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So... DIY stands for “do it yourself” and as someone relatively new to web technologies or Joomla itself, this article offers a few of the many places you can start building a powerful web site using the Joomla CMS (Content Management System).
If you’ve ever tried to do anything technological by yourself for the first time, it can at times be overwhelming. However, once you have your raw materials and places to go or people to ask for help (resources), you can be successful.
Raw Materials: Joomla Install Joomla Template Information Sources
Joomla Install: Your Web Host When you want to use a domain name you’ve purchased, you need to buy web hosting. There are thousands of hosting companies out there and many of them offer some kind of ‘control panel’ experience where you can log in and do things like make email addresses (chrisThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) and where you can do things like install Joomla. (A popular method to do this is Fantastico, which comes with Cpanel.)
If you aren’t sure how to do this, don’t be afraid to ask your web hosting company to help you out. That’s what they are there for. Cloud Access has a lot of great information and they are a hosting company that specializes in Joomloa hosting.
Joomla Templates: Google.com There are literally thousands of Joomla templates available. By specifying ‘free Joomla templates’ you will find your free options. Companies like Rockettheme, Yootheme, and Joomlashack have ‘premium’ templates, which means you pay a base price and can use the template on your website. Usually these premium templates have more design choices or extra features when compared with the free themes. They also are more likely to be more secure, offer better support and are updated frequently.
Places You Can Go For Help: Joomla.org Social media (ex: you can tweet @joomla) Online training
Once you’ve installed Joomla on your domain and installed the Joomla template you want to use on your domain, the rest of this is going to be you customizing Joomla based on what you want your website to do.
Joomla.org has plenty of resources for people at all levels of Joomla knowledge. For example, you can through search over 10,000 extensions in the Joomla Extension Directory (JED) and read reviews of other people who have used them. Joomla.org is the first place online that is updated when something changes with the Joomla CMS software. There are also forums where you can post your questions.
One thing you’ll notice about the Joomla community is that people are very helpful and friendly. Let’s say that the template you just installed isn’t letting you change the background color, even though you followed the instructions exactly. Someone in the active Facebook or Twitter community may be able to help you out (check the forums on Joomla.org first to see if someone else had your problem too).
And finally, if you want to know Joomla very very well, you have several options for in-depth personalized training from our team or companies like OS Training, www.lynda.com or www.joomlashack.com (Joomlashack University) are great resources for prebuilt training courses. Rather than solving a specific problem, these comprehensive programs can give you some background knowledge to understand Joomla in a deeper way. You also may look through the catalogs on www.packtpub.com to find great books on Joomla for beginners and experts alike.
What might you discover in doing it yourself? That it might be a little more complicated or your project might not quite turn out as expected. And that’s ok. On Joomla.org is a list of Joomla professionals who can help you out on your site. This blog post at Manos Crafted is the perfect summary on if Joomla is truly a DIY website software. http://manoscrafted.com/blog/item/58-is-joomla-a-do-it-yourself-cms
Yes, you can use Joomla to build your next amazing website... but you might need a little help from your friends in the Joomla community.
And just because you can do it yourself does not always mean you should. if you are trying to tackle any project where your business or livelihood depend on your web portal, we recommend that you seek professional support and contact a vendor like CNP Integrations or another Joomla focused web development company. The great thing about Joomla is that there is a global community of highly talented folks available to help you achieve just about anything you could imagine online. CNP Integrations consulting and development programs are focus on developing success stories, guiding you on a path for maximizing the return on your investment, and assuring you get responsive technical or creative expertise. Make sure you take the time to verify that whichever vendor you choose, they are the right match for your needs and the scope of your project.
"We do not just build web sites, we build success stories."
We understand that you need security and peace of mind. You want a reliable team to support your use of web technologies so you are able to remain focused on the success drivers of your business relationships. CNP Integrations set the standards high for our customer support and technical know how so you will always get the best talent and expertise delivered with the utmost professionalism. We will accept nothing less than than performance based results and will always go beyond the norm to make this a reality.
With our service and support you will have the talent and expertise you need to realize your business vision on the web.
There are many great technologies available for Website Content Management. If you are currently using Joomla! CMS you can rest assured that our focused team can handle even the most challenging technical support requests. If you are starting a new project, part of what we do is help you assess the best tools for your website development. Although there are so many great platforms, Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla are currently the top three opensource CMS systems. We can work with virtually any of the open source CMS platforms and each have their merits, but by far the most popular and preferred by our customers is the
What makes Joomla the best CMS?
Joomla CMS is an award winning content management system designed for non technical users to design powerful dynamic web sites. Joomla is best known for user friendly administration, open architecture and low cost of ownership. With well over 10 thousand extensions and one of the largest open source development communities in the world, Joomla CMS is becoming a first choice content management system for small businesses and enterprise organizations alike. Joomla is an excellent solution for leveraging social technologies and developing community driven web sites.
The CNP integrations team is focused on providing world class support and development of web portals using the Joomla! CMS platform. Often there is confusion about how Joomla is structured and the elements used to make this such a powerful tool suite for delivering web content and building relationships with your customers or communities. This article will try to help explain the many extendable elements of Joomla.
Joomla! CMS is a feature rich content management system with a growing collection of over 8500 extensions. However, since every project is unique, many times if you're building a website with Joomla!, you may need additional functionality to achieve the goals of your web site or communications portal project. Fortunately Joomla is built with this need for extendibility in mind.
There are several areas within the Joomla CMS platform that allow you to add virtually unlimited functionality. There are five types of extensions for Joomla!: Components, Modules, Plugins, Templates, and Languages. Each of these types of extensions handles specific functionality unique to the Joomla CMS framework. (Note: Many built-in features of Joomla! are implemented using extensions.)
Below are definitions as per the Joomla.org wiki and other sources on the web:
Components
Components are the largest and most complex extensions of them all; they can be seen as mini-applications. Most components have two parts: a site part and an administrator part. Every time a Joomla page loads, one component is called to render the main page body. For example, Content (com_content) is the component which handles the display of content; users can view at the frontend of your site and, as an administrator, you can edit the content. Components are the major portion of your page because a component is driven by a menu item and every menu item runs a component.
Examples: Content (com_content), Banners (com_banners), Contact (com_contact), News Feeds (com_newsfeeds) and Web Links (com_weblinks)
Management feature: Admin head menu > "Components" ("Content" for com_content)
Modules
Modules are more lightweight and flexible extensions used for page rendering. These modules are mostly known as the "boxes" that are arranged around a component, for example: the login module. The footer is a module. Modules are assigned per menu item. So, you can decide to show or hide the logon module depending on which menu item the user is viewing. Sometimes modules are linked to components such as the "latest news" module which links to the com_content and displays links to the newest content items. However, modules do not need to be linked to components, as a matter of fact they don't even need to be linked to anything and can be just static HTML or text.
Management feature: Admin head menu > "Extensions" > "Module Manager"
Plugins
Plugins are more advanced extensions and are in essence event handlers. In the execution of any part of Joomla, be it the core, a module or a component, an event can be triggered. When an event is triggered, plugins that are registered with the application to handle that event execute. For example, a plugin could be used to intercept user-submitted articles and filter out bad words. Plugins were known in Joomla! 1.0 as mambots.
Examples: content.searchbot, tinymce
Management feature: Admin head menu > "Extensions" > "Plugin Manager"
Templates
A template is basically the design of your Joomla! powered website. With a template you can change the look and feel of your website. Templates have certain fields in which the component (just one) and modules (as many as you like) will be shown. Templates are easy to build or customize and they provide maximum flexibility in how you style your site.
Management feature: Admin head menu > "Extensions" > "Template Manager"
Languages
Probably the most basic extensions are languages. Languages can be packaged in two ways, either as a core package or as an extension package. In essence, these files consist key/value pairs, these pairs provide the translation of static text strings which are assigned within the Joomla! source code. These language packs will affect both the front and administrator side. Note: these language packs also include an XML meta file which describes the language and font information to use for PDF content generation.
Management feature: Admin head menu > "Extensions" > "Language Manager"
Want to find out how Joomla can specifically help your organization, or have additional questions? Contact one of our support specialist who will be happy to review your project and provide you with a free assessment.
Call now and find out how we can help you: 508-644-1553
If you’ve ever tried to do anything technological by yourself for the first time, it can at times be overwhelming. However, once you have your raw materials and places to go or people to ask for help (resources), you can be successful.
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