Joomla! Documentation - User contributions [en]

Terminology

2011-06-24T15:09:28Z

Vernonr:

==Content related terms==
===Section===
This the topmost “container” for content.
The name can be appear within user friendly web addresses. So choose the names with care. You can create “blog” type formats that show articles in a tabular format

===Category ===
Every category lives within a section. Again the name can appear within user friendly web addresses. You can create blog type formats that use a tabular format. In Joomla 1.5! categories cannot "live" within other categories - but in Joomla! 1.6 this changes.

===Articles===
These are where content lives. Every article is assigned to a category and section ( even if it is “uncategorised” ). Articles are only published when you decide it’s appropriate.

Most people start out creating articles in a standard desktop program - perhaps Microsoft Word. If you use this you should ensure you have filtered out the “Microsoft proprietary” HTML tags before pasting the content into the Article Editor.
It can be easier to paste the content into Wordpad or Notepad, then save and then paste it onward - this has the same filtering affect. If you use the TinyMCE editor then the advanced option will show a "Paste From Word" button.
Like any subject Joomla! has its own terminology - and ordinary English words may have particular meanings. If people don't understand the terminology they may fail to get the best from Joomla! - a real shame..

==Look and Feel Terms==
===Template===
These determine the way the website appears - the colours, where things are on the page etc.
Templates are normally constructed / bought when the website is created. It can be changed at will - so you may not need to change the content (in the articles) to change the appearance of the page. Most of this relies on Cascading Style Sheets and technical stuff - ask your advisor(s) if you’re interested.

===Template Positions===
Joomla templates are a series of rectangular boxes - each of which can contain content and have an unique name (template position). The exception is an article which normally is shown in the part of the screen not taken up by defined positions. e.g. the centre.

==Navigational terms==
===Menu===
These exist completely independently of any page
This gives considerable flexibility - there can be lots of menus.
You can assign articles to one or more “menu items” at will.

Be careful to use a good naming convention; as this can really help find the article appearing at a particular web address.

===Menu item===
This is where the name of the page ( that appears in the web address ) is chosen, and where the layout is selected ( e.g., Blog, article, wrapper ). Some Search Engine Friendly URL systems may allow alternatives to this.

===Wrapper===
A page layout that allows web pages from external websites to be included without change. This can be good (because it’s quick) and bad (because the look and feel may be very different).

Evaluators

2011-06-24T15:06:27Z

Vernonr:

{{RightTOC}}
{{Evaluators}}
How do you evaluate Joomla! to see if it will fit your requirements? There is no one answer to this question, but this section will provide some suggestions.

==High-level evaluation==
There are several resources that can help you to get a high-level view of the overall capabilities of Joomla!.

===Web sites running Joomla===

One way to evaluate a [[CMS]] package is to look at Web sites that run on it. It is impossible to say exactly how many Web sites run Joomla, but we do know that over 14 million copies of the software have been downloaded since March 2007. Joomla is the world's most popular full-featured Content Management System (CMS) and powers approximately 2.7% of the largest 1,000,000 Web sites in the world. [http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all]

Joomla maintains [http://community.joomla.org/showcase/ The Joomla! Community Showcase] that allows you to look at a number of sites running on Joomla. Obviously, these only represent a tiny fraction of the total number of Joomla sites worldwide.

A simple [http://demo.joomla.org/1.5/ demonstration site] is available for viewing. This site contains a lot of useful information about Joomla features and its community.

If you are evaluating Joomla for a school, university, or non-profit organization, you might want to look at the [[jforum:265|Schools and Universities]] forum.

And, of course, don't forget to include all of the Joomla.org sites as examples of what can be done with Joomla, since they of course are all run on our favourite CMS package.

===Extensions===
An important feature of Joomla is the ease - by design - with which its core functionality can be increased by installing "[[Extensions]]". This extensibility is a major strength of Joomla and a large and active third-party developer community have helped create over 6,000 extensions that are currently available, with more being added daily. Most, like Joomla, are Open Source, whilst the others are offered as commercial software. To get an idea of the variety of extensions available, visit the [http://extensions.joomla.org Joomla Extensions Directory](JED). It should also be noted that the JED does not include templates within its catalogue and there are many thousands of these available for free or commercially.

===Community===
The developer community is just one part of a larger Joomla community. For example, there are over 425,000 active registered users on the various Joomla forums, with over 150 new participants every day. These forums are very active, with over 1,200 posts per day, and they provide a high level of free support to Joomla users. This support is given voluntarily by other community members. To get an idea of the types of questions answered in the forums, visit the [[jforum:428|General Questions]] forum.

===Support===
An important question when evaluating any software package is the quality of support available. In addition to the support forums, Joomla has a large community of skilled Web professionals and consulting organisations who use Joomla to create and maintain a wide variety of Web sites. Take a look at the [[jforum:177|Professional Services]] forum to get a view of this community. There are also a growing number of local Joomla [http://community.joomla.org/joomla-user-groups.html user groups].

===Independent market studies===
A 2009 report by the independent consulting firm ''water & stone'' concluded that "Joomla is the Web’s most popular Open Source content management system". [http://community.joomla.org/videos/marketing/osscmsreport2009r1.pdf Click here to read the complete report].

==Functional Evaluation==
As part of the evaluation process, you may want to understand in more depth exactly what Joomla! does and how you create a web site in Joomla! There are two aspects to evaluating Joomla!'s functionality. The first is to understand the core functionality that ships with Joomla!. The second is to understand how extensions will be used in your site.

===Joomla! Core Functionality===
When evaluating Joomla!, it is useful to understand its core functionality. If you are new to web development and CMS software, the [[Beginners|Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joomla!]] is a good place to start. You may also need some help with unfamiliar [[terminology]]

If you are more experienced, then you might prefer to try out Joomla! using the [http://demo.joomla.org/ Joomla! Demo site]. Or you can download and install Joomla! on a local computer, along with the Joomla! sample website. Instructions for this are contained in the [http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task048/joomla_15_quickstart.pdf Quickstart Guide]. (Note that, to install the sample data, just press the "Install Sample Data" button during step 6 of the installation wizard.)

In either case, you can try out the "back end" administrator functions of Joomla! and see how you create menus, pages, articles, and other components of your web site. Everything you see in the sample web site is created with the core functionality of Joomla!.

===Joomla! Extensions===
As discussed earlier, over 3,500 extensions are currently available for Joomla!, with more being added daily. Although sites can be built using only the Joomla! core software, it is likely that you will want to use extensions. Most Joomla! web sites of any size or complexity include a number of extensions, and the identification of the major extensions that you will use to provide important functionality should be part of your evaluation.

===Other Joomla! Customisation===
Extensions provide pre-packaged solutions that require no programming to use. Another way to extend Joomla! is to customise it. Joomla! is designed to be extended and customised in several different ways.

The appearance of the web site -- the colours, graphics, typeface, and so on -- are controlled by the site's "[[template]]". Joomla! comes with three built-in templates, and there are many templates available as pre-built extensions. If you are familiar with HTML and CSS, it is not difficult to build your own customised template. You can look at the [[Joomla!_1.5_Template_Tutorial|Template Tutorial]] to get an idea of how templates work.

Since Joomla! is open source, any part of the program can be customised as needed. In addition, Joomla! includes a feature called "Template Overrides" which allow you to create one or more small customised programs that override parts of the standard Joomla! program. These programs work with the Joomla! core programs, and using them does not require modifying any core files. Template overrides allow you to easily customise almost any part of the way in which Joomla! renders a page.

==Technical Evaluation==
Joomla! is built using [http://www.php.net PHP] and [http://www.mysql.com MySQL], the most widely used web technologies anywhere. Joomla! is of course an open source project, as are PHP and MySQL. The technical design of Joomla! recognises that, although there are great benefits from using a pre-packaged CMS package to build a web site, each web site is different and there is no single approach that will work for everyone.

The solution is to make Joomla! as easy to extend as possible, while providing a rich and reliable core feature set. As discussed earlier, Joomla! can be extended in a number of ways, including with pre-built extensions, custom templates, custom template overrides, and by customising the core programs.

==See also==
* [[Joomla Is it for me?]]

[[Category:Installation]]
[[Category:FAQ]]
[[Category:Joomla! user profiles]]

Talk:Terminology

2011-06-24T14:57:48Z

Vernonr: Created page with "To add other items you would like explained just add them below."

To add other items you would like explained just add them below.

User:Vernonr

2011-06-24T14:56:32Z

Vernonr:

Joomla! is a critical enabled for Vernon's business - KKSmarts - helping businesses drive traffic to websites, build relationships with visitors and create customers.

So the interest in Joomla is driven by business requirements - not a simple interest in technology

You can get more help about Joomla! and its terminology [http://www.joomla-resources.org/tutorial-for-non-techies.html for non technical people here]

Visit [[http://www.kksmarts.com KKSmarts]] to discover the secrets of getting more business from your website

and

the [[http://www.the-adwords-experts.com The Adwords Experts]] to discover how you can build traffic without months of guesswork and effort.

Vernon Riley uses Joomla! for all the CMS websites run by [[http://www.kksmarts.com KKSmarts]] of which he is co Founder.

Terminology

2011-05-16T09:18:06Z

Vernonr: Vernon Riley : Create the terminology page

==Content related terms==
===Section===
This the topmost “container” for content.
The name can be appear within user friendly web addresses. So choose the names with care. You can create “blog” type formats that show articles in a tabular format

===Category ===
Every category lives within a section. Again the name can appear within user friendly web addresses. You can create blog type formats that use a tabular format.

===Articles===
These are where content lives. Every article is assigned to a category and section ( even if it is “uncategorised” ). Articles are only published when you decide it’s appropriate.

Most people start out creating articles in a standard desktop program - perhaps Microsoft Word. If you use this you should ensure you have filtered out the “Microsoft proprietary” HTML tags before pasting the content into the Article Editor.
It can be easier to paste the content into Wordpad or Notepad, then save and then paste it onward - this has the same filtering affect. If you use the TinyMCE editor then the advanced option will show a "Paste From Word" button.
Like any subject Joomla! has its own terminology - and ordinary English words may have particular meanings. If people don't understand the terminology they may fail to get the best from Joomla! - a real shame..

==Look and Feel Terms==
===Template===
These determine the way the website appears - the colours, where things are on the page etc.
Templates are normally constructed / bought when the website is created. It can be changed at will - so you may not need to change the content (in the articles) to change the appearance of the page. Most of this relies on Cascading Style Sheets and technical stuff - ask your advisor(s) if you’re interested.

===Template Positions===
Joomla templates are a series of rectangular boxes - each of which can contain content and have an unique name (template position). The exception is an article which normally is shown in the part of the screen not taken up by defined positions. e.g. the centre.

==Navigational terms==
===Menu===
These exist completely independently of any page
This gives considerable flexibility - there can be lots of menus.
You can assign articles to one or more “menu items” at will.

===Menu item===
This is where the name of the page ( that appears in the web address ) is chosen, and where the layout is selected ( e.g., Blog, article, wrapper ). Some Search Engine Friendly URL systems may allow alternatives to this.

===Wrapper===
A page layout that allows web pages from external websites to be included without change. This can be good (because it’s quick) and bad (because the look and feel may be very different).

User talk:Chris Davenport

2011-04-05T09:19:45Z

Vernonr: /* Terminology */

What was the reason my edits were removed?

Linking to external sites is classed as "self-promotion". If you wish to contribute videos (or any other resource) then they need to be hosted on our infrastructure. Ideally they will also be JEDL licensed, although we will consider material under other open licenses as long as the license terms are clearly shown. I look forward to seeing your videos. Just send them to me and I'll arrange to put them in an appropriate place. Thanks. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 03:43, 12 December 2008 (EST)

== basic template tutorial ==

You removed the warning notice I added to the tutorial, IMHO it is better to warn people that the basic tutorial will *not* give them a working template than letting them wonder why the template manager refuse to install their template. This notice should stay until someone fix the tutorial. For example removing the reference to the optional background.png from the xml because joomla will complain about a missing file and refuse to install the template. The xml example ought to be coherent with the outline of folder/file structure. Adding some mention of the role and importance the thumbnail file is another thing worth mention among the errors I had to fix for the template to actually install.

I removed your comments because they were not constructive. If you encountered a specific problem with the tutorial you should describe the issue in enough detail that someone would be able to reproduce it and then be able to amend the tutorial. You should also do that on the Talk: page rather than on the page itself. Better still you could amend the tutorial yourself; we welcome additions or amendments that improve the documentation. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 08:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This revert thing is gonna get old quick. I can easily return the compliment and say I undid your removal because it's not constructive either, that If you encountered a specific problem with my editing, you should tell me about it in details on my talk page or point that warning readers that the tutorial is broken is improving the documentation, and the first step of actually fixing it. You should know better than what you did, I don't have the required knowledge and time to fix it myself. If you wanted to reproduce the issue, you just have to follow the tutorial step-by-step, better yet you can read the tutorial and you'll notice that it cannot work as is, or maybe just read what I wrote above and you'll see I did exactly what you asked me. On a related note don't invite someone to do something them block their account to prevent him from doing so, act stupid and treat people badly and they will act stupid too and behave as you expect them too. IMHO it's not smart to fight over such a ridiculous thing, but if you want me to waste both your and my time I'll take you on your challenge, so unless you're willing to block the whole ip range I'm using, I'll come back and do it again. This is the kind of behaviour you usually get from relying on http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/HardSecurity first and not trying to communicate instead of http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/SoftSecurity. see you soon from another ip. While at it also read http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/CriticismIsFeedback

All I am asking is that you edit the page in such a way that others can see the problem you encountered and can correct the information given. Simply saying that "...will end up in a few various errors..." does little to help us. What errors did you encounter? What version of Joomla were you using? What platform are you running Joomla on? Just stating that there are errors is like submitting a bug report that does nothing more than state that there is a bug in 1.6. Your hostile behaviour is uncalled for. 07:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

== Templates ==

Hello
I wanna ask, who can edit the Template Namespace in this Wiki? It would be cool, if a "normal" user could add some templates, cause I got a permission denied message --[[User:Bembelimen|Bembelimen]] 20:17, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that it was restricted. What page/template are you trying to edit/create? [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 21:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
:It doesn't matter which one i try to edit or create. I get everytime this message:
:'''Permission error'''
:You do not have permission to edit pages, for the following reason:<br />
:You do not have permission to edit pages in the '''Template''' namespace.
:--[[User:Bembelimen|Bembelimen]] 21:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I moved you to the Editors group. Try it now. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 23:36, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
:works now, thank you --[[User:Bembelimen|Bembelimen]] 23:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

== J1.6 Help system ==

I read that all will be different for Help in 1.6. Can you please point me to plans for Help 1.6? Tony Davis 06:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Help for Joomla 1.5 and prior versions has traditionally been served from pages on http://help.joomla.org, which is itself a Joomla instance. In fact, the help system implemented in all Joomla versions up to 1.5 is hard-coded to require that the help server be a Joomla instance (probably not intentionally, but that's the way it worked out). That caused a couple of problems:
# When we moved the focus of the documentation effort to a wiki, it made sense to construct the help screens on the wiki too. However, this meant that we had to copy-paste the help screens from the wiki to help.joomla.org and whilst this is straightforward in theory, it is actually very labour-intensive and there is a lot of manual "fixing-up" that had to be done.
# It didn't solve a problem that had always existed with the help screens: clicking on a link in a help screen causes the next page to be loaded to appear with the full Joomla template, including headers, footers and modules, when it would be better to have just the help screen content display.
The first of these problems is addressed by serving the help screens directly from the wiki. However, this requires some minor code changes in Joomla itself. There is a patch to enable 1.5 to access non-Joomla help servers, but I believe it needs tweaking for 1.6 and I haven't had chance to do that yet. The second of these problems is addressed by serving the help screens via a proxy instead of directly from the wiki. The proxy is a Joomla instance running a small component and is already set up and running at http://help.joomla.org/proxy. It uses the wiki's web API to pull data from the wiki and because it has a stripped-down default template, it doesn't deliver any headers, footers or modules that are not intended.

As for the help screens themselves, the user interface for 1.6 is not yet fixed so it probably not wise to start writing the help screens (which generally involve a lot of screenshots) until it is. It is expected that the UI will be fixed when the first beta is released, so that should be the starting point for writing help screens. Of course, there's nothing to stop anyone starting before then, you just need to be aware that changes are very likely to happen.

The other area which is still "up for grabs" is a new key reference scheme. The help system works by having a "key reference" embedded in the code. This is then used to construct a URL from which the help screen is pulled. You can see the traditional naming scheme here: [[Help screens]]. However, with 1.6 we have the opportunity to completely revise this scheme if we want to. For example, we could add a namespace to the key reference, giving us "Joomla16:Config" instead of "screen.config.16", say. I'm not saying we should do that; I'm just illustrating the point that we have a great deal of flexibility and with 1.6 we don't have to worry about backwards-compatibility as there won't be any even if we stick with the current naming scheme.

In 1.5 (and before) the Joomla version number was appended to the basic key reference automatically. With the new help system, we can construct URL's with a lot more flexibility and we can make use of the following variables:
* keyref
*: The basic key reference itself
* major
*: The major part of the Joomla version number.
* minor
*: The minor part of the Joomla version number.
* maintenance
*: The maintenance part of the Joomla version number.
* language
*: The full language code (eg. "en-GB")
* langregion
*: The region part of the language code (eg. "GB").
These variables can be used anywhere within a help system URL to construct the page name to be retrieved.

Hope that helps.
[[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 09:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that Chris.

I take it from the above that one decision (or obvious thing) is that 1.6 Help will be a Joomla based system. Which leads to the question - Should the documentation be similarly based? I see it all being of a piece - the Help Screens being the descriptive part of the User Manual but there also being Introductory texts, Tutorials, Videos, Recipes (a lesser form of Tutorial to encourage folk to write them). It will be accessed either contextually - as a Help System - or like a Cookery Book or like a programming tutorial text. Is this totally daft?

I have built a whole heap of wiki pages and have learnt loads. see [http://docs.joomla.org/Manual_1_6 the root] I am concerned about controlling it. Could you look at Amy's Ning in two places [http://www.alltogetherasawhole.org/group/joomla16userguide/forum/topics/are-things-going-in-the-right bottom of this page] and [http://www.alltogetherasawhole.org/group/joomla16userguide/forum/topics/style-and-content this post] asking for volunteers.

All advice gratefully received. Tony Davis 22:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I follow what you mean when you say that "1.6 Help will be a Joomla based system". The English help screens for 1.6 are going to be served from the wiki, although they are going through a proxy that happens to be running Joomla (I could just as easily have written some standalone PHP to act as a proxy, or if I knew how, a Drupal instance). The fact that all the documentation will be in the wiki, including the help screens, means that we can share content between the help screens and other forms of documentation. For example, I hope that the new 1.6 help screens will include links to more task-orientated pages. I wouldn't include the help screens as such in the User Manual as they mostly just describe what you see on a particular Administrator screen. I think that the User Manual (or Administrator's Manual as I prefer to call it) should be more task/goal orientated. I made a start at the sort of material I thought was appropriate on this page: [[Administrators]]. This is not to say that we cannot share content between the help screens and the User Manual though, but including an entire help screen in the User Manual is probably not very helpful.

I haven't had chance to read the Ning pages thoroughly, but I think Amy is right when she says that we should not expect authors to be wiki experts. We need to encourage people to write the raw material that can then be shaped by others into the modular, context-independent form that is the life-blood of a single-source, modular documentation system. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 23:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

== Vulnerable Extensions Updates ==

I noticed you are in process of updating the page. I am wondering if your update might contain any new information regarding Zoom Media Gallery (a now dead project), or Ice Gallery (Zoom's replacement project, which may also be either dead or in serious limbo). Ice Gallery, it seems, has a serious vulnerability, and is not yet listed here. In any event, Ice should be added, and Zoom entry should be updated as well. I have the info, and can do, if you don't. --[[User:Riverside|Riverside]] 00:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not involved in maintaining that information. Please email vel@joomla.org to report vulnerabilities. Thank you. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 00:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
:Sorry, I was looking at the wrong history page (talk, instead of the main page ~ so apparently it wasn't you editing it), but I will send what I've found there. Thanks. --[[User:Riverside|Riverside]] 18:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

==Templates for 1.6==
Chris,
Just wondering if you got my email regarding chunks and templates for the 1.6 help screens. I'd like to be editing and updating a lot of these screens but I'm not going to do anything until we can figure out a good way to handle chunks.
Would appreciate a response.
[[User:219jondn|219jondn]] 01:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

== Terminology ==

I note that you removed the material I put on the evaluators page about terminology.
Could you clarify your reasons please ? [[User:Vernonr|Vernonr]] 10:27 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you linked to material on your user page, which is not a good idea as all material should be in one of the main namespaces rather than in personal areas. Plus, your user page contained references to external sites which could be construed as self-promotion (see [[JDOC:Wiki_policy|Wiki_policy]]. Although the links are acceptable on user pages, they would not be acceptable on main documentation pages. You can fix it easily by writing directly in the Evaluators page and not linking to external sites. [[User:Chris Davenport|Chris Davenport]] 19:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

OK. How can one create a new page in the main namespace ?

I think it would make more sense to have an introductory page about terminology than to try and fit the material into the Evaluators page, and there could be other pages in the main namespace that should have the link. Would I be right in thinking that noting the authorship of articles is allowed under [[JDOC:Wiki_policy|Wiki_policy]] i.e. a link to the user page [[User:Vernonr|Vernonr]] 10:20 5 April 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Chris Davenport

2011-04-04T10:27:35Z

Vernonr:

User talk:Chris Davenport

2011-04-04T10:26:08Z

Vernonr: /* Terminology */ new section

User:Vernonr

2011-04-01T09:22:10Z

Vernonr:

If you want to create a webpage on Joomla! the following process can be followed:

'''1. Choose a section (or create a new one)'''

Try and make sure this has a human readable and logical name. It will
help you find things later on.

'''2. Choose a category (or create a new one)'''

Every category exists within a section. Again if these have human
readable and logical names it will help you find stuff.

'''3. Write the article content'''

This is where the actual content is placed. Every article is assigned to
a category and section ( even if it is “uncategorised” ). Articles are only
published when you decide it’s appropriate.
You can select which articles are eligible to appear on the front page.

'''4. Assign the article to a menu item'''

These exist completely independently of any page - a real difference from a conventional static website.
This gives lots of flexibility. Whenever you choose to, you can assign articles to a menu item.

You can get more help about Joomla! and its terminology [http://www.joomla-resources.org/tutorial-for-non-techies.html for non technical people here]

Vernon Riley uses Joomla! for all the CMS websites run by [[http://www.kksmarts.com KKSmarts]] of which he is co Founder.

Evaluators

2011-04-01T09:18:41Z

Vernonr: /* Joomla! Core Functionality */

{{RightTOC}}
{{Evaluators}}
How do you evaluate Joomla! to see if it will fit your requirements? There is no one answer to this question, but this section will provide some suggestions.

==High-level evaluation==
There are several resources that can help you to get a high-level view of the overall capabilities of Joomla!.

===Web sites running Joomla===

One way to evaluate a [[CMS]] package is to look at Web sites that run on it. It is impossible to say exactly how many Web sites run Joomla, but we do know that over 14 million copies of the software have been downloaded since March 2007. Joomla is the world's most popular full-featured Content Management System (CMS) and powers approximately 2.4% of the largest 1,000,000 Web sites in the world. [http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all]

Joomla maintains [http://community.joomla.org/showcase/ The Joomla! Community Showcase] that allows you to look at a number of sites running on Joomla. Obviously, these only represent a tiny fraction of the total number of Joomla sites worldwide.

A simple [http://demo.joomla.org/1.5/ demonstration site] is available for viewing. This site contains a lot of useful information about Joomla features and its community.

If you are evaluating Joomla for a school, university, or non-profit organization, you might want to look at the [[jforum:265|Schools and Universities]] forum.

And, of course, don't forget to include all of the Joomla.org sites as examples of what can be done with Joomla, since they of course are all run on our favourite CMS package.

===Extensions===
An important feature of Joomla is the ease - by design - with which its core functionality can be increased by installing "[[Extensions]]". This extensibility is a major strength of Joomla and a large and active third-party developer community have helped create over 6,000 extensions that are currently available, with more being added daily. Most, like Joomla, are Open Source, whilst the others are offered as commercial software. To get an idea of the variety of extensions available, visit the [http://extensions.joomla.org Joomla Extensions Directory](JED). It should also be noted that the JED does not include templates within its catalogue and there are many thousands of these available for free or commercially.

===Community===
The developer community is just one part of a larger Joomla community. For example, there are over 425,000 active registered users on the various Joomla forums, with over 150 new participants every day. These forums are very active, with over 1,200 posts per day, and they provide a high level of free support to Joomla users. This support is given voluntarily by other community members. To get an idea of the types of questions answered in the forums, visit the [[jforum:428|General Questions]] forum.

===Support===
An important question when evaluating any software package is the quality of support available. In addition to the support forums, Joomla has a large community of skilled Web professionals and consulting organisations who use Joomla to create and maintain a wide variety of Web sites. Take a look at the [[jforum:177|Professional Services]] forum to get a view of this community. There are also a growing number of local Joomla [http://community.joomla.org/joomla-user-groups.html user groups].

===Independent market studies===
A 2009 report by the independent consulting firm ''water & stone'' concluded that "Joomla is the Web’s most popular Open Source content management system". [http://community.joomla.org/videos/marketing/osscmsreport2009r1.pdf Click here to read the complete report].

==Functional Evaluation==
As part of the evaluation process, you may want to understand in more depth exactly what Joomla! does and how you create a web site in Joomla! There are two aspects to evaluating Joomla!'s functionality. The first is to understand the core functionality that ships with Joomla!. The second is to understand how extensions will be used in your site.

===Joomla! Core Functionality===
When evaluating Joomla!, it is useful to understand its core functionality. If you are new to web development and CMS software, the [[Beginners|Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joomla!]] is a good place to start.

Particularly if you are from a non technical background you might find Joomla! terminology unfamiliar. You may have questions like:
How do I create a page? You can get help with the [[http://docs.joomla.org/User:Vernonr terminology here]]

If you are more experienced, then you might prefer to try out Joomla! using the [http://demo.joomla.org/ Joomla! Demo site]. Or you can download and install Joomla! on a local computer, along with the Joomla! sample website. Instructions for this are contained in the [http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task048/joomla_15_quickstart.pdf Quickstart Guide]. (Note that, to install the sample data, just press the "Install Sample Data" button during step 6 of the installation wizard.)

In either case, you can try out the "back end" administrator functions of Joomla! and see how you create menus, pages, articles, and other components of your web site. Everything you see in the sample web site is created with the core functionality of Joomla!.

===Joomla! Extensions===
As discussed earlier, over 3,500 extensions are currently available for Joomla!, with more being added daily. Although sites can be built using only the Joomla! core software, it is likely that you will want to use extensions. Most Joomla! web sites of any size or complexity include a number of extensions, and the identification of the major extensions that you will use to provide important functionality should be part of your evaluation.

===Other Joomla! Customisation===
Extensions provide pre-packaged solutions that require no programming to use. Another way to extend Joomla! is to customise it. Joomla! is designed to be extended and customised in several different ways.

The appearance of the web site -- the colours, graphics, typeface, and so on -- are controlled by the site's "[[template]]". Joomla! comes with three built-in templates, and there are many templates available as pre-built extensions. If you are familiar with HTML and CSS, it is not difficult to build your own customised template. You can look at the [[Joomla!_1.5_Template_Tutorial|Template Tutorial]] to get an idea of how templates work.

Since Joomla! is open source, any part of the program can be customised as needed. In addition, Joomla! includes a feature called "Template Overrides" which allow you to create one or more small customised programs that override parts of the standard Joomla! program. These programs work with the Joomla! core programs, and using them does not require modifying any core files. Template overrides allow you to easily customise almost any part of the way in which Joomla! renders a page.

==Technical Evaluation==
Joomla! is built using [http://www.php.net PHP] and [http://www.mysql.com MySQL], the most widely used web technologies anywhere. Joomla! is of course an open source project, as are PHP and MySQL. The technical design of Joomla! recognises that, although there are great benefits from using a pre-packaged CMS package to build a web site, each web site is different and there is no single approach that will work for everyone.

The solution is to make Joomla! as easy to extend as possible, while providing a rich and reliable core feature set. As discussed earlier, Joomla! can be extended in a number of ways, including with pre-built extensions, custom templates, custom template overrides, and by customising the core programs.

==See also==
* [[Joomla Is it for me?]]

[[Category:Installation]]
[[Category:FAQ]]
[[Category:Joomla! user profiles]]

User:Vernonr

2011-04-01T09:13:11Z

Vernonr: A simple process to create a Joomla! webpage