Chapter 3 [ 57 ] Three types of backend actions Roughly, the seven opons in the Control Panel menu bar consist of three clusters. Some you'll use on a daily basis, some you'll only have to deploy every now and then. In the following diagram you can see what these three groups are. In the rest of this chapter, we'll have a closer look at them not in the order they appear on the menu bar, but in order of their relevance in your day-to-day content management acvies. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM First Steps: Geng to Know Joomla! [ 58 ] Let's try out an example of each of these three types of content and site management acons: Content acons example: Publishing actual content Extension acons example: Working with extensions or, rearranging modules Admin acons example: Changing site sengs Content actions example: Let's create some content! It's ne to have an example site lled with some dummy content about Joomla!, but you probably want to make your mark by adding your own content. Publish something, anything, to your own Joomla! website. Go ahead! Time for action – publish your rst article 1. Navigate to Content | Arcle Manager (you can also use the Arcle Manager shortcut in the Control Panel). 2. In the toolbar, click on the New buon (the green one with the big plus sign). 3. In the Arcle: [New] screen, ll out the Title and Alias eld as shown in the following screenshot (the Alias will help Joomla! create user-friendly URLs; you'll learn more about that in Chapter 12 on Search Engine Opmizaon): 4. In the Secon drop-down box, choose News. In the Category drop-down box, choose Latest. This will make your arcle turn up among the other arcles in the News secon of the site. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 3 [ 59 ] 5. Joomla! uses a structure of secons and categories to organize content. In this example, the News secon holds the Latest category, which holds arcles. You'll learn more about this principle of organizing content in the next two chapters. 6. Make sure Published is set to Yes. This is the default opon. 7. Click on Front Page: Yes to make sure your news will be shown on the home page. 8. Add some text in the text editor box. Any text will do; for now we're just playing around in the example site. 9. Click on the Apply buon (with the green ck) in the toolbar in the top right-hand side of the page. Joomla! will inform you that it has successfully saved changes to your arcle. 10. Click on Preview in the Preview and Info Bar secon of the page. This will take you to the home page of your site. You're done! As you can see, you news item is published on the front page. What's more, Joomla! has automacally added your feature to the Latest News links too. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM First Steps: Geng to Know Joomla! [ 60 ] There's even one other way the visitor can navigate to your news item. Because you've added the arcle to the News secon, clicking on the menu link The News in the Main Menu will also reveal your new arcle: What just happened? In a few steps you have created and published brand new content. By categorizing your new arcle in the right way, and clicking on the Show on Front Page opon, the arcle text is added to the home page. Moreover, the arcle tle is added as a hyperlink to the dynamic Latest News list, and nally the arcle also turns up on the page that shows items from the News category. Extension actions example: Managing modules A good web page shows a clear structure. The Joomla! example site presents lots of content in quite a crowded layout; every single space is lled with text. The site displays more than ten lile blocks of content around the main content area (the mainbody). There are four menus, three of which are shown in the le-hand side column. Pung that many blocks on the page will almost certainly distract the reader from the main content. We're going to give the content some breathing room and help the reader scan the page. Let's clean things up a lile. We'll rearrange our screen and remove some unnecessary items. In Joomla!, you use the Module Manager to change the posion and other sengs of the site's modules (building blocks). Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 3 [ 61 ] Time for action – rearranging page layout In our le-hand side column, we'll discard the Resources menu and the Page Layouts menu, leaving only the Main Menu. To get an uncluered le-hand side column displaying only the main menu we will also move the Login Form to the right-hand side column. 1. Navigate to Extensions | Module Manager. 2. As you can see, there's an impressive list of installed modules. To nd just the instances of the menu module we'll apply a lter. Above the table column headings there are four drop-down list boxes. In the Select Type drop-down list, select mod_mainmenu: No maer how many menus are displayed on the site, every menu module is of the mod_mainmenu Module Type. In other words, not only the "Main Menu" uses this module. 3. As a result, only the six instances of mod_mainmenu are shown: Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM First Steps: Geng to Know Joomla! [ 62 ] 4. Click on the Enabled icon (a green check mark) in the column to the right-hand side of Resources. Clicking on the icon will toggle it to a red cross indicang this module item is now disabled. 5. Now click on the Enabled icon in the column to the right-hand side of Key Concepts and Example Pages too. These menu modules are also now disabled. 6. Click on Preview. You've cleaned up the le-hand side column. There is just one menu le, the Main Menu (this should never be removed or hidden; it's essenal for Joomla!—and for your visitors). Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 3 [ 63 ] 7. To nish our job, we'll switch back to the Module Manager in the backend to move the Login Form to the right-hand side column. In the Select Type drop-down list, choose mod_login. 8. In the Module Name column, click on Login Form to edit the login form sengs: 9. In the Module: Edit screen, select Posion: right to make the module appear in the right-hand side column: Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM First Steps: Geng to Know Joomla! [ 64 ] 10. Click on Save to apply the changes and click on Preview to view the results. You've successfully cleaned up the le-hand side column. There's one menu le; the login form has been moved to the right-hand side of the screen: What just happened? You've just experienced the power of the Module Manager. Enabling a module displays it on your website, disabling hides it. That means you can easily switch screen items "on" or "o" and sll leave them around in the backend, just in case. Also, you've seen now how quickly and easily you can move things around on the screen by choosing another Posion in the module eding screen. Site actions example: Conguring basic site settings The Site menu and Tools menu in the Control Panel menu bar oer you some more advanced funcons, ranging from user management to database maintenance. Later on you'll learn which funcons are important for day to day site management. For now, we'll take a look at the Site | Basic Conguraon sengs where you can set Joomla! preferences. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 3 [ 65 ] Time for action – set Joomla! preferences When browsing the Joomla! backend you may have noced that aer a certain amount of idle me Joomla! will ask you to log in again. By default, Joomla! kicks you out when you've been logged in for 15 minutes without any acvity. When developing a site it can be quite annoying to have to log in every me you return to your desk with a fresh cup of coee. Let's change this with the Session Lifeme seng in the Joomla! preferences. 1. From the Control Panel, navigate to Site | Global Conguraon (you can also click on the Global Conguraon buon below the menu bar; it's a shortcut). 2. Global Conguraon is divided into Site sengs, System sengs, and Server sengs. Click on the System link to show the appropriate sengs panel. 3. On the System page, you'll see Session Sengs in the boom-right corner. Change Session Lifeme to 45 minutes. 4. Click on Save. From now on you can leave the computer for 45 minutes before Joomla! prompts you to log in again. What just happened? You've just made your life as an administrator a lile easier by changing one of Joomla!'s system sengs. Now you can leave your computer idle for 45 minutes before Joomla! kindly kicks you out and asks you for your login name and password again. Have a go hero – explore the conguration options Check out the other Global Conguraon opons, but be careful. Most of the sengs you should leave unchanged. Don't touch the Server Sengs and Database sengs (on the Server page) unless you know what you're doing as these contain crical data that Joomla! needs to funcon properly. However, you can easily change some harmless Site sengs. Maybe you would like to change the Site Name (the name shown in the backend header bar) or replace the default Joomla! text in the Metadata Descripon eld with a few appropriate words to let search engines know what your site's about. If you're not yet familiar with these concepts, however, that's ne. You'll learn more about the opons you need later on in the book. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM First Steps: Geng to Know Joomla! [ 66 ] Looking for all the answers? In the course of this book you'll learn much more about what the Control Panel is all about. However, we won't cover every ny lile detail of the administraon interface. Luckily, Joomla! oers an exhausve online reference to all backend menus, submenus, opons, sengs, and screens. In the backend, click on Help | Joomla! Help. There's a wealth of up-to-date informaon from the Joomla! help site. Pop quiz – test your knowledge of the Joomla! way of web building 1. What's makes a CMS-based website dierent from a tradional, "stac" website? a) A CMS consists of an unlimited database of web pages. b) A CMS doesn't use tradional coding languages, such as HTML. c) A CMS dynamically builds web pages by gathering content blocks from a database. 2. What's the backend of a Joomla!-powered website? a) It's the interface where administrators log in to change site conguraon sengs. b) It's the interface where administrators log in to build and maintain the site. c) It's the part of the site that's only accessible for registered users. 3. How can you rearrange the page layout of your site and move about content blocks? a) By moving and deleng arcles. b) By using the Module Manager to the posion and visibility of modules. c) By using the Arcle Manager to change the posion and visibility of arcles. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM . Conguraon sengs where you can set Joomla! preferences. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM Chapter 3 [ 65 ] Time for action – set Joomla! preferences When browsing the Joomla! backend you may have. page. What's more, Joomla! has automacally added your feature to the Latest News links too. Download at Wow! eBook WWW.WOWEBOOK.COM First Steps: Geng to Know Joomla! [ 60 ] There's even. help Joomla! create user-friendly URLs; you'll learn more about that in Chapter 12 on Search Engine Opmizaon): 4. In the Secon drop-down box, choose News. In the Category drop-down box, choose