What are the main things to master in Joomla?

What are the main things to master in Joomla?

Posted by in Learn Joomla

In my point of view, there are only a few things that you should really understand in order to master Joomla and start developing sites right away. Yes, when you install Joomla and visit the Administration Panel, you will find a lot of places, but the fact is that you will probably never use most of them in order to build beautiful and user friendly websites.

Extensions, Content, Menus, and Templates Positions are the main factors that you should get right away in order to develop websites in Joomla. Now of course there are going to be more places to go inside the Administrator Control Panel, but those are small places that you will learn with the normal use of Joomla, nothing to worry at this point.

Extensions

So what are extensions, if you are familiar with WordPress, extensions are like plugins, they will integrate inside Joomla and will add an especial ability to the software. In WordPress you will have an ecommerce plugin to convert WordPress in a shopping cart. In Joomla, you will have plugins too, but it is going to be called ecommerce extension. As you can see Joomla is not that different than WordPress.

The only difference is that they are going to be called extensions and you will have three (3) different types of extensions; Components, Modules, and Plugins. All of them in general are the same, programs that add to Joomla. In the image below I show you how these programs add to Joomla and expand its functionality.

Extensions What are the main things to master in Joomla?

Joomla Extensions - Components, Modules, and Plugins

Content

In here you will actually create the articles you are going to display inside the website. Although, you will find inside this section 3 different parts to go which are Sections, Categories, and Articles. You can basically eliminate Sections and Categories if you want to make you site less complicated.  Implementing Sections and Categories is normally applied to websites that are going to place a lot of content or where they want to be more organized. (Side Note: In Joomla 1.6 Sections are going to be eliminated, and that will reduce the complications to understand this part. Also, it will help in the SEO for Joomla.)

In the picture below, I show the Administration Control Panel from Articles, Sections, and Categories.

Sections are going to be eliminated in Joomla 1.6

contentjoomla What are the main things to master in Joomla?

Content in Joomla - Section, Categories, and Articles

Menus

Inside the menus, you will link your articles and some extensions (specifically Component Extensions = Big Programs ), so you can create a link menu inside the website. Those menu links are going to display whatever you link to them. If you link an article, it will display an article. If you link an extension, it will display an extension. In the picture below I show some examples of Menu Links

horizontallinks What are the main things to master in Joomla?

Horizontal Menu Links

verticallinks What are the main things to master in Joomla?

Vertical Menu Links

Templates’ Positions

To check the templates position of any Joomla template you will need to add “index.php?tp=1” at the end of your website. Ex. http://www.mysite.com/index.php?tp=1 . Templates’ Positions are very important because they are going to allow you move Menu Links and extensions (specifically Module Extensions = Medium Programs) around your templates. This will help you in give the look you want to your website.

Now this can seems too much information, but it is not. If you compare the monetary gains against the time you expend on the software, it is much better to learn Joomla right away. When you finish your first Joomla website, you will feel that sensation that you are on the right path.

Remember if you already don’t know how to master Joomla, take my 7 Day Accelerated Training Course to Build You Web Design Empire.

I know you will have your own opinions about the most important things to learn in Joomla. If you do, please don’t forget to send me your comments using the box below.

Do you want to learn Joomla? Watch This Video

Tags: Joomla 1.5, Joomla 1.6, Joomla Web Design

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