Preface

Joomla! 4 Masterclass is a book that explores all the major functionalities of the new version of the software. Joomla is one of the most widely used Content Management Systems (CMSes), powering around 2.7% of the world’s websites. Joomla 4.x, released in the third quarter of 2021, is the new major version of the CMS, coming 9 years after the release of Joomla 3.0, and is packed with many new features that empower website integrators, allowing them to build rich websites with ease.

CMSes such as Joomla allow you to develop a website without having coding skills or a command of the PHP, JavaScript, or CSS language. In many cases, you can build composite layouts visually using a drag-and-drop interface. Furthermore, you can extend a CMS’s functionalities by adding extensions, such as plugins, so that you can transform your website into an online shop, a reservation system, or an e-learning portal. All the major CMSes on the market benefit from a large ecosystem of developers providing extensions and templates to heavily customize a website and satisfy most of the needs of website developers or owners.

This book will show you how to build a website, using the numerous features included in Joomla, and debunk certain myths related to its perceived complexity.

Use of the Joomla!® name, symbol, logo, and related trademarks is permitted under a limited license granted by Open Source Matters, Inc.

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for all those who want to start using Joomla, irrespective of whether they have used a previous version or not. Joomla newcomers will benefit from the inclusion of screenshots depicting the functionalities and step-by-step guides. Experienced Joomla users will be introduced to the brand-new features of Joomla 4, seeing them in action in the examples and analyzing three real case studies.

This book is suitable for either website developers or CMS integrators, as well as website owners that would like to become independent, managing their websites by themselves. Exercises at the end of each chapter allow the readers to apply and test their knowledge.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, A Powerful and Extensible Core, introduces the Joomla core, presenting the backend interface and its main features, and the opportunities to expand its functionalities using extensions.

Chapter 2, How to Manage Content, explores the content management features, explains how to structure content, and compares Joomla’s functionalities with other major CMSes.

Chapter 3, Advanced Content Management, points out some advanced features for handling content, whether scheduled publishing options, custom fields, how to build a custom publishing workflow, or how to produce accessible content.

Chapter 4, Exploring the Flexibility of Modules, explains modules, a basic and flexible element that is used to build both the frontend and backend layouts of the website. Modules can display specific content in a particular position on the website.

Chapter 5, Building Your Site Structure – the Menu System, teaches the reader how to build the navigation system of a website through the menu, build complex navigation structures, handle different menu item lists, manage language associations for multilingual sites, and govern access permissions.

Chapter 6, Managing Users and Their Permissions, demonstrates how to manage user accounts, registration, login, permissions, and much more. Furthermore, it introduces the powerful Access Control List (ACL) system.

Chapter 7, SEO at Its Best, details all the integrated features that can improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the website.

Chapter 8, One Site, Multiple Languages, illustrates how to build a multilanguage website in Joomla thanks to the built-in features.

Chapter 9, Planning Operations with Scheduled Tasks, presents the tool for scheduling and automating recurring operations on a website.

Chapter 10, Tailored Communication with Mail Templates, shows the reader how to customize default emails sent by their website.

Chapter 11, Command-Line Interface, describes the CLI offered by Joomla, showing how to execute operations on the website through the terminal.

Chapter 12, Styling Your Website – Templates, provides an overview of the templates and shows how to customize the look and feel of a website using Joomla’s options.

Chapter 13, Customizing Everything with Overrides, is all about overrides, a method that allows you to customize how part of a website looks without the need to alter the original template.

Chapter 14, Child Templates, reveals a brand-new functionality of Joomla that allows you to create derived styles and templates, increasing the degree of customization and simplifying maintenance.

Chapter 15, Template Frameworks, goes through the most used template frameworks in Joomla, going through their options and showing how to build a custom style with ease.

Chapter 16, Advanced Features – Access and Security, covers some advanced functionalities dedicated to logging in, multi-factor authentication, and site security hardening.

Chapter 17, Case Study – A Corporate Website in Joomla, makes use of a case study to show how the CMS has been used to build a company’s main website, replacing an old JSP frontend with a fast and lightweight website.

Chapter 18, Case Study – An Online Academy with Joomla, implements another case study with a CMS that has been used to build an e-learning portal that sells and provides access to thousands of online lessons for many students.

Chapter 19, Case Study – A B&B Booking System with Joomla, incorporates another practical example of a CMS that has been used to build the website for a tourist rental flat, implementing a full-featured reservation system integrated with online booking portals.

To get the most out of this book

It’s recommended to set up a personal installation of Joomla that can be either local (for example, using XAMPP) or online (for example, using launch.joomla.org). Using an online free instance would be preferable, as you don’t have to install and configure local web servers.

In the case study presented in Chapter 19, the Pro version of Solidres and some paid plugins were used.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/jaQUU.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Simply create a new file under the /css folder of your template called custom.css.”

A block of code is set as follows:

.myfooter {
  font-size: 13px;
  font-weight: 600;
  color: #1c77ba;
}

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “From System Dashboard, open Site Templates.”

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

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