Open source training & tutorials from experienced, passionate people
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Joomla is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS). Joomla, empowers non technical people to build Web sites and powerful online applications.
Our Joomla tutorials help you begin using Joomla quickly. The tutorials are created using a simple logical order that most developers use when they want to learn how to use Joomla effectively.
Joomla´s simple learning curve, ease-of-use and extensibility, have made it the most popular CMS software in use today. Best of all, Joomla is from the open source stables. It´s free to everyone.
Joomla CMS, keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like a public library stores and tracks the books it has. Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of.
A major advantage of using Joomla CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content, you don't have to.
Here are some real world examples of what Joomla! can do:
Our Joomla tutorials have the kind of details that application developers are seeking. The tutorials have been written by people who have been using Joomla for years.
Our Joomla training is logically structured. It starts from finding, downloading, installing, configuring and using Joomla CMS and then extending its functionality using third party plugins.
Do leave your comments or feedback on any Joomla tutorial. Your comments help us deliver the best possible Joomla training modules.
Do hop onto our Open source tutorial forum for a quick look while you are here. There are a lot of people who use it regularly, its lively and almost all of your Joomla queries would get answered quickly.
Also, remember that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, between 10:00am and 12:00am Indian Standard Time (i.e. GMT + 5.30) you can enter into live chat with Mr. Ivan Bayross a technical author who has written and published more than sixty seven books, and is still writing.
Joomla (CMS) is a powerful open source, Content Management System available on the Internet for free download and use. It was created by the same award-winning team that brought the Mambo CMS to its current state of stardom. Joomla is used worldwide for crafting everything from simple websites to complex, interactive, corporate applications.
Joomla! is the phonetic spelling for the Swahili word Jumla, which means all together or as a whole. It was chosen as the entire team behind Mambo were unanimous in their commitment to protecting the interests of the creators and community, which was the true cause for the success and acclaim earned by that project.
This name was chosen from thousands of recommendations by the community. It even went through an arduous review session by branding and marketing professionals who also felt that Joomla! was the best choice of the lot.
Joomla has a huge support base with hundreds of plugins all available either under the OGL or very modestly priced. Joomla! eliminates the tedium of hand coding interactive, database driven, websites and portals.
Even non-programmers can create excellent interactive websites and portals with loads of functionality using Joomla!. Website / portal development companies the world over are adopting Joomla! in very large numbers. Using this product increases the productivity of programmers tremendously.
Any huge increase in programming productivity always results in development cost savings. This means that companies today have the ability to deliver industrial strength, database driven, interactive websites and portals at a fraction of the cost that it took to hand code the very same type of website or portal.
Site maintenance, reduces considerably. Changes or new functionality additions to a site are made with ease. All in all, proficiency in the use of any CMS brings real value to a web development company.
Of the many CMS available on this planet, Joomla! is widely supported, has multiple technical and user forums where help can be sought and is freely given. Joomla's functionality is being expanded every day through the constant development of plugins.
Let's start our journey towards using Joomla successfully by downloading Joomla and saving it to our local hard disk prior installing Joomla CMS on the local computer.
Do take a look at the next tutorial.
Joomla! is a product completely crafted out of PHP. It's built to dovetail into Apache2 perfectly.
It's install process is simplicity in itself.
The Joomla Full_Package setup file downloaded from joomla.org is a zipped file. Extract the contents of the archive using Winzip or any other archiving tool.
During extraction, all the files contained in the archive will be extracted to a folder, named Joomla_{version_number}-Stable-Full_Package.
If the archive was downloaded and extracted to D:\, there will now be a folder called D:\Joomla_{version_number}-Stable-Full_Package\ where the files extracted from the archive can be found.
Rename the folder Joomla_{version_number}-Stable-Full_Package to joomla.
You are now ready to install Joomla CMS on your local computer.
Joomla CMS is normally installed on your local computer within a folder that is controlled by Apache Web Server.
NOTE: The installation and configuration of Apache Web Server is given in another tutorial on this website.
The parent folder in which Joomal is installed on an Internet based host server is normally public_html. Hence your local computer should have a folder like D:\public_html.
NOTE: Normally the folder public_html is at root level. Not within another folder.
Your can create D:\public_html using Windows explorer.
Once D:\public_html is created create a folder named joomla within it.
Now Apache Web server needs to be informed of the existence of D:\public_html\joomla.
This is done by adding virtual domain codespec to Apache´s httpd.conf file.
The technique for doing this is described in The Joomla Virtual Domain tutorial on this website.
Which is the next tutorial in this series.
Joomla CMS can be downloaded from: Joomla Org
In the page that opens in your Browser window look at the top right hand corner to locate the Download link to the latest version of Joomla.
I suggest downloading the full package because I'm assuming that you are downloading Joomla for the very first time.
NOTE: I'll deal with updating Joomla in another section.
If you'd like to read through the Joomla installation manual Click here (PDF).
If you'd like to read through the Joomla Quick Start manual Click here (PDF).
If you'd like to access the Joomla Installation Forum Click here.
Now let's hop across to creating a MySQL database which Joomla will populate with its tables and default data during its install process.
Do take a look at the next tutorial in this chain.
The location Apache´s httpd.conf file is normally at
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf
NOTE: This is assuming that Apache was installed in C:\Program Files on your local computer.
Open httpd.conf file in any text (i.e. ASCII) editor of your choice.
<Directory "C:/Program File/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs"> </Directory> enties as shown in Diagram 1.
Select this code block. Copy and Paste this code block immediately below the original.
NOTE: Please ensure that both
<Directory . . . .> and the </Directory>tags exist.
Change <Directory "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs" > </Directory>.
To
<Directory "D:/public_html/joomla"> as shown in Diagram 2
NOTE: Please note the use of the forward slash above.
These entries within Apache´s httpd.conf file ensure that Apache knows that D:\public_html\joomla exists and that directory permissions are set.
Once Apache knows the existence and location of D:\public_html\joomla appropriate entries in the httpd-vhost.conf must be made.
httpd-vhost.conf is normally located at
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf
Open the above conf file in any other text (i.e. ASCII) editor of your choice.
Copy the
Make the following changes as shown in Diagram 4
ServerAdmin: <Email Id>
DocumentRoot: <Path where your virtual domain is located>
ServerName: <Name of the website>
ErrorLog: <Folder where all Apache errors logs will be stored>
CustomLog: <Comment the CustomLog>
After making all the above entries in both httpd.conf and httpd-vhost.conf
Please Restart Apache Web Server
NOTE: The Apache Web Server icon is normally visible in the status bar of the Window.
Look at the extreme right hand side of the status bar.
If Apache Web Server does not restart please check all the entries made in the httpd.conf and httpd-vhost.conf files.
NOTE: Look especially carefully for spelling mistakes.
Now its time to make entries in Windows HOSTS file as shown in Diagram 5
The HOSTS file contains mappings of IP addresses to host names.
There must be a single IP address / host name pair on a single line in the HOSTS file.
NOTE: The IP address and the Host name must be separated by a TAB.
The HOSTS file is normally located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Please wait...