If you are a Joomla! site owner, you must already be aware of how this robust, easy to use, open source content management system can help you build a great looking site instantly. You must also be aware of the many problems that it can throw up from time to time. Find the solutions to all your basic and advanced Joomla! queries, so you don't have to wait for someone on the forums to help you out every time.
The Joomla! 1.5 Cookbook will provide you with quick and direct solutions to the most common and uncommon problems faced by you, the Joomla! site owner, sidestepping all the theoretical fuss.
Joomla! is the insanely popular, award winning content management system which helps you build professional looking websites, even if you don't have any HTML programming experience or design skills.
Normally, sometimes you might trip over some common pitfalls which would slow the progress of your website down. This book will help you find a direct and quick way through common problems which can be easily avoided with a few tips and tricks. It starts off with solutions to the most common queries that you might face during the installation and set up for Joomla! 1.5, then moving on swiftly to guide you through Joomla! templates, modules, security, managing your users, and much more. So the next time things go wrong with your Joomla! site and you are wondering, for example, how to work with your site's database; just pick up this book and quickly find your way through.
Find the easiest solutions to many pitfalls that might fall in the way of your Joomla! site.
Chapter 1, Installing Joomla!: This chapter covers the important process of installation. In this chapter, you will learn how to install and use the FTP program FileZilla. Using this you will then learn how to transfer Joomla! up to your server and ensure permissions are correct. There are several different hosting platforms you can choose, but many of them run an application known as cPanel®. Another hosting platform is from the company GoDaddy.com®. You will learn how to use both of these popular systems to install your database and configure it. The last item is a cheat sheet for you to record all the particulars for your host.
Chapter 2, Working with phpMyAdmin: As you learn in Chapter 1, Joomla! is a database-driven system that renders the content on the screen from database queries. In this chapter, you will learn how to export (backup) and import (restore) a database. The database is comprised of "rows" and "tables", working with those you can get fine-grained control over your systems. Lastly, you'll learn how to remove a database table or simply empty out the data.
Chapter 3, Templates: Joomla! has a special extension known as a Template. The Template is what gives the the look to the external part of your book. Using a template requires that be installated. In this chapter you will learn how to install and assign a template as your default one. Of course, templates, like the rest of Joomla!, have a bit of management that goes on and ensuring you know that will give you a sharp-looking site.
The back-end of Joomla! has a template too, known as the administrator template. This template can be replaced with any number of third-party templates available for this purpose. You will learn how to install and assign that one as well.
There are times when you want to use more than one template; this will be covered along with learning how to change a logo (graphics) in a template. Finally, templates use a 'module' position to determine where to show content. You'll wrap up this chapter with knowing how to determine a template's MODULE positions.
Chapter 4, Editing Content and Menus: Joomla! is a Content Management System, and thus has a host of things such as an editor, sections for content, and putting content into categories. You will learn in this chapter how to install an editor, set up, and define the sections and categories that match your needs. Creating an article is the heart of Joomla! - that is - providing something for your visitors to read or interact with. We cover this as well as setting up menus to display the content.
You may want to use Joomla! for a blog site. Joomla! is perfect for this and we wrap this chapter up with instructions on setting up a blog site on Joomla! and learning how to add an extension menu.
Chapter 5, Managing Links, Users and Media: With your Joomla! site you will likely be managing users. This chapter covers all the administrative detail such as adding, deleting, and suspending users. It covers how to take your users and assign them into Groups. You can change or edit the login for your users to match your business requirements.
You're likely to have a need for your clients to reach out to you. Publishing your e-mail is unsafe due to spammers gathering it. Joomla! has provided a means to create a contact using specific users. You'll go through the steps to set up and configure this user.
Adding in links to your site from external sources gives you a great source of extra content. This process is known as using Web Link manager.
Finally, should you ever find yourself having lost your admin password or been locked out of your administrator console, you'll need to manually reset the password for your database. We wrap up this chapter with a simple and quick means to do so.
Chapter 6, Managing Modules and Components: Joomla! can be extended via the use of "Extensions". These extensions fall into three categories: Components, Modules, and Plugins. This chapter covers the installation and management of components and modules. Additionally, you will learn how to create the necessary menu items to drive these applications.
Occasionally, you will need to enable, disable, or uninstall an extension. This step is simple and is covered in a brief recipe.
Lastly you will learn how to change the menu order of components.
Chapter 7, Managing Articles Using the K2 Content Construction Kit: K2 is a wonderful content creation kit from Joomlaworks.gr. K2 gives you the ability to manage content in an extremely powerful way. In this recipe, you'll learn how to install and configure K2. Using a short cut known as a 'master category', you can templatize your settings in K2 and greatly ease your administration time.
K2 offers some great extras such as connections for YouTube and PhotoGalleries as well.
If you add K2 to an existing Joomla! site, you don't have to recreate all the articles. K2 offers an import feature and you'll become very familiar with it here.
Like Joomla!, K2 also offers categories, except that it removes the concept of Sections. What that opens up is Categories, within Categories, within Categories. This is known as Nested Categories. This recipe will show you how to set up and configure your categories for maximum use.
Tag Clouds are a popular means to display descriptions about your content and help with your Search Engine Efforts. You'll learn how to use this powerful tag cloud system.
The final two recipes cover configuration and moderation of comments in K2 as well as some tips and tricks to enhance your K2 experience.
Chapter 8, Installing Third-party Extensions: In this recipe, you'll be introduced to a few popular third-party extensions. The extensions are: eXtplorer, the Content Upload extension, JomCalendar, and CompoJoom comment system for Joomla! Each of these adds a unique level of functionality that rounds out your site.
Chapter 9, Troubleshooting: You will run into trouble from time to time with your Joomla! site or server. This chapter helps you with establishing a good and well-known troubleshooting process and offers some assistance on specific problems such as connecting to your database.
Chapter 10, Securing your Joomla! Site: Security is one task you should spend an appropriate amount of time and not skip. This set of recipes will assist you through the proper setting of permissions - a common trouble spot. You will learn how to patch, or in other words update your code. Apache web server provides a special setting file called .htaccess that allows you change and configure many important parts of your site. You'll learn how to use .htaccess to protect your site.
From time to time you may have a directory that you wish to keep private, free from prying eyes. In the recipe, Preventing Unauthorized Directory Viewing, you'll learn how to stop access to unauthorized persons.
Hackers love sites that give lots of error information, this helps them learn what your site is running and potentially gives them a clue on breaking in. You'll build a universal error page that gives the information on errors to your visitors that prevents hackers from learning too much.
Rounding out the security chapter, you'll discover how to disable your servers "banner", (a means to divulge important) information, block IP's and evil bots as well as adding protection for PHP, the language Joomla! is written in.
Chapter 11, Joomla! 1.6: Joomla 1.6 is the newest (and at this time, still beta) version of Joomla!. This is essentially a new version from the ground up. There are many new and powerful features in 1.6, such as the Access Control Level system or ACL. You'll spend time learning how to set up and configure this as well as establishing certain ways to restrict content.
Users and groups have changed a bit in 1.6 from the previous version and getting familiar with them will help you adopt v1.6.
The next two recipes are on learning to control access on a per article basis and using the new category manager. Lastly, there have been a great number of improvements in the extension manager and you'll discover those in the final recipe of this chapter.