Introduction

Session 1: Introduction to the Course Session 2: How to get the most out of the Course

What is Joomla
Joomla! is a two time award-winning system for publishing content on the internet, also known as a CMS. which enables us to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Joomla! makes it easy to build and manage a website. Using Joomla!, we can easily update, manage, and improve our website. What can you do with Joomla!? Lets find out!

What Joomla! can do?

Joomla is used all over the world to power Web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example:

Corporate Web sites or portals Corporate intranets and extranets Online magazines, newspapers, and publications E-commerce and online reservations Government applications Small business Web sites Non-profit and organizational Web sites Community-based portals School and church Web sites

Personal or family homepages

What is Content Management System (CMS) Website ?

A CMS or Content Management System is used for the control and editing of content. Content includes electronic files, images and video based media, audio files, electronic documents and web text. The main concept behind a CMS is to make these files available for editing inter-office or over the Internet. A website content management system (CMS) is designed to run in the background of a public website. It allows administrators to edit content through an admin panel that is then shown and displays on the public frontend of the website. Often there are several levels of users who have control over the content on the website, these can be super admins, copy writers and editors. Using a special access control system through the web browser creators and editors can manage documents within the CMS. Overall the content management system controls and allows admins to manage workflows and business processes. Generally all content in the CMS is stored in an online SQL database system. This database system allows for quick and easy access by all applications and also affords strong security and backup capabilities.

Joomla! Features The power and simplicity of the Joomla application may be difficult to understand if you dont have previous experience with a CMS. However, any webmaster can see that the included administrative features are compelling: Complete management possible via a robust web interface Web-based management of site assets such as graphics, files, and other media Content approval features allow moderating of remote author postings Hierarchical user group management Automated menu management Content publication scheduling for automatic publishing and deletion of articles User security and contact management Even more impressive is Joomlas ability to handle content and provide interaction with site visitors. Joomlas content capabilities include the following: Multiple built-in What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors Automatic full text search of site content

 Full support for newsfeeds in RSS or Atom format Built-in user polling Banner advertising management Plug-ins for e-commerce solutions, including shopping cart, picture gallery, inventory management, and point of sale The following is a listing of Joomla! features in point form: Free source code A large and eager community of users and developers Simple workflow system Publishing system for contents File manager for uploading and administering files Content summaries in RSS format Trash can for deleted content Search-engine-friendly URLs Banner management Multilingualism for website and administration interface Administration interface that is separated from the website Macro language for content (plug-ins) Caching mechanism to secure fast page creation with popular sites Simple installation of additional extensions Hierarchical user groups Simple visitor statistics WYSIWYG editor for content Simple polling Rating system for content

Powerful template system (HTML, CSS, PHP)

There are numerous free and commercial extensions at http://extensions.joomla.org/, for instance: Forums Image Galleries Document management systems Calendars And about 2000 more

Installing Joomla

How can we Install Joomla ?

Joomla is a web application written using PHP, and so it needs a web server to run. To make a Joomla! Website available on the World Wide Web, we need to host it on a web host. But to learn Joomla, we can convert our own computer into a web server, and Install Joomla on it. Hence, Installing Joomla on our computer, first we will have to perform two task 1. Install web server with PHP and My SQLthen
2. Create My SQL database and Account

after that we will start installation joomla Okay, now we need to install web server with PHP and My SQL Step 1: Install web server with PHP and My SQL This step is very easy firstly we thanks to XAMPP or Wampp because if we install xampp or Wamp in our computer then number 1 task will be completed. xampp and wamp are free software we can download and Install it easily. Here we will use Xampp. to download a copy of xampp from the internet click the following link www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. and save it in your computer After downloading xampp then we will install it in our computer. Installation of xampp is very easy just double click on xampp and installation will start and click on finish button installation will be completed.

after installing, now we are going to start xampp server To start XAMPP Apache server and Mysql, go to Start->All Programs ->Xampp for windows -> XAMPP Control Panel and click on the right side of the taskbar. run apache and MySQL clicking start Button. following picture shows that apache and MySQL are running. as far now we have installed and run xampp server. then we will create a database and add a mysql user Creating MySQL Database & Account Here we will do 2 task
1. Create a database and

2. Add a mysql user To create a MySQL database and account for installing Joomla!, we can use a web application called PhpMyAdmin. This comes bundled with XAMPP, so we dont have to get it separately. To use PhpMyAdmin, just start our browser & write: http://localhost/phpmyadmin then click enter Go to PhpMyAdmin and on the front page, we will see a field to create a new database. Enter a name for this database and then click Create. I have named my database mydatabase. You can have any name, but you have to remember this name because we will be using it later while installing Joomla. Now task 2, Go to PhpMyAdmin and on the front page, click on Privileges. Then click on Add a new User, and fill up the form to create a user. Select Host

name as localhost Grant all privileges to this user by ticking on the checkboxes or clicking on the Check all button. I have created user named joomlauser with password joomla.

Before starting installation joomla we need to download joomla. Downloading latest version of joomla from http://www.joomla.org/ then unzip the folder and rename the folder to joomlabeta. Keep the folder in the htdocs folder. (where is htdocs folder ? Start- Apache friends-xampp-htdocs folder) Okay now we can start our joomla installation Open the browser (firefox or internet explorer or ) write localhost in the address bar then click Enter ha ha XAMPP is running and again write localhost/joomlabeta in the address bar and click Enter, following page will be appear The first step lets you select the language for installation. Click Next, and you will be shown a screen with all the settings of your web server and whether they are good for Joomla!. Click Next to proceed. The third step is just a license agreement that you have to agree. Click Next The fourth step is specifying the database settings, including the database, username, and password. Use the following settings Database Type : mysql Host Name : localhost User Name : joomlauser (if you had used a different name while creating the MySQL user, specify it here)

Password : joomla (or the one you had set for that user ) Database Name : mydatabase ( or the one you had created if you used a different name ) In this step, we provided the details of MySQL database to Joomla!. Joomla! will use this database to store all the content and other information. The fifth step is for specifying FTP setting to Joomla!. But since we are installing Joomla! on a local computer, say no to FTP and click next. The sixth step is for specifying the Site name and a password for the administrator. So fill the form with a name for the site, your e-mail address, and an administrator password. While in this step, we have to click on the Install Sample Data button so that our website will initially has some sample data or content which you can edit or delete. After clicking on that button, you are shown a message Sample data installed successfully. Now click on Next to finish the installation. Congratulations! You successfully installed Joomla! 1.5 on our computer. Before you can start using this Joomla! site, you have to delete the directory named installation from Joomlabetas folder.

Session 4: Resources you'll need for the course