Before you get freaked out about having to do something that a geek would be paid to do, let me show you something: http://demo.yootheme.com/apr08/ Nice webpage, eh? Looks sophisticated, has fancy interaction such as those accordion things, and check it out!!! When you Mouse-over the Home Button, it lets you choose X-ray (my fav), Gold, Black, Desktop, etc.. these are all the same page, but you control how it looks! Wouldn't you like a cool website like this, for free, and without having to pay some geek (like me) to set it up and (more imporantly) maintain it for you? Ok... great, I knew you would! Let me tell you about Joomla.
Websites are intimidating for many non-geeks (I got my geek certification. In fact, I remember in college hearing "Wow, you're cute for a nerd!"). You might think "Golly gee! What software do I need to set it up? Do I need to learn how to use that software? How do I upload the site? What's an ISP? I bet it's expensive to own a site! I should just pay some company!" Well... I'm here to tell you that you can do a lot of it yourself! No software other than a web browser is needed! Ok... I semi-lied... it might help to use FTP software as well (http://filezilla-project.org/download.php), but perhaps not.
Here's the thing... Joomla is a CMS: Content Management System, a website that you login to, and have a control panel in that allows you to add and remove pages, pictures, etc... Joomla is FREE. It is OpenSource software, so you can customize it if you want. You can grab it from www.joomla.org - and while you're at it, go to extensions.joomla.org and browse around.... that will wet your lips for some of the functionality that you can get for (usually) free! You can add guestbooks, chatrooms, calendars, and much more absolutely free-- and easily! Joomla has a "installer".. so, let's say I want to add a guestbook.
I just download one from extensions.joomla.org, save it to my harddrive, go to my joomla site's administration, install extension, and browse for that zip file. Joomla is very powerful, and has massive support (online forums, books, and community). If you grab a YooTheme template, you can find tutorials on customizing it on yootheme.com.
So, now you know that it's simple, and powerful, and you can get it for free. You need a few things to "develop" it - I like to use Xampp (www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) - which just runs on your computer, and lets you play with your files without having to upload them.
So, now you know that it's simple, and powerful, and you can get it for free. You need a few things to "develop" it - I like to use Xampp (www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) - which just runs on your computer, and lets you play with your files without having to upload them.
You see, traditional websites consisted of HTML files and images (say JPG's for example). That made it easier to design a site, but that was web 1.0, we are in web 2.0... CSS is the way to control your look and feel (but that's all done for you with these templates!), and there are many other benefits.
Let's say I have an About page, Contact Page, and Photo-Gallery page, and I now want to add a Stories page. In HTML I would have to practically gut my site and start over sometimes to add one page. In a CMS, I just log in and click "new page", and it's there... not only that, but now all the pages that referenced it are automatically updated. This saves massive quantities of time. CMS systems also allow you to create RSS feeds (which help to bring the search engine to you, as well as keeping your readers up to date), change the look and feel of the site, and add massive functionality.
As I was saying, something like XAMPP is cool, because unlike HTML files, you need a server to process the PHP code. Xampp is free, doesn't take up many resources, and can even run off a USB key (portableapps.com).
The great thing is that often times you don't even have to set it up. Many websites (I use Bluehost.com -- I'll save you the grief ahead of time... GoDaddy.com is incompetent, and will cause you grief) have Fantastico or EasyScripts setup... so you just push a button, and Joomla is setup (kind of like setup.exe on PC apps).
IF you do have to install it yourself, it is still extremely easy. You just need to have a MySQL Database/user/password. Your ISP will have a Database section (by the way, you want a webhost that runs on Linux, not windows), so you just click new database, give it a name, and assign a user to your database. You can install sample data with Joomla, which will let you disect how to create and position content.
The way it works - basically- is you set up a template for the look and feel of the site.
There are "modules" which you control from the modules section. A module gets assigned to a position. What the heck am I talking about? Let me show you: http://demo.yootheme.com
This is a YooTheme theme called "Ambient" This link shows you the "available positions" that you can place modules in. If you click on "home" you can see a bunch of modules/content. The accordion functionality, the "drawers" -- just click around, look around, mouse over stuff... get a feel for it. Each item is a module, and goes somewhere... i.e. a position. You can have multiple things in the same position, and control (very easily) which comes 1st. So the "right" position is a column, the "left" position is a column. If you click on "home" you can see all the functionalities and where they've been placed. Sub Menu, Yooaccordion, Yoospotlight, Yoolightbox, Yoologin -- those are in "left" position. "home" Ambient "Ambient! The latest Yoo....." is in "main" "That nifty set of moving images for showing you the different theme variations (that are all part of "Ambient") is in "Top1" -- get it? Great! I knew you would!
A few concepts to understand are positions (which I sort of covered for you), articles, sections, and categories. Articles are controled from the article manager (duh!). Create a new article, you have a WYSIWYG editor (basically, you have something that resembles MS Word.. Press the Bold button to make things go bold... italics for italics... insert image to insert image... and so on) - which you can replace with a different one.. lots to choose from on extensions.joomla.org -- Write what you want, add pictures, insert columns / rows / tables, and even other modules in your content.
You hit save, and it's live. You can have it be live (published) or not (draft). You can have an article be a whole page (just choose article layout from the menu controller, and select that article. So.. new page "About" links to your "About article" with your "About slideshow" module embedded into it). Sections are parents of Categories.
I recently made a website for some clients... they have a lot of content that falls under "Babes" "Cars" and "Events" - So if they are trying to find an article they wrote, they can filter the list to just show them the ones from the "Babes" section.
To summarize, Joomla is a free and (mostly) simple software that you can easily set up and maintain. It allows you to add a lot of power to your site without being a programmer. It allows you to be search-engine friendly, and it allows you to change the look and feel at will. It is also such a prevalent platform, that you can easily find people on elance or rentacoder to outsource your Joomla site to if it becomes too difficult. Joomla is the future! In case you've heard of other CMS, or were wondering about them, let me throw in a quick addon paragraph:
A CMS is basically a self-controlling website that's expandable. There are a few major ones, for various uses. Wordpress is probably the easiest to use. Wordpress is great if you're a blogger. Drupal is extremely powerful, but requires you to make so much stuff from scratch... basically, you need to be a nerd to use this one. Joomla is powerful, and simple. It has the largest number of extensions/plugins. There's a bunch that are always coming and going... I've heard good things about ExpressionEngine... then there' s a powerful new one called Ruby On Rails... They all have their uses, but as I said... Joomla seems to be the most prevalant. You can check out a bunch of them side by side on: http://www.cmsreview.com/
The way it works - basically- is you set up a template for the look and feel of the site.
There are "modules" which you control from the modules section. A module gets assigned to a position. What the heck am I talking about? Let me show you: http://demo.yootheme.com
This is a YooTheme theme called "Ambient" This link shows you the "available positions" that you can place modules in. If you click on "home" you can see a bunch of modules/content. The accordion functionality, the "drawers" -- just click around, look around, mouse over stuff... get a feel for it. Each item is a module, and goes somewhere... i.e. a position. You can have multiple things in the same position, and control (very easily) which comes 1st. So the "right" position is a column, the "left" position is a column. If you click on "home" you can see all the functionalities and where they've been placed. Sub Menu, Yooaccordion, Yoospotlight, Yoolightbox, Yoologin -- those are in "left" position. "home" Ambient "Ambient! The latest Yoo....." is in "main" "That nifty set of moving images for showing you the different theme variations (that are all part of "Ambient") is in "Top1" -- get it? Great! I knew you would!
A few concepts to understand are positions (which I sort of covered for you), articles, sections, and categories. Articles are controled from the article manager (duh!). Create a new article, you have a WYSIWYG editor (basically, you have something that resembles MS Word.. Press the Bold button to make things go bold... italics for italics... insert image to insert image... and so on) - which you can replace with a different one.. lots to choose from on extensions.joomla.org -- Write what you want, add pictures, insert columns / rows / tables, and even other modules in your content.
You hit save, and it's live. You can have it be live (published) or not (draft). You can have an article be a whole page (just choose article layout from the menu controller, and select that article. So.. new page "About" links to your "About article" with your "About slideshow" module embedded into it). Sections are parents of Categories.
I recently made a website for some clients... they have a lot of content that falls under "Babes" "Cars" and "Events" - So if they are trying to find an article they wrote, they can filter the list to just show them the ones from the "Babes" section.
To summarize, Joomla is a free and (mostly) simple software that you can easily set up and maintain. It allows you to add a lot of power to your site without being a programmer. It allows you to be search-engine friendly, and it allows you to change the look and feel at will. It is also such a prevalent platform, that you can easily find people on elance or rentacoder to outsource your Joomla site to if it becomes too difficult. Joomla is the future! In case you've heard of other CMS, or were wondering about them, let me throw in a quick addon paragraph:
A CMS is basically a self-controlling website that's expandable. There are a few major ones, for various uses. Wordpress is probably the easiest to use. Wordpress is great if you're a blogger. Drupal is extremely powerful, but requires you to make so much stuff from scratch... basically, you need to be a nerd to use this one. Joomla is powerful, and simple. It has the largest number of extensions/plugins. There's a bunch that are always coming and going... I've heard good things about ExpressionEngine... then there' s a powerful new one called Ruby On Rails... They all have their uses, but as I said... Joomla seems to be the most prevalant. You can check out a bunch of them side by side on: http://www.cmsreview.com/
