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Joomla!

3 Beginner's Guide
Second Edition








Eric Tiggeler









Chapter No.1
"A New and Easy Way to Build Websites"
In this package, you will find:
The authors biography
A preview chapter from the book, Chapter no.1 "A New and Easy Way to
Build Websites"
A synopsis of the books content
Information on where to buy this book
About the Author
Eric Tiggeler has authored several books on Joomla!, such as the highly successful
Joomla! 2.5 Beginner's Guide and Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide, both by Packt
Publishing. He has also written several Joomla! guides in Dutch. His books have received
excellent reader reviews. He also writes tutorials for several computer magazines and
Joomla! community websites. Over the last ten years, he has developed numerous
websites, big and small, using Joomla!.
He is fascinated by the Web as a powerful, creative, and ever-changing means of
communication, as well as by the revolutionary software Joomla!, which enables
anybody to create beautiful and user-friendly websites.
On a daily basis, he works as a consultant and copywriter at a communication
consultancy company affiliated to the Free University of Amsterdam. Over the last few
years, he has written more than 20 books in Dutch on writing and communication. His
passion lies in making complex things easy to understand.
He is married, has two daughters, and lives and works in Hilversum, the Netherlands. On
the Web, you'll find him at (in Dutch) and
(in English).
Any book is a team effort, so I would like to thank everyone at Packt
Publishing for their encouraging commitment to this project. I also
wish to thank the reviewers for testing the alpha version of this book
and helping me create a thoroughly reliable final release!

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Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide
Second Edition
Joomla! is one of the most popular open source content management systems, and it is
actively developed and supported by a worldwide user community. It's a free, fun, and
feature-rich tool for anyone who wants to create dynamic, interactive websites. Even
beginners can deploy Joomla! to build professional websites, although it can be
challenging to get beyond the basics and build a site that completely meets your needs.
This book will help you to start building websites with Joomla! quickly, and also help
you learn step-by-step to get the most out of its advanced features.
What This Book Covers
Chapter 1, A New and Easy Way to Build Websites, will help you learn why you want to
use Joomla! to create an advanced, cool-looking site that's easy to expand, customize,
and maintain.
Chapter 2, Getting Joomla! Up and Running, will show you how to install Joomla! on
your own computer or on a web server and how to create a sample site.
Chapter 3, First Steps Getting to Know Joomla!, will familiarize you with the basic
concepts of Joomla!, the administrative interface, and the principles of a website
constructed out of building blocks.
Chapter 4, Web Building Basics Creating a Site in an Hour, will make you face a real-
life challenge of using Joomla! to build a basic but expandable website in less time.
You'll customize a default sample site of Joomla! to fit your needs, adding content and
menu links and changing the site's look and feel.
Chapter 5, Small Sites, Big Sites Organizing Your Content Effectively, will help you
design a clear, expandable, and manageable framework for your content. Using a
structure of categories and tags, you will make it easy for the users to add and find
information on your site.
Chapter 6, Creating Killer Content Adding and Editing Articles, will help you to create
attractive content pages, and you'll learn about different ways to add images and tweak
the page layout.
Chapter 7, Welcoming Your Visitors Creating Attractive Home Pages and Overview
Pages, shows you how to create a home page and overview pages to entice visitors to
actually read all your valuable content.



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Chapter 8, Helping Your Visitors Find What They Want Managing Menus, will discuss
how you can help visitors to find what they want by designing clear and straight forward
navigation through menus.
Chapter 9, Opening Up the Site Enabling Users to Log in and Contribute, will show
you how to enable users to log in and allow them to create content and manage a website.
Chapter 10, Getting the Most out of Your Site Extending Joomla!, will explain how to
extend the capabilities of Joomla! using all sorts of extensions, such as using an image
gallery to display pictures attractively, automatically showing article teasers on the home
page, or enhancing your workspace by installing a more powerful content editor.
Chapter 11, Creating an Attractive Design Working with Templates, will show you
how templates can give your site a fresh look and feel and how you can customize
templates to create an individual look, different from a typical Joomla! site.
Chapter 12, Attracting Search Engine Traffic SEO Tips and Techniques, will show you
how to increase your site's visibility for search engines by applying Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) techniques, such as creating friendly URLs.
Appendix A, Keeping the Site Secure, will explore some simple, logical steps you can take
to safeguard your site from hackers or data loss.
Appendix B, Creating a Multilingual Site, will walk you through the series of steps
involved in creating a bilingual website using the multilingual capabilities built
in Joomla!.
Appendix C, Pop Quiz Answers, contains answers to the multiple choice pop quizzes you
will find throughout the book.



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1
A New and Easy Way to
Build Websites
You want to build a website. It should look great, it should be easy to use
and maintain, and keeping it up-to-date should be effortless. Changing the
appearance of your site should take minutes, not hours. You don't want
to manage it all by yourself, but you want to enable other people to log in
and write new content without having to understand HTML or other coding
languages. Also, when your site grows, it should be easy to extend it with new
functionalitymaybe adding a forum, or a newsletter. If that's what you're
looking for, welcome to Joomla!.
When it comes to creang a great, professional-looking website that's straighorward to use,
you really can't beat the power of a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla.
Without wring a single line of code, you can create any kind of site that boasts a variety of
cool and advanced features.
Join the CMS revolution
Maybe you have already built websites the tradional way. That basically meant creang
HTML documentsweb pagesone by one. As the site grew, you'd end up with a bunch
of HTML documents, trying to keep all of them organized and making sure all menu links
stayed up-to-date. You'd probably maintain the site by yourself, because it was hard for
other people to learn their way around the structure of your parcular site, or be
procient in the web eding soware you use.



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A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
[ 8 ]
Let's learn about the Holy Grail of web building: CMS! CMS is an applicaon that runs on
a web server. It allows you to develop and maintain a website online using a web browser.
It comes packed with features, ranging from basic features to add and modify content to
advanced funconality such as user registraon or site search capability. In short, CMS
makes it possible to build sites that would normally involve a full team of web professionals
with a massive amount of me, money, and experse at their disposal.
All that magic is made possible because CMS is really an advanced set of scripts (wrien in
a scripng language such as PHP) that uses a database to store the content of your website.
From that database, it retrieves bits and pieces of content and presents them as web pages.
This dynamic way of storing and presenng content makes CMS very exible. Do you want to
show only a selecon of arcles from a specic category on a page? Do you want to display
only the intro texts of the most recent arcles on the home page? Do you want to add a list
of links to the most popular contents? Do you want to limit access to registered users? It's
all possiblejust pick the right se ngs. Addionally, CMS allows you to integrate all sorts
of extra features, such as contact forms, picture galleries, and much more.
The best part is that such CMSes are yours to download and deploy today. You can pick your
CMS of choice from a range of freely available open source products. Your new CMS-powered
site can be online tomorrow. Now how's that for a great deal?
What's open source soware? The source code of this type of soware
is unlocked, unlike most soware developed commercially. Everyone has
access to the Joomla source code and soware developers are encouraged
to modify and help improve the soware. The name Joomla stands for all
together. It's as much a soware product as it is an internaonal community
of people working together voluntarily to expand and improve that product.
Most of the open source soware is distributed free of charge, as is the
case with Joomla and many of the extensions that have been developed
for it. Some Joomla extensions are commercialyou have to pay for them.
However, it's sll open source (that is, you get access to the source code).
Why would you choose Joomla!?
There are many open source CMSes around. They're all great tools, each with its own typical
uses and benets . Why would you want to choose Joomla? Here's why:
People tend to choose Joomla because they nd it easy to use. It has a clear and
friendly user interface that keeps ge ng beer every year. Using the redesigned
interface, it's even simpler to create and publish arcles to keep your site updated.
You can manage content anyme and anywhere, whether you're using a web
browser on a PC, tablet computer, or smart phone.



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Chapter 1
[ 9 ]
Adding new features to your site takes just a few clicks. There are thousands
of extensions available for Joomla, ranging from menu systems to commenng
systems and forums.
It doesn't take much eort to change the site's appearance. There are abundant
templates for Joomla and they can be installed within minutes, giving your site a
fresh look and feel.
The current Joomla release adds many improvements and new features, making
CMS both easier to work with and more powerful. It takes less steps to install the
soware, it's mobile ready (that is, it has an improved text editor screen for creang
content such as the screen layout that automacally adapts itself for the device
being used, whether it's a laptop, computer, tablet, or a smart phone), and it has
tons of other new and improved features. One example is that it oers great support
for mullingual sites.
Apart from these typical Joomla benets, it comes with all of the advantages of a state-of-
the-art CMS. Some of them are as follows:
Adding content and keeping it organized is a breeze (even if there's lots of it).
Joomla allows you to categorize content using an unlimited number of mul-level
categories, but you can also choose to use a really exible new system of assigning
tags to organize content.
Keeping hyperlinks to other content on the same site up-to-date is greatly
automated. For example, you can add category overview pages without ever
having to manually update themon a category overview page, Joomla will
automacally add links to all new pages you'll put in that category.
You don't have to maintain the website all by yourself. Other users can add
content, add new menu items, and do much more.
The numbers seem to indicate that Joomla is the open source CMS of choice for web builders
worldwide. It's been downloaded 35 million mes since its start in 2006 and the number of
sites powered by Joomla is sll growing rapidly everyday. It's one of the biggest open source
soware projects around, it is supported by a large user community, and it is constantly
being developed further by an internaonal team of volunteers.



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A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
[ 10 ]
For an overview of Joomla, its capabilies, and examples of real-world sites using CMS, you
should browse the Joomla site at http://www.joomla.org.
What kind of sites can you build with Joomla!?
Let's have a look at some great real-world examples of sites built using Joomla. If you're
anything like me, seeing inspiraonal examples is what makes you want to get started
right away creang something equally cool (or preferably something even beer). In
this secon, you'll see a few examples from the Web and from the Joomla site showcase
(http://community.joomla.org/showcase). They are very diverse sites from very
dierent organizaons, each with their own goals and target groups. What they have in
common is that they deploy Joomla in a way that you could too. They adapt CMS to their
specic needs, making it perfectly suited for the content they present and the impression
they want to make.



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Chapter 1
[ 11 ]
Here's an example from the World Health Organizaon (WHO) Regional O ce for the Eastern
Mediterranean, (http://www.emro.who.int). The home page uses various ways to present
highlights from the site's impressive amount of content.



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A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
[ 12 ]
The following example is the the Working Wonders website , a charity foundaon
(www.workingwonders.com.au):



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Chapter 1
[ 13 ]
Joomla can handle complex sites with thousands of pages. Here's an illustraon of a
content-rich site with a made-to-measure design: the Guggenheim Museum website
(www.guggenheim.org).



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A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
[ 14 ]
This example demonstrates that Joomla sites don't have to look anything like a typical
CMS-powered site. You can use quite a dierent design and sll take advantage of the
default funconality of Joomla to power the site. This site presents a Dutch events
company (www.puurspecialevents.nl).
One nal example: the personal porolio site of an Argennian arst Angie Vill
(www.angieville.com.ar).



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Chapter 1
[ 15 ]
If you're looking for some more inspiraon, browse the o cial Joomla showcase at
http://community.joomla.org/showcase or go to www.bestofjoomla.com
and have a look around in the Best of Sites secon.
Learning to use Joomla!
It may sound too good to be true. Does Joomla really make creang state-of-the-art websites
easy as learning ABC? Let's be honestof course, learning to work with CMS does require you
to invest some me and eort. Aer all, working with Joomla (or any CMS) is very dierent
from building websites the tradional way. You'll noce this as soon as you start installing the
system. Compared to se ng up a simple stac website that consists of a few HTML pages,
building a site powered by Joomla takes a bit more preparaon. You'll need hosng space that
meets specic requirements and you'll need to set up a database. It's very doable, and this
book will run you through the process step by step.



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A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
[ 16 ]
Once you've got Joomla set up, you'll soon get the hang of creang a basic site. The next
challenge is to get things just right for your parcular goals. Aer all, you don't want just
any Joomla siteyou want to build a specic site, aimed at your specic target audience.
This book will help you to go beyond a basic site and make the choices that t your goals.
Even if you are using CMS, it will take me and eort to create and maintain great websites.
However, Joomla will make it both easier and much more fun for you (and your web team
members) to get your site started and keep it evolving.
The approach of this book
The Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide Second Edion isn't just about Joomlait's about making
websites, and it shows you how to use Joomla to make the best website you can. Aer all,
you can get a reasonable impression of the capabilies of Joomla by exploring the interface
and trying out the menus and opons. However, even a user-friendly interface doesn't tell
you how to deploy it in the best way in real-life circumstances. What's the best and fastest
way to get started, what features and opons are parcularly useful, and what are the ones
you probably don't have to bother using at all? I want to help you tame the beast that's
called Joomla to nd your own way around it and get things donecreang a great looking,
user-friendly website as the result.
That's what this book is about. It is focused on learning by doingthe structure of the book
reects the process of building a website.
Feel free to skip chapters!
Don't worry, to learn using Joomla you don't have to follow all the
chapters of this book and the exercises in them step by step. Aer
you've gone through the introductory chapters, maybe you feel
comfortable to skip to changing the design of your site or adding
extensions. That's okayyou can jump straight into most of the
further chapters and follow the exercises there, as long as you have
a working version of Joomla and a some dummy content available.



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Chapter 1
[ 17 ]
What's the current version of Joomla!?
On the Joomla website, two versions are available for download: 2.5 and 3 (3.3 or a higher
version). Joomla 2.5 is supported unl the end of 2014. It's sll used, especially by experienced
web developers who need a mature CMS and want to able to use extensions, developed
specically for 2.5. Joomla 3.x, however, is the next generaon and it's denitely the way to
go when you start using the soware.
In the past, Joomla used xed version numbersJoomla 1.5 and 2.5 were the long term
releases of the 1 and 2 series. However, in 2014, the creators of Joomla chose a new release
strategy. There won't be a nal Joomla 3.x versionaer Joomla 3.3 and Joomla 3.4, updates
will be released if required. These minor releases (3.5, 3.6 and so on) may introduce new
features, but they will always be backwards compable with previous 3.x versions. Only major
new releases (Joomla 4.x) can introduce new features that may break backwards-compability.
It may seem confusing that there's no xed long term release, but the advantage is that
Joomla development isn't frozen at any parcular point. This way, Joomla 3.x users can
use the built-in automac update funcon and connually benet from minor new
features and improvements.
About the example site
In the course of this book, you'll learn how to build a realisc example site step-by-step. Instead
of just learning about the capabilies of Joomla in general terms, you'll meet real-world web
building challenges. Throughout the book, you'll achieve all the goals of your cous client
(such as "I want a website that my web team members can update themselves" or "I want a
website that makes it easy to navigate through a large amount of content").
Now, who's that client of yours? It's CORBA, a club of Collectors Of Really Bad Art. They just
love bad painngs and ugly sculpture. They argue it can be valuable artin its own, ugly
way. The CORBA people need a website to inform the public about their goals, informing
the public about all sorts of bad art, showcasing ne examples of ugly art, and encouraging
people to join and parcipate.



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A New and Easy Way to Build Websites
[ 18 ]
You'll take the CORBA site through dierent stages of development. First, you'll base the site
on the default design and layout of Joomla.
Then, you'll add advanced features and shape the site's contents and design to meet the
changing needs of your client.



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Chapter 1
[ 19 ]
The CORBA site is a good example of what you can accomplish with Joomla. You start out with
a basic website and add sophiscated features as you go. Of course, you can follow along in
this book without having to actually perform all of the acons described. However, you'll nd
that it's a good and fun way to learn building a site and honing your skills step-by-step.
Summary
In this chapter, you've been introduced to the wonderful world of the Joomla CMS. You've
learned about the dierence between building a website the tradional way and using CMS.
You don't have to create HTML documents (web pages) one by one. Instead, you can use
a web applicaon to develop and maintain your site. Using CMS such as Joomla, you can
create more powerful sites that are easier to maintain. You've also been introduced to the
benets of using Joomla, such as its user friendly interface, the ability to add extra features,
and the ability to change the look and feel of the site fast. In the rest of this book, you'll learn
how to build a realisc example site with Joomla step-by-step.
However, that's enough background informaon for nowlet's get started! In the next
chapter, you'll get the Joomla soware up and running. Aer that, you'll get familiar with
the way Joomla works and start building.



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