You are here: Home / Archives for Jon

Creating a Basic Template for Joomla

March 3, 2010 By Jon Leave a Comment

One of the reasons that using Joomla makes it easy to create a website is the availability of templates that take care of all of the background stuff, so you can concentrate on the content. There is undoubtedly a consideration here, that any template you use will be someone else’s – and may not be quite what you are looking for when it comes to making your website yours. If you are fairly confident with coding, you can create your own templates and use Joomla the same way you do for content – as a management system which keeps everything in one place.

To create a (very) basic template for Joomla, you simply need to have an FTP client – or know how to use the File Manager of your cPanel – and the basic template files that make up every Joomla template. These files are:

  • Index.php – this creates the main body of your template, positions and a path to your stylesheet.
  • TemplateDetails.xml – this is the file that the Joomla software needs to read the information in your template
  • Css/template.css – this is the stylesheet itself. That means it carries all of the information that decides what your website looks like.

There are three basic templates that come with the Joomla application, and to see what the above files look like you can open any of the template files and familiarize yourself with the content of the files. There is a lot of detail in each of these and to list it all here would take up too much space, but if you are familiar with HTML code it will be recognizable to you.

In the index.php file, you will include any code which specifies the position of content – whether that be page titles, meta descriptions and tags, and so forth. It is this file that will govern the layout of your website.

In the templateDetails.xml file, a lot of information is required so that Joomla knows what to show. You can write this code yourself, or base it around the already-existing code for the templates that came with the software. The information in this file will tell Joomla which version of the software the template has been written for, what it is called, who created it and when, as well as a great deal of other information. This is where the licensing information is kept.

The final file that you need to edit is the CSS file. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and is responsible for the colors, fonts and graphics used on your site. When you are editing the index file you will need to place a line of text pointing to the CSS file, so that your website knows where to load the stylesheet file from.

There are many guides on the Internet which will inform you on how to edit the specific information in the three separate files, and it is worth familiarizing yourself with these guides before you attempt to create any intricate template for Joomla. To begin with, it is worth simply playing with the code to see what kind of changes are possible.

Filed Under: Joomla Templates Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ongoing Maintenance To Your Website Using Joomla

February 22, 2010 By Jon Leave a Comment

There have been services and systems designed to make it easier to create and maintain a website for almost as long as there has been an Internet to put them on. This is a system that has evolved over the years and will continue to evolve, too. Without a doubt, there is no shortage of software packages that you can use to make website creation easier – so why choose Joomla?

To answer that question, it is worth looking at what the other sites provide, and how Joomla stacks up when compared to them. Perhaps the most notable reason for using Joomla is the fact that, as a newer service than the others, it has come from a position of seeing how the other sites work and improving upon what is already available. Early efforts like Microsoft Frontpage – packaged with some versions of Windows – and Adobe Dreamweaver, certainly made website creation easier for the novice. They were, however, still aimed at people with a more than basic understanding of web design.

Joomla has benefited from the increase in popularity of “widgets”. This means that you can add to your Joomla package as and when you want by downloading a widget – or, to translate the jargon, a secondary service – that is aimed at making a specific element of the maintenance easier. If, for example, you want to add more features to your site, it often fell to you to either write the code for it, or find it elsewhere. Now, widgets exist for a vast range of maintenance aspects. There are as many as three and a half thousand add-ons that can be used to make Joomla more effective.

As Joomla is open source software, it is also free of charge, and so for the most part are its add-ons. Instead of spending what can amount to hundreds of pounds on dedicated software, using open-source software is the most sensible option for anyone who is using the software to build and maintain a site without absolute knowledge of how to design websites. Not only that, but the number of Joomla users has led to a strong online community which ensures that, even if you don’t know how to correct a problem, someone else will have faced it before and be able to enlighten you.

Perhaps the major advantage of Joomla is the versatility of the software – both the primary Joomla package and any add-ons you may download allow you to create anything from a basic blog site to a macro-site packed with different features, and to add and take away as you see fit without damaging the integral usability of the site. You can make changes when you want and see how those changes will affect the look and the quality of your site, allowing you to get it right without having to spend all day honing one niggling factor. As your site becomes more established you can turn it into almost anything you want to, and without needing to gain a diploma in software engineering.

Filed Under: Joomla Maintenance Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How To Install Joomla: A Tutorial

February 2, 2010 By Jon 2 Comments

Joomla is frequently referred to as the Internet’s most user-friendly and beneficial Content Management System. To benefit from its capabilities you need only download it and install it on your servers. Of course, that’s easy to say, but what if you are not familiar with content management software? How to install it? Is it something that is difficult to do?

A lot of people will find that existing tutorials on how to install Joomla presuppose that certain things have been done when they have not. The absolute first thing you must have done before you seek to install Joomla is to have web hosting on one of the Internet’s many web host servers. If you do not already have that, then search on Google for “cheap web hosting” and select one that is suitable for your purpose.

Once you have web hosting for your site, you should have access to your “cPanel” (short for control panel). Whatever the URL of your site is, the URL for your server will be the same, with “/cpanel” on the end of it, and will be accessed by entering your user name and password. Usually, your hosting service will have a module known as Fantastico. This is the easiest way how to install Joomla. If you have Fantastico on your web hosting, then you need only open it and click the Joomla link that will be there. On doing this, you will be taken through the setup process and have access to Joomla instantly.

However, not every server has a Fantastico module and if this is the case, then you will need to manually install Joomla. This is a longer process but, if followed correctly, does not need to be particularly long-winded or problematic. Firstly, check that your web host meets the following requirements:

  • PHP 4.4.3 or better
  • SQL 3.23.x or better
  • Apache 1.13.19 or better

If it does not, then you will need to get these requirements in place – it will not be difficult – and then download the set up file from Joomla.org. It will now be on your computer in whichever file you have downloaded it into. You now need to log into your cPanel and upload the Joomla file which should still be in “.zip” form. You can unzip it in your cPanel by clicking on it and then clicking “Extract” on the cPanel toolbar.

As long as this process has taken place, you then need to check everything has been done correctly. You do this by going to http://www.yourdomain.com/Joomla_folder (although obviously putting the name of your site into the URL above). If any errors have been made, they will show up on the screen in red. You can either correct them manually or, if you don’t know how, contact your host. Assuming there are no errors, or that all errors have been corrected, you then go to the configuration mode, where you set up your site.

Setting up the site is done by following a range of options, which are concerned with configuring a database and setting passwords. Once this process has been carried out, you are ready to run your site using Joomla to update it.

Filed Under: Joomla Setup Tagged With: , ,

Setting Up A Site For Someone Else With Joomla

January 17, 2010 By Jon Leave a Comment

It is unavoidably the case that to make a success out of your business these days, you are going to need some web presence. Even for reasons beyond business, there are many people who want to have that online capability anyway, for reasons from blogging to campaigning. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that setting up a website is just like speaking a foreign language – some people can do it naturally, while some people cannot ever do it no matter how much effort they put into learning.

Some people will find it difficult even when using a content management system, such as Joomla. It may well be the case that a friend – who may be an excellent salesman or a truly honest politician, but a complete novice when it comes to the Internet – needs to set up a website and, although they have no idea how to and you are no web designer, asks you to help.

The best bet in this case is to use Joomla. It is probably fair to say that there are three levels of internet literacy:

  • There are those who are fluent, and can do anything with a bit of code.
  • There are those who speak only the basics, and need help to get anywhere.
  • There are also those in the middle who will find that with the right materials they can put together a pretty good understanding and create something worth using.

Let’s assume that you are from the third group and your friend is from the second.

What you are looking to do is put together a website that may not entirely be the absolute height in online quality, but is nonetheless worth reading, easy to navigate and contains the right content. Your first step has to be finding out from your friend what they want their website to say. A short consultation is advisable, aimed at finding out things like:

  • Who they want to read it
  • How many pages they want
  • The key points the site needs to cover

In doing this, you can plan the website to some degree before committing it to the Internet. It means that you are able to get in place a vision of what your friend wants their website to look like, say and do. Once you have planned the content for the website, you can then set about using Joomla to make the website itself.

Before you actually construct the website, you will need to pay for web hosting. It is possible to get this for free, although free web hosting is notoriously unreliable – but you don’t need to spend too much money on any supposedly “better” hosting providers. There are some perfectly reliable and efficient hosting sites which will do everything you need them to for a monthly fee in the region of $6.50. One of these will do the job perfectly. Once this is done, all you need to is install Joomla and start updating the site – you can be active within hours if you have something relatively simple to put in place.

Filed Under: Joomla Setup Tagged With: , ,

Content Management System: What Is It?

January 5, 2010 By Jon Leave a Comment

There is no doubt that there is a lot on the Internet which helps even the least tech-savvy individuals. However, for many people, it is difficult to find the right thing for their purposes because the language used to describe and title it makes no sense to them. For example, the phrase “Content Management System” may make perfect sense to someone who makes a point of being informed about the Internet, but to a lot of others it looks suspiciously like three words placed together with little regard for meaning. What exactly is a content management system?

A Content Management System (CMS) is a kind of software that does the work of a web designer for people who simply do not have the familiarity with systems like HTML and graphics packages. It allows complete beginners to create websites which will be credible and usable, and also allows people with a bit more knowledge to use that knowledge more intuitively. “Content” – a word which has been given a new lease of life in recent years – can be anything from written articles to polls, from digital photographs to YouTube videos.

You, as the website manager, are the one providing the content. What you bring to the whole process is a specific idea – a blog dealing with the subject of your choice, a site providing how-to videos informing people on processes that you specialize in. What you get from a content management system is the chance to make that information accessible to people visiting your website. We have all seen websites which may have useful information or entertaining content, but the method of display makes the site all but unusable. Joomla (as well as other CMS software) is like a middleman in this process.

CMS software works for its users by providing templates into which you can place your content. Even for an experienced web designer, putting together a website that is ready to be visited by Internet users can take quite a lot of time when done from scratch. A good CMS like Joomla will remove much of the stress from creating a website – this is clearly good news for anyone who has spent hours putting together a website and then found that it is not displaying properly (or at all) because a single character has been missed out in literally hundreds of lines of code.

CMS sites have their critics, who point out that using a CMS limits exactly what you can display and how your website will look – but the fact is that CMS templates are highly customizable and, while for an experienced web designer it may still be better to go from scratch, Joomla makes it possible for people whose best talents lie in content creation to create sites that will be interesting and readable for a wider range of people. Once you have created a site using Joomla, you can keep editing it until you are genuinely happy with the way it looks.

Filed Under: Content Management System

Joomla: Website Creation for Beginners

December 22, 2009 By Jon Leave a Comment

The benefit of using a content management system (such as Joomla!) to set up a website is the ease it introduces to a process that, ordinarily, takes a lot of hard work and knowledge of a process that involves specialist information when done the “hard way”. If you use Joomla, you may not have the absolute freedom that a web designer enjoys, but you will be able to create quality websites which are easy to use and navigate.

To set up a website using Joomla – if you want to get the best out of it – it is best to start by setting up web hosting. It is possible to get free hosting, however this is not the best way to do things. Yes, it is free. But it isn’t very good, unfortunately. Free web hosting does have the benefit of being free, but you get what you pay for. Free web hosting tends to be less reliable, and may result in a lot of downtime, as well as poor functionality if you receive a lot of visitors to your site. A good, cheap web hosting provider will give you more reliability for a price you can afford.

Once you have organized web hosting, it is then a matter of installing Joomla on the hosting account. This is a simple process and involves downloading the Joomla software from their website and following the simple instructions that come with it. This is a step-by-step process and allows you to concentrate on bringing your specialist knowledge to the process. Your part in this is content provision – you write or create the content, and Joomla will manage it. Your web host will ensure its place on the Internet.

In addition, you will want to ensure that the content is displayed in a way which is going to attract the right kind of attention – so you want it to look good. This means finding a Joomla template that you are happy with. There are several sites which provide free templates. When you look at templates, what you will see is a general idea of how it will look – obviously the banners and finer details will change when you update the content and make other changes. What the template shows you is how the colors, fonts and other elements of your site will look like on screen.

There is plenty of support on the Joomla website itself – in the form of forums and FAQs, as well as a lot of partner sites which provide specialist advice and information so that novices can create a usable, high quality website without having to go from the beginning and learning how to write code. For someone looking to create a good website from scratch, Joomla is an option which allows you to concentrate on what you are good at and leave the technicalities to the experts.

Once the software and template are downloaded, they are highly customizable and can be edited without fuss so that you achieve exactly the right look.

Filed Under: Joomla Basics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Flash Can Improve Your Website if Used Correctly

December 1, 2009 By Jon Leave a Comment

Before we can understand the advantages of Flash web design, we need to know exactly what Flash is. Flash is a multimedia format developed by Adobe (previously Macromedia), which has come a long way since its inception. The current version of Flash is a powerful design and animation authoring tool with an object-oriented dynamic scripting engine, bitmap rendering anti-aliasing precision and advanced audio and video playback. This multimedia format actually comprises of three components: a player, a file format, and an authoring tool.

Flash allows web designers to create and develop animations and interactive movies or images that can be embedded into a web page. In its early stages, Flash was mostly used in the development of vector based animations, which meant that Flash movies could have small file sizes, so they could downloaded and rapidly played over the internet. Initially Flash became popular with web developers as a means of producing animated ‘splash screens’ or presentations, to make a web site seem more fun and attractive. However unfortunately this technique was over used and diminished the value of this amazing multimedia tool.

More recently, Flash technology has become more powerful, and developers have now begun to truly appreciate its potential to create more sophisticated web-based applications. Flash is now used to create small tutorials complete with interactive animations and self-testing exercises. It is a great e-learning tool.

Uses of Flash
Flash can be used as a in the following to make them more attractive and interesting:

  • Advertising banners
  • Online presentations
  • Offline presentations
  • Websites
  • Internet animations
  • Multimedia online movies
  • CD-ROMs
  • Screensavers
  • Software applications
  • Games

Advantages of Flash Web Design
So what are the main advantages of Flash web design? If implemented properly, flash can provide a number of useful advantages over traditional web designs:

  • Flash can make a web site more attractive, interactive and dynamic.
  • Within a 30-second period, Flash can show a whole company presentation or profile on a website.
  • As Flash movies are displayed by a Adobe Flash Player plug-in, Flash-based work is likely to be rendered the same on all browsers and computer platforms, therefore allowing designers to escape from the constraints of more traditional XHTML-based design interfaces.
  • Flash has now become a very well-recognized format on the internet, and it is estimated that over 90% of web users now have the Flash Player installed on their computers.
  • In addition to being embedded within a web page, Flash movies can also be exported to construct stand-alone executable applications, which are ideal for CD-ROMs.
  • Flash movies can be stored in very small file sizes, so they can be downloaded rapidly.
  • It is now possible to import external information from say a database into a Flash movie. This facilitates the construction of more sophisticated Flash-based applications that can automatically update themselves. What this means is that one can use the same Flash interface by simply editing the external XML file.
  • Flash can also be used to create innovative advertisements, games and movies that can be displayed a web site.

Flash Facts

  • The fact is that Flash is a flexible software package that can be programmed to run comprehensive applications and online multimedia movies.
  • Flash is the most efficient means of animation on the web at the moment. It is primarily used for Vector based for animation.
  • Flash is a multi-platform application that will appear the same on all browsers and platforms as long as its plug-in has be downloaded.

Flash Myths

  • Flash is slow to download. This is the biggest myth about Flash. Flash is designed to be both quick and effective; however it is only as good as the person using it, as it is an application based software.
  • Flash is only a gimmick. This is not true as a Flash presentation can be very effective in marketing a product. It is important to use Flash only when necessary, overusing it can hinder your objectives as some people are only interested in quick information not a presentation.
Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page