Building Websites with Joomla! 3: Learn How to Develop Impressive and High Quality Websites in Minutes; a Basic Computer & Internet Skill Is All You Need.

By Ak Shehu

Who should read this book?
Students and young entrepreneurs
Individuals wanting to learn Joomla! to develop their websites
Business owners or employees responsible for their companys website
Web designers looking to expand their service offerings by providing Joomla! sites
Web professionals looking to save time by learning from Joomla!

This book is aimed at anyone who wants to build and maintain an impressive website. For those who are familiar with Joomla!, this book will help you improve the skills and knowledge you may already have of creating Joomla! websites. Even if you are a beginner at Joomla!, just follow instructions as described in the book, and trust me, you wont have any difficulty understanding the concept of building impressive and high-quality websites with Joomla!.

Why choose Joomla! website development?

Because you do not need to have any technical knowledge or experience in website design to create Joomla! websites. The learning curve is minimal once you master some basic skills. Building and maintaining impressive and high-quality websites are easy with Joomla! Joomla! makes it easy to manage and update content. Once a Joomla! website is set up, it is easy to add new web pages, edit old web pages, link new web pages to menus, and upload pictures and videos.

With this book, it doesnt matter if you are a nontechnical person simply looking for a way to create a fast and quality website. Joomla! is the option. There are more than 626,007 Joomla! forum members and over 7,500 extensions listed in the Joomla! Extension Directory available for you to extend the functionality of your website.

Here are some of the great things you can do with Joomla!:

Small business websites
School websites and online quiz systems
Community-based portals
E-commerce and online reservations
Corporate websites or portals
Hospital management system
Shipment tracking system
Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
Government applications and many more

Freedom is what you get when you learn Joomla! because it empowers you with the necessary website development skills to be self-employed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482881233

Ak Shehu

Ak Shehu is a practicing Joomla! trainer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is the author of two books on Joomla! website development—Building Website with Joomla! 1.5 in 60 minutes and Building Website with Joomla! 2.5: A Game Changer for Young Entrepreneurs. Mr. Shehu works as a full-time lecturer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He holds a BSc (Hons.) in business information systems from the University of East London and master of business administration (MBA) from Anglia Ruskin University. Having worked in the web design and education industry for many years, the experience garnered has been channeled toward educating colleagues, friends, and clients about the effectiveness of using Joomla! in website development. Mr. Shehu has been conducting Joomla! training for companies, business owners, students, and individuals, to name just a few, on how to build and maintain their Joomla! websites. During his free time, he takes pleasure in making new friends and loves sharing his knowledge with others. He is a Nigerian and currently lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with his family. This is his third book. You can find him on the web via www.akshehu.com.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Ak Shehu.

ISBN:   Softcover   978-1-4828-8124-0

             eBook          978-1-4828-8123-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

• Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU General Public License.

• The Joomla!® name and symbol are registered trademarks of Open Source Matters, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

• The Joomla! trademarks used herein are used under a limited license granted by Open Source Matters, the trademark holder.

• The author and publisher are in no way affiliated with Open Source Matters, Inc. or The Joomla Project.

• This book and it’s content is not affiliated with, warranted by, reviewed by or otherwise endorsed by The Joomla! Project.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, Joomla! versions, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. Even though the numerous checks to make sure everything is correct, some details stated in this book may still be wrong. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Toll Free 800 101 2657 (Singapore)

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www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Chapter 1: Basic Structure Of Joomla! 3.5

Chapter 2: What’s New In Joomla! 3.5?

Chapter 3: Joomla! Installation

Chapter 4: Creating Your First Joomla! Website

Chapter 5: Creating Categories, Articles (Web Pages) & Media Manager

Chapter 6: Creating Your Menus And Navigation

Chapter 7: Understanding Joomla! 3.5 Extensions

Chapter 8: Making Your Joomla! Website Dynamic With Components, Modules, Plugins & Languages

Chapter 9: Using Templates For Your Joomla! Website

Chapter 10: Managing Users & Access Level In Joomla! 3.5

Chapter 11: Global Configuration In Joomla!

Chapter 12: Exporting & Importing Joomla! 3.5 Website From Your Pc To Another Pc (Backup)

Chapter 13: Joomla! Security Tips

Key Resources

Reference Links

About the Author

This book is dedicated to my lovely Mother

- Hajiya Maryam Shehu for her continuous prayers.

To my wonderful wife, Noor Farhan Najah and my lovely son - Ibrahim Shehu for their support and patience while I write this book.

The Reviewer

Mr.%20Solomon%20Adrian%20Alexis.png

Mr. Solomon Adrian Alexis is the Director of Collaborative Provision and Student Experience in the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering at the University of East London. He is also a Principal Lecturer in the faculty of Computer Science and Informatics. His academic and research interest include the area of technology that can anticipate problems and come up with solutions without the explicit awareness of the user or the consumer.

The Proofreader

Mr.%20A.Y%20Shehu.png

A.Y. Shehu is an IT Entrepreneur with close to two decades of experience. An enthusiastic IT Trainer, he founded A.Y. Identities in 2007 and currently the Technical Head of Department at the ICT Centre Federal College of Education (Technical) Gusau Zamfara - Nigeria. He is happily Married with children.

Preface

Joomla! has over the years become one of the most powerful and popular content management system in the world, it is actively supported and continuously developed by user community around the world. With over 68 million downloads and still counting, Joomla! software is FREE and enriched with great tools for everyone who wants to create impressive, high quality, dynamic and interactive website of all types. Because of its ease to use, even beginners can use Joomla! to create professional websites. Though, one cannot deny that fact that it can be challenging sometimes to get beyond the basics of Joomla! to create a website that meets your needs, but this book provides a broad and thorough introduction to Web design using Joomla! 3.5. This book is intended mainly for any person with basic knowledge of computer and internet who wish to develop personal website or other kind of websites.

Since my first book Building Website with Joomla 1.5 in 60 minutes and second book "Building Website with Joomla! 2.5: A Game Changer for Young Entrepreneurs" that was published in 2012 and 2014 respectively, it has sold reasonably well, and received a very good response from its readers who commended the simplicity and its clear instructions. Several readers’ especially students and young entrepreneurs were generous enough to say that the book has greatly impacted on their lives.

The new features in Joomla! 3.5 Stable version were covered which includes Joomla! Update Notification, Drag and Drop Images in Articles, Ability to Insert Modules in Articles, Menu System, Category System, extra security and many other great features. I dedicated chapter 2 of this book to highlights these new features in Joomla! 3.5.

This book is written for you to learn Joomla! as fast as possible and I must thank you for deciding to read this book. Thus, it is important that you read this book from A-Z, and all you have to do is simply read a page, do what it says and go ahead. You will be a confident Joomla! user after following all the steps and tasks in this book.

I must confess, when I first came across Joomla!; I found it difficult to even install and difficult to learn how it works generally. It was even more complicated to learn how to customize the website as per my requirement. In that period, there were many tutorials which explained different tasks, but not a single one had a simplified explanation on how to install, administer or even modify Joomla! website to my needs. Hence, I learned Joomla! in a more complex way by trying out different tutorials, trying different buttons in the Joomla! Back-end, and seeing what happens in the website (Front-end). I gradually became skillful in building and administrating Joomla! websites. It took me months to go through all this processes.

With all of my past experience learning Joomla!, I have written this book in such a way that you will learn how to use Joomla! within minutes. So you don’t need to pass through the bitter experience I had when I was learning Joomla!, and thanks to the Joomla! Production & Project Team for their continuous effort to make sure the installation becomes easier than ever. I can guarantee that, if you read this book three times from beginning to end and do what it says, you will be able to make any type of Joomla! website.

Acknowledgement

Praise is to God, the Creator of all that exist. Thanks to Him for the ability he gave me in writing this second book.

A special thanks Mr. Solomon Alexis for his valuable input and honest review of this new book and to Mr. A.Y Shehu for helping me proofread the content of the book. I want to say a big thank you to Noor Farhan Najah, Mr. Ahmed Shehu and Mr. Emmanuel Abbey for their inspiration and continued support while I put together this new Book.

I would like to also pay tribute to the Joomla! Developers and the entire Joomla! Community for their continued support and efforts in putting together this powerful Content Management System - that is Joomla!

In addition, special thank you to my Friend Muhammed Irfan Ishak for introducing me into Joomla!

And finally to all my family and friends who always encourage and believed I could do it.

Introduction

The Internet is a network of interlinked computers worldwide which are accessible to the general public. It is fast becoming a strategic resource for finding information that is relevant to a specific field, engaging in professional activities, accessing materials that are published, watching movies or buying and selling items. It has become a fundamental part of the electronic community, thus, providing access to education, government, media, family & friends and many more. Access to the Internet is strongly becoming a requirement of doing business for many enterprises because many businesses are now adopting the online platform for their business enterprise.

In recent years, the Internet has become one of the most flourishing industries and everyone wants to get into it. Numerous organisations and companies have