Question : What are plugins?
In Joomla 1.5 mambots will be renamed plugins.Plugins: The new name for mambots. In addition, some 3rd party components, modules and mambots themselves have plugins. is a small, task-oriented function that intercepts content before it is displayed and manipulates it in some way.
Question : What are Joomla modules?
Modules extend the capabilities of Joomla! giving the software new functionality. Modules are small content items that can be displayed anywhere that your template allows it to be displayed by assigning them to positions and pages through the module manager in the administrative interface.
Modules are installed in the Admin Section. Joomla! modules may include: Main Menu, Top menu, Template Chooser, Polls, Newsflash, Hit Counter, etc.
Members of the Joomla! Community produce Joomla! modules on a continuous basis.
Question : What are Joomla components?
Content elements or applications that are usually displayed in the center of the main content area of a template. This depends on the design of the template in use.
Components are core elements of Joomla!’s functionality. These core elements include Content, Banners, Contact, News Feeds, Polls and Web Links.
Members of the Joomla! community produce third party Joomla! components on a continuous basis.
They are freely available to download from http://extensions.joomla.org/ and a number of other web sites.
How do I eliminate the pathway or breadcrumbs?
An example is as follows; You are currently reading a content item "New Page". This content item is a member of the "Pages " category. In the turn the pages category is a member of the "Books" section. In this case the breadcrumb for that page would look like: "Home >> Books >> Pages >> New Page".
If you wish to eliminate the pathway entirely, edit your template html (index) file. Usually it will look like this:
Question : How do I remove the page title from the front page of my site?
To remove the title from being displayed on the front page of your site, you need to change a parameter setting in the front page component.
► First log into the administrative back end.
► On the top menu click "Menu"->"mainmenu"
► Click "Home".
► On the right side of the screen in the parameters section, locate the “Page Title” parameter that is next to the radio buttons “Show” and “Hide”.
► Click the “Hide” radio button.
► Click the “Save” button to make your change permanent.
Question : What determines what is shown on my frontpage?
Frontpage is a component that is part of the core of Joomla!, like the front page of a newspaper, it shows (usually) multiple pieces of content arranged in some way.
When you install Joomla! the front page component is by default set as the homepage of your site (that is it is the first link on your Main Menu) but front page does not have to be your "home" page.
What exactly appears on the front page and how it is laid out is controlled in two ways. First, if you open the menu link in your menu manager in the backend there are numerous parameters that control the number of items shown, the number of columns etc.
To control which items are shown you must also indicate that an item should be placed on the front page by editing the parameters for the content item. In the backend this will be indicated by a check mark in the front page column of the list of content items.
In addition, you can use the front page manager (in the content menu of the backend) to control the publication dates and other variables for content items that are on the front page.
Question : How do I change the favicon?
The joomla favicon is stored in the /images folder. The file is called favicon.ico. By definition a favicon must be 16x16 pixels.
If you wish to use your own favicon, rename the default joomla favicon.ico file and put your file with that name in the images directory.
Alternatively, you can change the favicon in the Joomla! global configuration Site tab (on the bottom).
Question : What are positions in Joomla?
Site templates divides the "pages" displayed on a site into a series of positions, each with a different name.
You can view the location of positions in your default template from the administrator go to Site =>Preview=>Inline with Positions.
You can annotate your positions through the administrator (backend). Go to Site=>Template Manage=>Module Positions.
You can add or remove positions by modifying your template html.
You assign a module to a position using the module manager.
Modules=>Site Modules
On the left side of the page, on the third line, there is a drop down menu that lets you select the position.
How do you install an extension?
From the backend of your joomla site (adminsitration) select Installers and then the type of extension (module, component, mambot/plugin, site template, administrative template, language
-Browse for the package file
-Click the install icon
-Follow any instructions
Sometimes you cannot use the automated installer. For example, very large extensions may exceed the maximum upload size allowed by your host.
In this case, unzip all of the files locally. Then transfer the files to a folder in the the install directory(for example administrator/components/com_installer/components) for the type of extension you are installing (using FTP). Then use the installer, but select "install from directory" indicating the correct folder name.
Question : What determines my homepage?
Your "homepage" in a traditional html site--the page that shows when you type mydomain.com for example-- would be the page displaying that is in the index.html file.
Jooma! is a database driven CMS so it does not have html pages, but rather pulls up the pieces of pages from a mysql database.
The "page" that shows when a user navigates to mydomain.com is the page created by clicking on the first link on the Main Menu. The link can be called anything (Home, Bob it does not matter), that is the page that will show.
Question : Can content items be assigned to multiple categories or sections?
No, content items cannot be assigned to multiple categories or sections.
This menu can be displayed anywhere and can be displayed vertically or horizontally or not at all. The menu does not even need to be published.
When you installl Joomla! by default it has a menu link to the frontpage component as the home page. However, any content or component or other link can be used as the "home" page.
How do I link from inside content to another content item?
The simple answer is that you get the URL for the page you want to link to. Then you make a link using whatever editor you are using or with html if you have nowysiwyg.
The more complicated answer is that some editors have fancier links managers. For example with the JCE editor you can add the advanced linking plugin and it will give you nice lists of static and other content types to pick from.
Question : How do I change the image(s) in my template?
One common template change is to use your own graphic/image. Simple graphics (not banners) are linked in the html file. Simply change the reference to the image of your choice in the html file of your template. In the adminsitrative interface do this by going to Site =>Template manager and then selecting your template. Click the icon for html.
Keep in mind that it if it is a different size than the original image this may change the appearance of the site in unexpected ways.
Additional information:
The images for a given template are generally located in this folder:
/templates/templatename/images (Substitute the name of the template you are using in place of "templatename").
A trick for finding the name of the image is to put your cursor over it and click right. Select view image. This will display the image and give its full url. Sometimes the images are background images. This is viewable in Firefox or you can look for the background tag in your page source.
How to upload an image:
There are many ways to upload images. Which one you use will depend on your host and server.
1. You can use an ftp client.
2. You can use a cpanel file manager.
3. You can use the media manager.
4. You can use various extensions that allow uploading, including joomlaexplorer and galleries.
Question : What do the locks mean? How do I get rid of them?
At any given time you may see a padlock next to a specific item in Joomla!'s administrative backend. These padlocks may be displayed next to any of the following (Content Items, Menu Items, Modules, etc).
The Joomla! system places these padlocks next an item to indicate that a user is currently editing (checked out) the item. The lock is removed by the sytem when the user clicks on the "Save" button for that item.
If the user never clicks save and instead hits the "Back" button or naviagtes to another page, then the item stays locked. If another user needs to work with the item he or she must have the item checked back in before the can work.
There are two ways of checking items back in. One way is to contact the person that has the module checked out to see if they are done with the item.
The other option utilizes the administrative back end;
Click on "System => Global check in"
This option should be used very carefully, especially in multi-user environments. This single action checks in all previously checked out items, whether they were checked out by you or not. Possible undesirable side effects may be that multiple editors end up working on the same document.
In this case who ever clicks the save button last has their version saved as the final copy.
Question : How do I exit the wrapper?The page that contains the link you click on to load the wrapped content is the parent page. You can get out of the wrapper by clicking on anyone of the links in the menu of the parent page. If there are no other menu items visible then the wrapper may have been loaded directly into the parent page, replacing the content that was initially there. This however defeats the purpose of having a wrapper which is a means of simply enclosing content from another site within the parent site.
Question : What are mambots and plugins?A Mambot is a small, task-oriented function that intercepts content before it is displayed and manipulates it in some way. Joomla! provides a number of Mambots in the core distribution, e.g. WYSIWYG editors, but there are many other mambots available for specific tasks. Some 3rd Party developer components have their own mambots which need to be installed in order to make the component work properly. In Joomla! 1.5 mambots will be renamed plugins. Plugins: The new name for mambots. In addition, some 3rd party components, modules and mambots themselves have plugins.
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