Joomla, a rigid but extensible CMS

Introduction to the popular Joomla CMS (Content Management System) and its use. This strange name was chosen among many others! It is a Swahili word that expresses the community vision of the tool.
Joomla uses are quite varied: portal, magazine, e-commerce. If you wonder why use Joomla rather than Wordpress or Drupal, the first is suitable for webmasters who want a tool ready to use immediately, the second for those who need a CMS adaptable to the business of a company. Joomla is between the two.

In April 2010, Microsoft has signed the Joomla! Contributor Agreement and now contributes to the code for it to work better on its Windows IIS server.

Advantages of Joomla (since version 1.5.9)

Drawbacks of Joomla

Documentation is the weak point of this CMS. We do not even see on the site a list of features of the software, we must pick them up on other sites. Apart a PDF file somewhere on the site I found through Google.
The wiki and more precisely the Absolute Beginners Guide to Joomla provides some information.

Joomla has only two levels of hierarchy while Wordpress allows you to add sub-categories without limitation. That's enough for a site of entrerprises or e-commerce but Joomla is not suitable for a documentary website.

The organization of content in Joomla

Joomla page contains different types of contents called "modules".

You can place multiple modules of the same type on the page, if appropriate. To incorporate them, go to the menu Extension / Module, tick and click on Enable. The layout is defined through the edit option.
You can create new modules, choose their position and give them content with the text editor.

List of modules already included

Other modules:

Sections and categories

This corresponds to two levels. The sections are composed of several categories. The latter are equivalent to the categories of Wordpress: clusters where items are placed.

Ideally, sections are suitable for kinds of contents (for example: articles, videos, FAQ, forum) and categories to sort semantically the pages.

When creating a category, it is chosen to which section it belongs, and similarly, when you create an article, you define what category it belongs.

The display of sections and categories depends on the template and user choice and is not related to their structure. You can put the categories in a menu, in the header or elsewhere and it is the same for the sections.

Administering

It is advisable to create a bookmark for the site, example: www.scriptol.com. and another to link directly in the administration of the site: www.scriptol.com/administrator/

The administering is made entirely from the horizontal menu bar. It includes at right a sub-menu very useful to understand the many options in the CMS.

Getting started

From the panel you have to configure the CMS before a first use. Many challenges await you, but a tutorial will help you overcome them: Getting started with Joomla.

Useful links