Joomla SiteBuilder 1

Jen Kramer4Web, Inc.CMS Expo, Evanston ILMay 2011

Agenda

• Collect cards for Free Drawing!• Introduce Jen• Background: skills, planning• Joomla tips:

• Different types of content: blogs, lists, home page, article settings, registered users

• Menu configuration• Understanding templates

First, about Jen

• Program Director, MSIT, Marlboro College Graduate Center

• Manager, Joomla! User Group New England

• Lynda.com author, 6 video titles• Author, “Joomla! Start to Finish”, Wrox

Press• Author, “Joomla! 24 Hour Trainer”, Wrox

Press• And I get 8 hours of sleep a night.

Now about you…

• Worked with Joomla before? (Kickstart is great!)

• Worked with any CMS before?• Know hand-coded HTML?• Know hand-coded CSS?• Anything special you want to

learn today?

Best ways to improve your Joomla skills

• Learn hand-coded HTML• Learn hand-coded CSS• Learn about website planning

and strategy• These skills applicable to any

CMS

First of all, what are you building?

• What problem is this website trying to solve?

• Why is a website the best way to solve that problem?

• Who does it serve?• Goals: organization, website,

user?

First comes the CAM (Joomla 1.6)

• Remember, to create an article you must first create• Category• Article• Menu item

• Creating categories and articles was covered in Kickstart

Content in Joomla

• The humble article• Blogs (as functionality and

layout)• Lists of links to articles within a

section or category• Home page blog

Do I have to have categories?

• Nope, don’t have to. You could make everything “uncategorised”

• But if all articles have no category, the functionalities I’m about to describe won’t work very well.

Recommended approach

• If your site has 20 articles or less, you’re probably fine setting everything to “uncategorised”

• Over 20 articles, use categories (to help find content if nothing else)

• You can combine these. Example: 5 pages of uncategorized pages, plus a blog with a category.

Blogs

• Category Blog• Created as menu items• Demo

Permanent intro text

• To add permanent intro text at the top of the blog, set this as a category description, then set to display in the menu item.

Article lists

• Category List• Demo

Configuring articles: which setting wins?

• Most global: Article Options (top right of Article Manager)

• Middle: menu settings• Highest: individual article

settings• Demo of where settings are

located

Which configuration is “best”?

• Works like CSS!1. Global settings via Article

Options2. Then set menu overrides, if

required3. Then if all else fails, change in

the article itself

Setting up content for registered users only

• Create the article, set to registered users only

• Link to menu, set to registered users only (can be by menu item or whole menus)

• Install login box• Demo

Configuring Menus

• Three common menu configurations:• All in one location• Split navigation• Image-based menus

• Demo of each

Templates!

• Commercially available• Template creators (Morph,

Gantry, Themeables, Artisteer, others)

• Fully customized and built from scratch

• Which is best?

Templates!

• Commercial templates vs. free templates: which is better?

Changing a template you did not build

• Template Manager – Options – Preview Module Positions to Enabled

• ?tp=1 at end of URL will show module regions

• Demo

Free Drawing!!!

• Did you get your business card in the bucket?

• Win autographed copy of “Joomla! 24-Hour Trainer” AFTER SiteBuilder 2!

• More on sale in the 4Web booth

Questions?

Jen Kramer4Web, Inc.www.4webinc.comwww.joomla4web.comjen@4webinc.comTwitter: jen4web