Preface
When planning what should be in a book about Joomla!, we thought hard about what process we go through when building Web sites and when helping others build sites. What we decided is that this book should be about building a Web site using Joomla! rather than how to use Joomla! to build a Web site. Even though you can make a Web site using Joomla! in a few hours (or less), most likely it won’t be a great site nor will it allow you take advantage of the power of Joomla! The focus should always be on how you envision your site, the goals of the site, and the audiences you wish to reach rather than on the technology used to create it.
Fortunately, with its combination of power and ease of use Joomla! lets you keep your focus on the big picture of your site and the small details of your content and not on mastering a complicated set of processes. This is why we start with a thorough discussion of things to think about before you start building your site.
We’ve also built a set of very simple sample sites that will give you a good idea about the initial process of thinking about and then building sites for various purposes. We hope that you’ll follow along with the construction of those sites so that you understand the process that site developers use. If you do these first, you will be ready to build your own site with confidence and a good plan.
In addition, we try to help you have a basic understanding of how Joomla! really works “under the hood,” so that when you are ready to take advantage of the power that comes with its extensibility you will have the knowledge you need. We think that, like us, you will want to steadily increase the sophistication of your site and your knowledge and understanding of Joomla! So we’ve written this book with the idea of giving you a strong foundation for the future of your site and other sites you may build in the future. Free and open source software is empowering, but you have to have solid knowledge of the fundamentals to take advantage of it.
We’re passionate about Joomla!, and we hope that you will be too. That’s why we take time in this book to introduce you to the Joomla! Project and the Joomla! community. We hope that you’ll want to become an active participant in the Joomla! world. And we hope that you enjoy building your site so much that you end up building other sites for friends, family members, and organizations or causes you care about.
How This Book Is Organized
Joomla! empowers you to produce a beautiful, content-rich, usable site yourself. We wrote this book to help you do just that. It is organized to follow the process of building a Web site in a sequence that is similar to what a Web professional would use. It is not designed to produce an instant Web site, but rather to take you through a process that will end up with a site that will work for you and your users for the long term, whether you keep it simple or decide to make it more complex. We emphasize building a solid understanding of tools that you use in building a Joomla! site so that you have the power to use them on your own.
We start in Chapter 1 with what Joomla! is and why you would use it for your site. Then in Chapter 2 we turn to the planning work you should do before you start creating your site, ranging from planning the design to choosing a host. Next, in Chapter 3 we show you how to install Joomla! yourself.
Chapter 4 starts with the process of actually working with Joomla!, beginning with configuration. Chapters 5 and 6 continue to get you started with creating your site’s content by showing you how to work with the variety of tools Joomla! offers, including components, modules, plugins, and languages.
Chapters 7 and 8 turn to managing the design of your site by working with Joomla! templates. Chapter 7 explores the core templates in depth and explains how to use built-in customization features. It also explains how to modify them to meet your site’s needs and gives you an introduction to HTML and CSS that will empower you to create and maintain the appearance of your site. Chapter 8 walks you through the process of creating a simple template from scratch.
Chapters 9 and 10 move to making your site successful and managing it for the long term. Chapter 9 looks at how to effectively market your site to the target audience you have identified. It covers how to manage a growing site, maintenance, and the effective use of navigation. Keeping your software up-to-date and your site content safely backed up is absolutely essential for the long-term health of your site, and Chapter 10 explains in detail how to manage these.
Chapters 11, 12, and 13 go through the process of building a basic site from start to finish. Using a small business, a nonprofit club, and a school as examples, each chapter explores how to put all of the elements of a site—the core of Joomla!, extensions, and a template—together to create a site that works for you and for your users. We encourage you to follow along with building each of these sites step by step so that you can follow a similar process when building your site.
One reason we love to use Joomla! to build Web sites is because of the people who make up the Joomla! community. In Chapter 14 we introduce you to some of those people, and we hope that you like them as much as we do. They give great advice and information about their areas of expertise, ranging from marketing to security to software development. We also hope that you will join the Joomla! community too.
A note about Joomla! versions in this book. This book covers the use of both Joomla! 2.5 and Joomla! 3. Although the two releases look very different, the functionality is essentially the same. In places where there are major differences between the two we have noted that. Many of the images where there are not major differences show Joomla! 3.0 since Joomla! 3 will be the main release for the time that this book will be in print. However, if you would like images for Joomla! 2.5, you can get them at our Web site, http://officialjoomlabook.com. If you are using Joomla! 2.5, you may want to use Chapter 13 (the school) in particular since that chapter uses images from Joomla! 2.5 as the base with examples from Joomla! 3 where there are important differences. If future releases of Joomla! 3 make important changes, you will also find information about them on our Web site.
Finally, check our Web site for information on and downloads of any extensions used in the sample sites that are not available for your version of Joomla!