Common Tasks In Joomla – Administering Websites.
Please Note! - this is not a comprehensive Joomla manual, it is intended as a quick-start guide to more common functions.
For a detailed Joomla user manual and/or designer guide, visit this link to download – www.docs.joomla.org/
Refer to the 'Access Information' in the manual for how to login to Joomla Admin.
Overview.
Joomla uses the concept of 'Articles' to display data and information, and uses Extensions (Modules and Plugins) and Components to provide functionality.
A - Articles
Article creation and management is performed under the main 'Content' tab on Joomla Navigation.
Articles are basically web pages and are used to display text/images. To create an article it is first necessary to create a 'Section' and then a 'Category'. Joomla organizes articles into Sections/Categories to ease management of larger websites. You can save articles into the default 'uncategorized' section but it is worth the two minutes it takes to create a section and then category.
Adding a New Article
- Navigate to 'Content' - 'Article Manager' then click the green 'New' button.
- Title - Give your article a Title, usually this should be within 100 characters.
- Alias (Optional) - The article file name (example - www.purporaengineering.com/tank-gauge-monitor.htm) is constructed by default from the article Title. Joomla places a hyphen between each word and adds the .html extension to create the web page filename. So for the example given, the Title of the article would have been "tank gauge monitor". This is important for SEO (search engine optimization) since search engines reward the use of keywords when they appear in the file name. However, it isn't always practical or desirable to have the filename created from the Title. For example, the Title could be too long, or it could contain illegal characters etc. In this case one uses the optional 'alias' field to enter the text that will be used for the filename. So adding 'my-tank-gauge' into the alias field would result in a page filename of /my-tank-gauge.html' and not 'tank-gauge-monitor.html'
- Select a section using the pulldown tab
- Select a category using the pulldown tab
- Select whether the article is ready for publishing or not.
- Select whether the article should appear on the front page or not.
- Enter the body of the article into the text-edit window. You can do this in one of 3 ways-
- Type directly into the text-edit window – you can type the article body and use the available formatting tools to set the style of your article. You can use the formatting tools to insert images, create links and make text colored/bold etc.
- Copy and Paste into the text edit window from MS Word, other web pages or other documents. - Note – this can often be problematic, since when you use the copy/paste function you are also copying the background formatting that belongs with the data. This formatting my not appear properly when you publish it to the web and will often overwrite the main website style-sheet, resulting in a presentation which is inconsistent with the rest of the website.
- HTML – if you have created a page in an HTML editor, click the link 'HTML' in the text-edit tool bar and paste the HTML code into the pop-up box, then click the 'update' button.
If you click on the 'Parameters (Article)' tab you will see self-explanatory options for including data with the article and also for publishing the article to a schedule if necessary.
More useful is the data within the 'Parameters Advanced' tab, where you can see a list of self-explanatory options for including within the article. You'll notice that they all default to 'Use Global' and to see the global settings you'll need to back-out of the article window and click on the 'Parameters' tab at the top right of the Content screen. These are the default settings for all articles and determine parameters such as whether or not author information is displayed when an article is published, date modified, icons for email-print etc. So they are the default settings and if you choose not to change anything within the 'article' – 'parameters advanced' section, then the defaults will be applied. You can override these defaults within the 'article' – 'parameters advanced' section and the overrides apply only to the specific article you are working with. So for example, if you wanted to show an email icon at the top of the article, change the parameter 'email icon' to 'show' and hit 'save'.
In the Meta Data fields you can (and should) include a Meta Description and Meta Keywords information. This data is used by search engines to help rank your pages so it is worth the extra few minutes to complete these fields. Use a description of around 100 characters max and remember to use your keywords in the description. In the keywords tag, add your keywords separated by comma's and limit to around 200 characters.
That is all that is necessary to create an article, click the 'Save' icon and your article is published.
That completes the article creation section. For more detailed descriptions please refer directly to the main Joomla manual, links are provided in these notes.
At this point your article is 'Published', but depending on the category it may not actually be visible. You may need to create a Navigation element so that your article can be found on the website, if you are at that stage, jump down to the section on Navigation.
B – Components - Modules – Plugins (CMP's)
There are distinctions between these three elements but for the purpose of this guide it is not necessary to go into detail about the differences. They work in much the same way and work to provide functionality around your website and articles. Think of Components as being entire software packages, like adding MS Word to your computer, and think of Modules and Plugins as smaller upgrades to your main software package, like adding a new Font set to MS Word.
Most CMP's can be installed by navigating to “Extensions” - Install/uninstall. CMP's appear in one of two forms, they are either pre-installed in Joomla 1.5 and simply require activating and configuring, or they can be obtained, mostly from third-party programmers who write new CMP's for Joomla and either offer them freely or charge for their use. This is not covered in this general user guide since it falls under design/development. All modules for the required functionality have been installed and configured. Details for installing new modules can be found in the main Joomla manuals on the www.joomla.org website.
Components
Components are found by navigating to Components on the main Joomla Menu and selecting the appropriate component by name.
I will cover the use of the specific Components installed on the websites in more detail in upcoming sections.
Modules
The installed and configured modules can be seen by navigating to 'Extensions' – 'Modules' in Joomla Admin. Here you will see a list of modules and their names, status (published or unpublished, as indicated by the green arrow or red X), and their position on the template. There are other details shown on this page but those are the main points that we're concerned with.
To understand the use and function of a Module, I will cover one specific module in detail, all others share the same basic concept.
Search Box
The module named 'Search Site' is module #33 and is currently enabled and displays within the template in position 'left'. To edit this module, click on the module name to go into the module editor screen. You will see self-explanatory fields, the first of note being the one labelled 'Position'. It currently is set to 'left', where it is displayed to the visitor on the left side column of the page, but it can easily be moved to another template position.
Template positions are fixed during the initial template design and it is useful to understand where all the positions are. To access the module positions for each website, go to 'Extensions' – Template Manager – click on the default template name (a yellow star indicates the default template) and then click on the “preview” link with the magnifying glass icon.
On this page you will see all available module positions on the template with their applicable nomenclature. If you plan on developing the website with more functionality or changing the layout of modules etc, it is worthwhile printing this page for easy reference.
Going back to the 'Search Site' module, we can now pull down the the 'Positions' tab and select a new position based on our reference Template layout. If other modules are currently installed in that position then they will be listed in the pulldown tab named 'Order'. Here you can determine the order of appearance on the page.
When working with Joomla, it is good to open a new browser tab so you can make changes in Joomla admin and quickly switch tabs to see the affect of the changes as you apply them.
The 'Menu Assignment' section is useful. By default, all modules are displayed on all pages, but there may be times when you do not want a module to appear on certain pages, you can control that using the three Menu buttons and selecting where you want the module to appear from the list.
Other features listed under the 'Parameters' section are self-explanatory and can be adjusted as required.
If changes have been made, use the apply or save buttons at the top of the page then go to the website to view/check the changes.
Adding New Modules
If there are functions that you require that are not presently installed, then the first thing to check for is if there is a module for that function already available within Joomla. The way to do that is to simply click on the 'New' button at the top-right of the Module Manager screen and see if your features are included on any module that appears. If so, simply select the module and then configure it in the way just described.
More sophisticated modules with extended functionality have more involved configuration processes and often it is necessary to refer to the documentation provided with the module.
One important Module is 'Navigation' which I'll cover next.
Navigation
For web users to access articles and components on the website it is necessary to build links to the information. This is generally done via 'Navigation' elements, which when published can be seen in the Nav bar at the top of the page.
The navigation links that you see above are found within 'Menus' - 'Top Menu' in Joomla admin. Here you can see the individual top-level links, like 'Home' 'Company' 'Services' etc and all sub-level links like 'About Us' 'Contact Us' etc.
You can change the sequence in which these links appear by using the 'Order' section in the Menu Item Manager page. Change the sequence by either using the green up/down arrows or entering the sequence numbers in the boxes, and hitting the 'save' icon (computer disk).
From the same screen you can see the type of link – most go directly to articles, some go directly to Components.
Since in an earlier section we created a new article, lets create a navigation link to that new article so it becomes visible on the website.
Navigating to an Article
Go to 'Menu' – 'Top Menu', and click the 'New' button at the top right. Click the link 'Articles' to expand the options. There are various ways to display articles when your visitor clicks the link on your web page. These are all covered in detail in the Joomla User Guide at www.Joomla.org For now, lets click the 'Article Layout' link since this is the most commonly used.
Title – Give the navigation link a name which will appear on the website, like 'About Us'. Obviously the name you choose should pertain to the content of the article which you are linking to. Try to use only one or two words, so the link doesn't appear too long.
Alias – as in article manager, you can optionally control the link that is created by Joomla by entering text here.
Display In – select your menu, in this case, 'Top Menu'.
Parent Item – Here you can determine if your new link will be a top level link or a sub-level link. For example, if you want your link to appear under 'Company' then highlight 'Company'.
All other options are usually left as default, now it's time to select your article by clicking the 'Select' button adjacent the 'Select and Article' box. All available articles will appear in the window and you can click on the article that you wish to link to. Click 'Get Link' to create the link. Click 'Save' in the Menu Item window and ensure that your new link is shown as 'published'.
You can now navigate to the website to check your new link. Make changes by simply navigating back to the Menu Item Manager page.
That covers Navigation Menus. If you look within the 'Extensions' Modules area, you will see that each Menu is actually a module and can be controlled in the same way as other modules, such as the search box that we covered earlier. There should be no need to change settings for Menu modules since these are created and set during the design stage.
That covers all usability within the Joomla core program. For more detailed explanations please refer to the Joomla User Manual.
The next section revisits 'Components' and covers specific Components some of which you may not need and/or may not have installed.
Components – Detail
Click the 'Components' link in Joomla Admin and you will see the list of installed components –
Component #1 – AcyMailing
Acy Mailing is a newlsetter component and email contact system for following up with registered website users.
Navigate to 'Components' AcyMailing – Configuration and you will see the main control panel for this application.
The application comes with an online help manual which can be accessed anytime by clicking the 'Help' icon in the top right of any page within the application. All functions are explained within the online help manual.
Basic Funtion
Each time a person adds their name/email into the 'Newsletter' signup form on the website, their details are added within this component. On signup, they will instantly receive a copy of the current newsletter. Future newsletters can be distributed through this system to registered users.
You can see from the list of options in the control panels that this is a flexible contact management system and can be used for email marketing quite effectively.
Component #4 – Chrono Forms (Online Exam Module)
This module is used to manage an online exam for a specific client, but is a very versatile form script with database features.
Click on ChronoForms – Forms Management to access the main control panel.
You will see two Exams, the first “Online_Exam” is theactive exam, the second, labeled OLD_Online_Exam is an archive of the old exam.
To view the exam as it appears to the end user, click the appropriate hyperlink under the 'Link' column.
To view the exam results after an exam has been submitted, click the appropriate hyperlink under the 'Tables Connected' column. Here you can see a list in chronological order of all exams that have been submitted. Click any of the exam record numbers to view the exam answers/results.
The results page cannot be printed directly without some truncation, but it can be easily copied and pasted into a Word Processor for formatting and printing (Like MS Word or even WordPad).
Component #9 – DT Register – Course Management – used for a specific client.
There are two steps to setting up a course. First the course needs to be created as an 'event'. This is done by the module JEvents. Then the course needs to be setup to allow user registration. This is done by the module DT Register.
Creating an Event (Course).
1 - Login to Joomla
2 - Navigate - 'Components' - 'JEvents'
3 - Click 'Manage Events'
4 - Click 'New'
5 - Enter Event information then click the 'Calendar' tab to enter the Event dates.
6 - Click 'save'.
That has created the Event now we create a registration for the Event.
7 - Navigate - 'Components' - 'DT Register' - 'Events'.
8 - Click 'new'
9 - Complete all data, remember that the 'Start Date' and 'Cut off Date' refer to the window for registration and NOT the actual event dates. So if you want to allow registration commencing immediately then the start date would be today.
IMPORTANT - Do not click on and highlight either of the two 'prerequisite' fields.
10 - Click through and complete information within each of the Tabs (Discounts/fees, Payment, Messages, Fields, User Panel)
Most of the settings in these tabs are self-explanatory and there are 'help' buttons for each field.
Points to note -
In the messages tab you enter the data that is displayed to the client at the various stages of event registration. I would recommend that you make a Word Doc and create 'template texts' for each of the boxes. Since some of this data is the same from course to course, it will save you having to type it in each time.
In the Payment tab, be sure to select 'Authorize.net' and 'pay later', then select the 'pay later' options at the bottom of the page.
In the fields tab, there are 3 fields that can be switched on or off. They default to 'off' so you need to set them manually.
Save the course settings then open the live site in a new browser window and check everything. Ensure that the 'register' button is visible (assuming you've setup for immediate registration).
Useful Video Links for DT Register
1- Event Management www.dthdevelopment.com/images/stories/videos/DTReg_Events_2_6.html
2 - Category Management www.dthdevelopment.com/images/stories/videos/DTReg_Categories_2_6.html
3 - Location Management www.dthdevelopment.com/images/stories/videos/DTRegister_Locations.swf
4 - Using the waiting list -
Complete video library www.dthdevelopment.com/tutorials/dth-video-tutorials.html
The Next Used Component is “#14 Polls”
Polls is a very simple module used for polling people on the website. It presently has one poll created as can be found by navigating to 'Components' – Polls. The Poll can be modified or deleted. The position in which it appears on the website is controlled through 'Extensions' – 'Modules' where you can set positions or enable/disable it as we did with the Search Box.
The Next Used Component is 'VirtueMart' (Shopping Cart).
Virtuemart is an extensive eCommerce component and comes complete with a comprehensive user manual which can be read online here www.virtuemart.net/documentation/User_Manual/index.html
The following are some quick-reference points, for detailed explanation please use the VirtueMart User Manual
Navigate to 'Components' – 'VirtueMart'
Click on the link 'Extended Layout' to simplify the user control panel.
Product List
Click the above link to see a list of all products. Product pricing changes can be made by clicking the yellow price box from this main product screen, all other product changes need to be made by clicking the appropriate product link and working within the 'Update Item' screen.
The tabs across the Update Item screen allow product changes to be made and are all self-explanatory. Online help descriptions for all fields are available by clicking the blue ? Icons adjacent any fields.
Once your changes are made, click save and exit the product Update tab.
You can create new products by simply clicking the 'new' button. A simple way to create new products is to use the 'Clone Product' tab located to the right of the Product List screen. Clone the existing product closest to the new product you intend to add, and you will be taken to the edit screen for the new product.
Click save and exit when done.
All of these menu items are covered in detail within the User Manual and also have the blue help icons adjacent each field, to help you understand how things work.
A basic overview of points as laid out on the menu bar follows -
Admin – the only area of interest is the 'configuration' area. There should not be a need to make changes in here, since these parameters pertain to initial system setup and can cause issues if changed.
Store – Navigating to 'Store' – 'Edit Store' you will find information on the Company settings. Basically this area contains contact information which is included in order confirmation emails etc. So if you wish to change something that your customer see's use this section.
Also within the Store section you will find a list of payment methods and shipping methods. These are all configured and should not be changed.
Shopper – this section is for shopper groups and is not used. If you created a wholesale area with different pricing, you would achieve this via shopper groups.
Products – Covered above.
Orders – This is the order management area where orders are processed. Again, this is covered in detail in the User Manual, links provided.
By clicking the Order Number link you can see details of an order. You can change the status of an order once it is processed, and select whether or not the customer receives a notification of the change of status via email.
Vendor – Unused.
Reports – VirtueMart has basic reporting functionality and using the reports feature is simple and self-explanatory.
Tax – This area is used to configure local State sales tax and should not need to be accessed unless the tax rate is changed.
Shipping – This area allows you to manually create shipping rate tables, since we are using UPS Real Time Shipping, this area is not used.
Coupons – you can create promotional coupons which apply instant discounts when used by the shopper. There are no coupons currently configured.
Manufacturer – Not used.
That completes the VirtueMart overview.
Other General Points for Working Within Joomla
- SAVING WORK - When creating articles, save your work periodically as Joomla will automatically log you out after 90 minutes of inactivity. Generally, when you use the green 'Apply' icon, your work will be saved without navigating away from the page you are working on. When you use the 'Save' icon, your work will be saved and you will be redirected back to the main category page for the section you are working in.
- USER MANAGEMENT – go to 'Site' – 'User Management' and you will see a list of all registered users. By default, Joomla sets access permissions for all new users to the lowest level access, termed 'Registered'. You can grant users higher access privileges by clicking on their name then under 'Group' select the appropriate access level. With all Protanic Group websites, there is only a need to use one of two access levels, either the default 'Registered' or the 'Super Administrator' level.
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