With a library of thousands of free Extensions, you can add what you need as your site grows. Don’t wait, look through the Joomla! Extensions library today.
Newsflash 1
Joomla! makes it easy to launch a Web site of any kind. Whether you want a brochure site or you are building a large online community, Joomla! allows you to deploy a new site in minutes and add extra functionality as you need it. The hundreds of available Extensions will help to expand your site and allow you to deliver new services that extend your reach into the Internet.
Newsflash 2
The one thing about a Web site, it always changes! Joomla! makes it easy to add Articles, content, images, videos, and more. Site administrators can edit and manage content ‘in-context’ by clicking the ‘Edit’ link. Webmasters can also edit content through a graphical Control Panel that gives you complete control over your site.
Support and Documentation
Support
Support for the Joomla! CMS can be found on several places. The best place to start would be the Joomla! Official Documentation Wiki. Here you can help yourself to the information that is regularly published and updated as Joomla! develops. There is much more to come too!
Of course you should not forget the Help System of the CMS itself. On the topmenu in the Back-end Control panel you find the Help button which will provide you with lots of explanation on features.
Another great place would of course be the Forum . On the Joomla! Forum you can find help and support from Community members as well as from Joomla! Core members and Working Group members. The forum contains a lot of information, FAQ’s, just about anything you are looking for in terms of support.
Two other resources for Support are the Joomla! Developer Site and the Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED). The Joomla! Developer Site provides lots of technical information for the experienced Developer as well as those new to Joomla! and development work in general. The JED whilst not a support site in the strictest sense has many of the Extensions that you will need as you develop your own Web site.
The Joomla! Developers and Bug Squad members are regularly posting their blog reports about several topics such as programming techniques and security issues.
Documentation
Joomla! Documentation can of course be found on the Joomla! Official Documentation Wiki. You can find information for beginners, installation, upgrade, Frequently Asked Questions, developer topics, and a lot more. The Documentation Team helps oversee the wiki but you are invited to contribute content, as well.
There are also books written about Joomla! You can find a listing of these books in the Joomla! Shop.
Joomla! Overview
If you’re new to Web publishing systems, you’ll find that Joomla! delivers sophisticated solutions to your online needs. It can deliver a robust enterprise-level Web site, empowered by endless extensibility for your bespoke publishing needs. Moreover, it is often the system of choice for small business or home users who want a professional looking site that’s simple to deploy and use. We do content right.
So what’s the catch? How much does this system cost?
Well, there’s good news … and more good news! Joomla! 1.5 is free, it is released under an Open Source license – the GNU/General Public License v 2.0. Had you invested in a mainstream, commercial alternative, there’d be nothing but moths left in your wallet and to add new functionality would probably mean taking out a second mortgage each time you wanted something adding!
Joomla! changes all that …
Joomla! is different from the normal models for content management software. For a start, it’s not complicated. Joomla! has been developed for everybody, and anybody can develop it further. It is designed to work (primarily) with other Open Source, free, software such as PHP, MySQL, and Apache.
It is easy to install and administer, and is reliable.
Joomla! doesn’t even require the user or administrator of the system to know HTML to operate it once it’s up and running.
To get the perfect Web site with all the functionality that you require for your particular application may take additional time and effort, but with the Joomla! Community support that is available and the many Third Party Developers actively creating and releasing new Extensions for the 1.5 platform on an almost daily basis, there is likely to be something out there to meet your needs. Or you could develop your own Extensions and make these available to the rest of the community.
My MySQL database does not support UTF-8. Do I have a problem?
No you don’t. Versions of MySQL lower than 4.1 do not have built in UTF-8 support. However, Joomla! 1.5 has made provisions for backward compatibility and is able to use UTF-8 on older databases. Let the installer take care of all the settings and there is no need to make any changes to the database (charset, collation, or any other).
What is the FTP layer for?
The FTP Layer allows file operations (such as installing Extensions or updating the main configuration file) without having to make all the folders and files writable. This has been an issue on Linux and other Unix based platforms in respect of file permissions. This makes the site admin’s life a lot easier and increases security of the site.
You can check the write status of relevent folders by going to ”Help->System Info” and then in the sub-menu to “Directory Permissions”. With the FTP Layer enabled even if all directories are red, Joomla! will operate smoothly.
NOTE: the FTP layer is not required on a Windows host/server.
Only one edit window! How do I create “Read more…”?
This is now implemented by inserting a Read more… tag (the button is located below the editor area) a dotted line appears in the edited text showing the split location for the Read more…. A new Plugin takes care of the rest.
It is worth mentioning that this does not have a negative effect on migrated data from older sites. The new implementation is fully backward compatible.
Can Joomla! 1.5 operate with PHP Safe Mode On?
Yes it can! This is a significant security improvement.
The safe mode limits PHP to be able to perform actions only on files/folders who’s owner is the same as PHP is currently using (this is usually ‘apache’). As files normally are created either by the Joomla! application or by FTP access, the combination of PHP file actions and the FTP Layer allows Joomla! to operate in PHP Safe Mode.
What happened to the locale setting?
This is now defined in the Language [lang].xml file in the Language metadata settings. If you are having locale problems such as dates do not appear in your language for example, you might want to check/edit the entries in the locale tag. Note that multiple locale strings can be set and the host will usually accept the first one recognised.