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From Joomla! Documentation

Absolute Beginners Guide to Joomla!, Novices and What is Joomla all redirect to here. As someone who has not used Joomla! before, you need to know how to get started. Maybe you have a friend or a neighbour who uses Joomla! and you want a Joomla! web site of your very own. Maybe you have a small business or a club or a community that needs a web presence, and you want to use Joomla! for that purpose. Maybe you are a seasoned Information Technology professional, but you have never Joomla! before. If so, you are just starting a very enjoyable journey and we warmly welcome you to Joomla! and encourage you to read the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joomla!

Contents
1 Absolute Beginners Guide to Joomla! 1.1 What is Joomla!? 1.2 Understand How Joomla! Works 1.3 Install Joomla! 1.4 Learn to Use Joomla! 1.5 Start Creating Your Site 1.6 Keep Your Site Secure 1.7 Getting Help 2 Selected Advanced Beginner and Intermediate Topics 2.1 Learn to Backup and Restore 2.2 How to Recover Your System Administration Password 2.3 Exploring the possibilities with Joomla! v 1.5 Core 2.4 Creating a Local Installation 2.4.1 Apache 2.4.2 IIS 2.5 Using Mootools 2.6 Learn the Basics of Joomla! Templating 2.7 Address Search Engine Optimization 2.8 Converting an Existing Website to Joomla! 3 Thanks to our GHOP Contestants!

Absolute Beginners Guide to Joomla!

Welcome to Joomla!, a leading open source Content Management System (CMS) platform. Joomla! is a well-tested, extensible and effective tool supported by a very active and friendly community of developers and users. Do you want to get started with Joomla!, but you have no idea where to begin? If so, you have come to the right place. This Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joomla! is just for you. It lists articles on this Wiki that should get you up and running with Joomla! quickly. It does include some general terms and techniques you might not be familiar with, but there is good reference material for those on the Internet. Getting Started with Joomla! is a tutorial series with hands-on instructions to introduce Joomla! to people who have not previously used it. It explains all techniques step by step using screenshots. These documents are useful if you like detailed and exact explanations, but they are necessarily longer than this reference. Please use either or both of these documents to get started!
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Although you could spend a lifetime learning Joomla!, if you master the basics you will be able to make a very attractive and useful basic website in very little time and with no special technical skills.

What is Joomla!?
Joomla! is software that lets you make and update web pages easily. You can think of a Joomla! website as bringing together three elements. Your content, which is mainly stored in a database. Your template, which controls the design and presentation of your content (such as fonts, colors and layout). Joomla! which is the software that bring the content and the template together to produce webpages.

Understand How Joomla! Works

You might want to learn how Joomla! is built and how its features work together. In short, Joomla! is composed of a Platform and extensions. There are several types of extensions, each capable of performing specific tasks. Some extensions are developed as part of the Joomla! project and come with your installation. If you want to add features to your site, you can install more extensions. You can compare this to a computer operating system, like Microsoft Windows or Linux. You don't directly use the operating system (Joomla!); you use applications (extensions) to carry out tasks. Some applications (extensions) are immediately available on your system, but can install and remove additional applications (extensions) at any time. The Joomla! Core Features Guide (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task020/Joomla!%20Core%20Features%20V1.2.pdf) scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299291/Joomla-Core-Features-V1-2) , written by James Ramsay describes the features (mostly the extensions) available in each download of Joomla!.

Install Joomla!
There are several ways to install Joomla!. If you want to test Joomla! and you haven't purchased a domain yet, you can install Joomla! on your own computer (without your site appearing on the Internet), you can install it using the XAMPP package. You can also create a working website at demo.joomla.org (http://demo.joomla.org) , which is easy and well-supported. If you want your site to be available on the Internet, make sure that you have an account on a web server. For most people this means signing up with a hosting company and purchasing a domain that will serve as your site's main address. Option One: One Click Installs. Many hosting companies offer "instant" installation of Joomla!. Follow the instructions your host provides for a one click install. Option Two: Conventional Installs. This method requires that you copy the Joomla! zip file to your hosting account, unzip, create a database, and then run the installation. Complete instructions can be found in Installation. This video (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task167/joomlainstall.html) takes you through the steps.
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Option Three: Demo Site. If you used the Demo Site, you can follow the instructions provided to back up and move the site to your existing host or establish a hosting account at the end of the free 30 day trial. (Note that the Joomla! Project receives a royalty if you choose paid hosting from that site.) For support with installation, you can ask questions in the installation forum (http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php? f=429) .

Learn to Use Joomla!

Now that you have a working Joomla! site, you will want to start filling it with your own content and making it look just the way you want. Before doing that, it is a good idea to learn more about how to work with Joomla!. There are a number of very useful resources to help you with this. One way is to learn by working with the sample data (http://community.joomla.org/august-2008/article/522introductory-learning-joomla-using-sample-data.html) . There is also a very nice beginners visual guide to getting started with Joomla! 1.5 here: Learn Joomla! 1.5 Fast! (http://help.joomla.org/files/VisualGuide15.pdf) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/16125978/Visual-Guide-15) (PDF 1.3Mb) written by Saurabh Bhide. The Joomla! v 1.5 Quick Start Guide (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task048/joomla_15_quickstart.pdf) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299418/Joomla-15-Quickstart) , written by Kevin Hayne. As you read the guide, walk through the video accompaniment (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task167/index.html) created by Michael Casha. For support as you are learning, ask questions in the New to Joomla1/General Joomla! v 1.5 forum. The Joomla! Demo site (http://demo.joomla.org/) is a good place to try out many of these features if you have not yet done an installation. The Glossary will help you as learn more.

Start Creating Your Site

Now you're ready to start making your own articles, weblinks, contacts, banners, and newsfeeds. Before you jump into doing this you may want to review Planning Your Web site. Or if you want to convert your current website to Joomla!, read Converting an existing website to a Joomla! website. Before you do anything else, you should decide if you want to enable Search Engine Friendly URLs (described here). Enabling or disabling them later will destroy the rankings your pages will have acquired with search engines. One of the first tasks you may want to do is to modify one of the templates that comes with Joomla! so that it displays your site name and logo. How to replace the logo image in the Milkyway template (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task093/replace%20the%20logo%20image.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299991/Joomla-v-1-5-How-to-replace-the-logo-image-in-the-Milkywaytemplate) by deckers.olivier How to modify the default Template (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task033/033%20%20Create%20a%20document%20explaining%20how%20to%20modify%20the%20default%20Template.zip)
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Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300042/Joomla-v-15-How-to-modify-the-default-Template) (Note: the document is an old version and some practices and advice may not be current.) by Chad Windnagle (drmmr763). Finally, you may want to install one or more of the thousands of extensions to Joomla!. Most Joomla! extensions are listed in the official Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED) (http://extensions.joomla.org) . Once you've found an extension to install, Installing an extension will tell you how to install it. Please remember that all extensions are developed by independent developers. If you need help with a specific extension the best source will be that developer. For help visit: New to Joomla!/General Joomla! v 1.5 Questions Joomla! v 1.5 Template Questions Joomla! v 1.5 Extension Questions Joomla! Extension Directory Questions

Keep Your Site Secure

Security is always a big concern on the web. Make sure you are using best security practices. The basic techniques on the Security Check List will get your site off to a good start in terms of security.

Getting Help
The Joomla! forums (http://forum.joomla.org/) are the among the busiest (and most friendly) support forums in the world, and they are a great place to get help and meet other Joomla! users. Please make certain you search, first, before posting a question. Nine times out of ten someone else had the same issue that you had. As it turns out, we all travel a similar path. Also, check the FAQs--Frequently Asked Questions. Make sure you are posting in the right forum for your topic. Be clear and specific in your request for help. Entries like Help! It doesnt work! tend to get ignored. Try to explain everything that led up to your problem. Try to explain what your problem is. Be clear about what you want to happen. And, thank those who bother to help! Use the Forum Post Assistant to help you provide more information and better explain your problem. If your question/problem was solved, mark your thread as solved by editing the first post you made in that thread and changing the topic icon to the green check mark with a circle. You can also add [Solved] to your topic title. By doing this you allow other members who are doing searches to easily differentiate between solved and unsolved issues. This also saves the volunteers' time of having to open up solved topics. As soon as you know things, start answering questions. Answering questions is one of the best ways to learn. If someone helps you, say thank you and pay it forward by answering a question yourself.
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Selected Advanced Beginner and Intermediate Topics

The remainder of this document briefly covers some slightly more advanced topics for web masters. Most of this content applies to Joomla! 1.5 only.

Learn to Backup and Restore

Learn to backup your Joomla! database. Learn to restore your Joomla! database. Frequent backups are the best way to make sure you can recover if your site has a problem. This video entitled How to backup and restore a Joomla! database using phpMyAdmin (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2742157386318372444) by kristofdb.

How to Recover Your System Administration Password

Watch this video by James Ramsey entitled How to Recover your Administrator Password using phpMyAdmin (http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1818492yRNhWTdg) .

Exploring the possibilities with Joomla! v 1.5 Core

Learn what is possible given the core Joomla! Menu Types (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task028/Joomla%20Menu%20Types.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299861/Joomla-v-15-Menu-Types) by xalnx; Understand all the options available when you create a Joomla! Category Blog Layout (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task029/Issue_29_Joomla_Category_Blog_Layout_document_v2.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299872/Joomla-v-15-Category-Blog-Layout) by hashani; Watch this video on How to embed media within a Joomla! article (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task055/Joomla!_GHOP_Issue_055.mov) by mdranta; Explore the possibilities with Using the media manager (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task066/MediaManager.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299878/Joomla-v-15-Using-the-Media-Manager) by SharifOerton; Learn How to Use Joomla!'s Register to Read More (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task026/Rev10Final.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299883/Joomla-v-15-Register-to-Read-More) by drmmr763; Make certain to learn how to Create a custom HTML module (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task104/How_to_create_a_custom_HTML_module.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299886/Joomla-v-15-How-to-create-a-custom-HTML-module-) by blitzprog; Learn how to Use the Media Manager to Offer File Downloads (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task105/using_media_manager.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299888/Joomla-v-15-Using-Media-Manager-for-File-Downloads) by fervidfrogger; Learn how to create a simple Image Gallery using the Media Manager (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task106/Joomla%20Image%20Gallery.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299943/Joomla-v-15-Image-Gallery-using-the-Media-Manager) by SharifOerton; Learn how to use core Contact functions to create a services or resources directory
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(http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task107/BDRev5.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299950/Joomla-v-15-Contact-functions-to-create-a-services-or-resourcesdirectory) by Chad Windnagle (drmmr763); Take time to explore how to use the News flash module to display random or rotating selection of texts (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task108/Newsflashtutorialfinal.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299953/Joomla-v-15-News-flash-module-to-display-random-or-rotatingselection-of-texts) by tj.ferrell; Take advantage of the Banners component and module to feature different parts of a website (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task109/task%20109.pdf) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299956/Joomla-v-15-Banners-component-and-module-to-feature-differentparts-of-a-website) by Branko Pajic (balvanboy); Read through the Help screens to find out about all options available at the Back-end

Creating a Local Installation

People creating complex websites often like to work on their own computer and to move the whole site to their web server when it is ready. To do this you will need to install a webserver (such as Apache or IIS), PHP and MySQL on your local machine. There are a number of tools that make it easy to do this.

Apache
For Apache you can install XAMPP (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) and then perform a normal web based Joomla! installation on your computer. The Joomla! Quickstart Guide (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task048/joomla_15_quickstart.pdf) and accompanying video (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task167/xampp.html) explain XAMPP installation in detail.

IIS
For IIS you can install the Windows Web platform (http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/Joomla.aspx) .

Using Mootools
There are many great things you can do with Mootools, included in Joomla! v 1.5. Check out these resources to learn how: Mootools Tips and Tricks (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task083/Mootools%20Tips%20and%20Tricks.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299965/Joomla-v-15-Mootools-Tips-and-Tricks) by Zach Kanzler (theY4Kman); How to include Squeezebox in your Joomla! Website (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task084/joomla.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299973/Joomla-v-15-Squeezebox-in-your-Joomla-Website) by ddcc; How to include Slimbox in your Joomla! Website (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task085/draft3HowtoincludeSlimboxinJoomla.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2299983/Joomla-v-15-Slimbox-in-your-Joomla-Website) by dsadik.
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Learn the Basics of Joomla! Templating

Using CSS Class Suffixes: How to use CSS class suffixes in Joomla! 1.5 (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task057/Joomla%20Class%20Suffix%20Guides.pdf) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300098/Joomla-v-15-How-to-use-CSS-class-suffixes) by takercena. Getting Rid of Tables: If you do not like tables in your Joomla! output, please see Getting Started with Template Overrides (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task059/Getting_Started_with_Template_Overrides_v2.tar.gz) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300107/Joomla-v-1-5-Getting-Started-with-Template-Overrides) by Wickrama Arachchi Vithanage Hashani Maduwanthi Weerarathna (Hashani) Adding Javascript to your Template: You might be interested in How to add JavaScript to a Joomla template (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task060/task60.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300110/Joomla-v-15-Adding-Javascript-to-your-Template) by Anner J. Bonilla (annerajb). Troubleshooting a Template Installation: If you are having trouble installing a template, see How to resolve problems with a template installation (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task061/Rev9.zip) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300161/Joomla-v-1-5-Template-Installation-Troubleshooting-Manual) by Chad Windnagle (drmmr763). Questions? Joomla! v 1.5 Template Questions (http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=466)

Address Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is the practice of doing whatever is needed to help make your Web site rank higher in return results for a search engine. For some, this is very important aspect of attracting visitors to their site. Most experts agree, however, that the single best way to improve your chance of getting attention on the Internet is to provide good content on a regular basis. There are several things that you can do using core functionality to make your Joomla! Web site more SEO friendly. Here are some important areas to focus. Configuring and troubleshoot SEF URLs: Joomla! v 1.5 SEF URLs (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task110/GHOPC_J110_SEFrevised1.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300167/Joomla-v-15-Configure-and-troubleshoot-SEFURLs) by Benjamin Httasch. If you want to use IIS and Joomla!'s SEF URLs, do this first, then use the previous document. Removing WWW from your domain name: How to remove "WWW" from your Domain Name and Why it matters (http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task111/remove_www_from_domain6.odt) Scribd (http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300173/Joomla-How-to-Remove-www-from-domain-and-why-it-matters) by theoclymenus Create a Custom 404 Page: Custom Error Pages, including 404's Questions? Questions about SEO should be asked in the Joomla! v 1.5 SEO Forum. SEF URL questions should be asked in the Joomla! v 1.5 Administration Forum.

Converting an Existing Website to Joomla!

Check out the Converting an existing website to a Joomla! website guide for great step by step instructions.

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Thanks to our GHOP Contestants!

Most of this material was written by Joomla! Google Highly Open Participation Contestants. This work is of the highest quality and the students were inspiring to work with. Sincere thanks to all of our participants for sharing their gifts with the Joomla! community. You guys rock! Retrieved from "http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners" Categories: Landing Pages | Joomla! user profiles This page was last modified on 25 November 2011, at 14:52. Content is available under Joomla! EDL.

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