendly educational resource site.
Discovery Education Classroom Resources
http://school.discoveryeducation.com
Discovery offers a number of classroom resources on a variety of subjects.
Stanford University Center for Internet and Society
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter12/12-c.html
The CIS at Stanford University provides a sample photo release form, including releases for people younger than 18, that schools can adapt for use when including images on their sites.