What is Joomla?

Joomla is a very powerful award winning web content management system that allows designers and developers to build web sites and online applications. It also allows non-developers to add content to their website with little or no knowledge of web design whatsoever. Joomla makes it possible for non-technical individuals to have and maintain a website without calling a web developer up to add basic content to the site.

Even if you are not a web designer/developer, there are some things that are fairly easy to learn in Joomla such as creating articles and other content. More advanced tasks such as template and extension creation require extensive HTML, CSS and PHP knowledge.

How do I get it and how much does it cost?

One of the best things about Joomla is ITS FREE!! It is open source software. You can download Joomla from us here. Just click here for the latest version. Installing Joomla is also very easy. Some web hosting providers such as our own (Tech Guy Web Hosting) have auto installs of Joomla to your web host with one click of your mouse.

What is a Joomla Template?

A Joomla template is a standard HTML/CSS template with some extra PHP tags that tells Joomla where to output content elements. Developing a Joomla template requires a little more knowledge than a regular HTML/CSS template.  A static HTML website can be converted to a Joomla template fairly easy by adding the spec ial Joomla hooks.

A Joomla template can be replaced at any time without affecting the website content. You can even assign multiple templates to different pages within the website.

Joomla Extensions

Joomla uses different extensions that are programs or applications, normally written in PHP, that expand Joomlas core functionality. There are a few different types of extensions..

Components - an extension that enhances the core functionality of Joomla. Components are usually displayed in the “main content” section of a Joomla website. Some examples would be forums, image galleries, event calendars and stuff to that nature.

Modules – Modules are programs that create content that surrounds your “main content” section. These are displayed in different module positions: top, left, right, etc. Modules often go hand-in-hand to display certain content from other installed components. You might have a forum component which is the actual forum and then you might have a module based on the forum component which displays the latest or most popular forum posts. You can place the module on any page in any position.

Plugins - Plugins provide routines which are associated with trigger events in Joomla. When a particular trigger event occurs all plugin routines of the type associated with the event are executed in sequence.

So Joomla is not necessarily a web design tool, but it is a fantastic web developer tool. The main reason that we use Joomla is that customers like it that they can update and maintain their own websites.