Dmitry Dementiy
Website owners choose this content management system due to the following advantages:
Still don't trust free engines or think that search engines don't like them? Nonsense. Search engines do not like low-quality and template sites, and the functionality of Joomla! allows you to make the resource non-standard and useful for the audience. Perhaps you will be convinced by examples of sites on Joomla, among which there are large, reputable organizations.
After registering a domain and purchasing hosting with installed CMS or self-installation"Joomla" gives you access to the site's administrative panel.
You can order an exclusive template for Joomla or use a ready-made paid or free solution. When choosing a template, follow these guidelines:
If you don’t have time to use search engines, look for templates here:
After selecting a template, download the distribution kit from HDD computer. In the administrative panel, select the “Install extensions” menu.
Download and install the template.
After successful installation, go to the template manager.
Check the box next to the selected template and click the “Default” button in the upper left corner of the screen.
Make sure to activate the selected template.
Using the template manager, you can change the appearance of the control panel. To do this, in the “Select system area” drop-down menu, specify the “Control Panel” value, and in the “Select template” menu, specify a suitable template. Check the box next to the selected template and click the “Default” button.
Now proceed to setting up the CMS.
From this section you will learn about general engine settings, creating and managing menus. Start with the general settings of CMS Joomla!, which can be changed in the appropriate section.
On the menu " General settings» Select the “Site” tab. Enter the name of the resource and make sure it is enabled. Write a notice that the site is unavailable and, if necessary, select an image. From the Default Access Level menu, select Public.
Specify site metadata: description and keywords. Select a value for the robots tag. If you do not need to limit the indexing of a resource by search engines, the Index, Follow option is suitable. In the “Copyright” field, enter your copyright information.
In the SEO Settings section, enable CNC and adding a suffix to the URL. To enable URL redirection, you need to rename the htaccess.txt file, which is located in the root directory of the resource. To access it, use any FTP client, such as Filezilla. Find the specified file and rename it to .htaccess.
Check the “No” box next to the “Unicode Aliases” field. If you want to include the site name in the page title, check the appropriate box.
On the “System” tab, check “No” next to the “System Debugging” and “Language Debugging” fields. Enable standard caching. In the “Session Settings” section, set the duration of sessions for authorized users. For example, if you specify a value of 120 minutes, the system will require the user to re-enter their login and password after two hours of inactivity.
On the “Server” tab, enable gzip compression of pages. This will speed up the loading of the site in visitors' browsers. If you want to provide users with a secure connection to your site, purchase an SSL certificate and enable the corresponding option in the Joomla control panel. Select a time zone that suits the audience of your resource. Leave the built-in FTP access and proxy server disabled. In the “Mail Settings” section, specify the email address and sender of the letter.
On the “Rights” tab, you can configure access rights for different groups of visitors. The site owner belongs to the group of superusers who have all rights available. An unregistered user can only view resource pages. Customize permissions to suit your audience and administrators' needs. The illustration shows the settings for the author, who has the ability to register and log into the site, publish and edit his own materials.
If you work with the site yourself, do not change the settings on the “Text Filters” tab. If other users can add posts, filter out unwanted ones HTML tags. For example, using filters you can prevent a group of users from embedding YouTube videos in their posts. To do this, opposite the corresponding group, specify the “Black List” filter type, which includes tags by default
To create a menu, use the menu manager in the Joomla control panel.
Click the "Create" button in the upper left corner of the screen. On the page that opens, specify the name, description and type of menu. Save your changes.
To create menu items, you must first publish their corresponding site pages.
To add menu items, follow the appropriate link and use the “Create” button. Select a menu item type. Imagine that you want to display a link to a publication in the main menu. To do this, use the “Select – materials – material” option.
To select a specific material, use the “Select” option.
Create the remaining menu items in the same way. For example, to add a link to a blog to the menu, select the menu type "Category Blog".
Now you need to create a menu display module on the site. To do this, go to the module manager.
Click the "Create" button in the upper left corner of the screen.
On the page that opens, select the “Menu” module option.
On the module editing page, specify its name. Select the menu for which you are creating a module. Specify a base point. Enable display of menu sub-items. Disable display of the title, select the module position in the drop-down menu. Save your changes.
If you are creating an information resource or online store, organize site navigation using categories. To do this, use the category manager.
Imagine that you need to create a category that contains subcategories. To create a parent category, use the "Create" button in the category manager. In the edit menu, specify the section name and add a description.
On the “Publish” tab, specify the category meta data, and if necessary, indicate the author.
Do not change the default settings on the “Access Rights” tab. On the Options tab, select a category page layout and add an image. For example, the “Blog” layout is suitable for an information resource. Save your changes.
Now create a category display module. To do this, go to the module manager. Use the “Create” option and select the “Categories” module type.
Specify the title and, if necessary, enable display of the section description and number of publications. Select “Yes” next to “Show subcategories”. Select appropriate values for the “Number of first subcategories” and “Maximum nesting depth” items. Select a category display position. Save your changes.
If everything is done correctly, the site will display a category navigation menu.
If your template doesn't support breadcrumbs or breadcrumbs by default, add them using the module manager. For example, imagine you want to add bread crumbs over the site content. To do this, when creating a module, select the “Site Navigator” type.
Specify the name of the module, select the appropriate settings and position of the element on the site. Save your changes.
Breadcrumbs will now appear at the top of the site pages.
You have configured the CMS and created the site menu. Now we need to solve practical problems using extensions.
Using a basic set of extensions for Joomla! The following practical problems can be solved:
To create regular backups, use one of the following tools:
Download the distribution package of the selected tool and install it on the website using the extension manager. If you chose the free Akeeba Backup Core component, after installation, go to the setup page. Accept license agreement and run the configuration wizard. After it finishes, Akeeba Backup will offer to create a backup or manually change the settings.
Create a backup copy of the site.
Using the View Log button you can view the update log. The Manage backups button allows you to enter the backup management menu. Here you can filter, flag and delete outdated backups.
The free version of Akeeba Backup does not support automatic scheduled backups, so you will have to make copies manually. To do this, in the Joomla! you need to use the “Maintenance – Backup is up-to-date” menu.
Choose the frequency of backups depending on the frequency of site updates. For example, if you publish multiple contents daily, create backups once or twice a week. Also create copies before updating the engine and components, installing new extensions and templates.
You can reduce the likelihood of a website being hacked on Joomla using the following extensions:
Install the Brute Force Stop extension. Enable it in the “Extension Manager – Plugins” menu.
On the plugin settings page, specify the blocking threshold. The default value is “10”. I recommend reducing it.
On the Notifications tab, specify email address, to which messages about blocked IPs will be sent.
On the “Advanced Settings” and “Delay” tabs, you can leave the default values. Save your settings. After this, the plugin will protect the site from brute-force hacking.
You can protect a resource on the Joomla CMS from automatic registrations and spam comments using the following extensions:
In the plugin manager, enable the CATCHA – reCAPTCHA plugin.
Register your site with Google service reCAPTCHA. Get public and The secret key. Specify them in the plugin settings.
Enter the menu “Users – User Manager – Settings”. In the CAPTCHA field, use the drop-down menu to enter the CAPTCHA value – reCAPTCHA. Save your changes.
After this, reCAPTCHA will protect registration, password recovery, and comment forms from spam bots.
This problem can be solved using the following tools:
After installing Sitemap Generator, go to the sitemap manager. It can be found in the “Components – Sitemap Generator” menu.
Click the "Generate your sitemap" button.
Wait for a message indicating that the sitemap was created successfully. To view the map, use the “Show the sitemap” button.
Please note that the Sitemap Generator extension can be used for free on sites with fewer than 500 URLs. The cost of using the module for sites with 500 URLs or more starts from 40 euros per year.
By default, you can add and edit metadata for each story separately in the Publishing Options tab. The following tools make this task easier:
Install the EFSEO plugin and enable it in the plugin manager. Go to the plugin settings page. On the “Advanced Options” tab, enable the Collect URLs feature.
Open the site in the frontend. A block has appeared in the upper right corner of the screen with which you can control meta data.
Click on the block and edit the page meta data.
Repeat the action on each page of the site.
EFSEO plugin supports auto mode. When activated, the add-on generates metadata for pages. The function can be enabled on the Automatic Mode tab in the plugin settings. Use automatic mode as a last resort, as metadata is best created manually.
Install and activate the AddToAny Share Buttons module. By default, sharing buttons will appear on post pages below the content.
In the plugin settings on the AddToAny Placement tab, you can change the location of the buttons. Positions above the content, below the content, and above and below the content are available at the same time.
You can create a feedback form using the following extensions:
After installing the Form Maker Lite extension, go to the menu “Components – Form Maker Lite – Forms”. Click the "Create" button to open the new form editor.
Use the Form Options button to go to the form settings page. On the Email Options tab, enter the email address to which messages created using the form will be sent.
Add new fields using the Add New Field button.
In the editor, select the desired type and appearance of fields, and also replace English text with Russian. After editing is complete, save your changes.
To add a form to the site pages, in the “Components – Form Maker Lite – Forms” menu, copy the code of the created form. In edit mode, paste it onto selected site pages.
If you did everything correctly, the created form will appear on the site pages.
Structured data is interesting due to expanded descriptions of pages in search results. Read more about rich snippets.
Google Structured Data Markup. After activation, the free version adds Schema.org Breadcrumblist, Organization and Website micro markup.
By using free version plugin, you can add structured Schema.org Article data to publications. To do this in the menu Google settings Structured Data, select the Items section and click the “Create” button.
In the window that opens, use the Select Item button to select the article to which you plan to add markup. Provide a title and description. Save your changes.
Check the correctness of the micro markup using the Google tool.
The paid version of the plugin supports other markup types, including Review, Products, Recipes, Events.
Implement the Open Graph protocol on your website. It is needed so that the snippet looks attractive when sharing content on social networks.
Install and activate the Phoca Open Graph extension. In the plugin settings on the Main Options tab, enable the Find Image in content option. Specify the name of the site and save the changes.
If everything is done correctly, when publishing material on social networks, an attractive snippet will be generated. Yandex turbo pages to a site running CMS Joomla! can be connected using the paid Turbozen plugin. The cost of expansion is 990 rubles.
To track performance, add a site running CMS Joomla! in the analytics services Metrica and Google Analytics, as well as in the Google Search Console and Yandex.Webmaster.
Sign in Google account Analytics. Add a new site to the system: specify the name and URL. Use the "Get Tracking ID" option. The tracking code is now available, which must be inserted on all pages of the site.
The problem can be solved using the following extensions:
After installing the Advanced Google Analytics plugin, enable it and go to the settings page. Enter your tracking ID, domain name, select the appropriate settings, and save your changes. You have added a tracking code to your site.
You can add the Yandex.Metrika tracking code to your website using the do Yandex Metrika plugin.
After installing the do Yandex Metrika plugin, enable it and go to the settings page. On the Module tab, enter the identifier ID. Select the appropriate settings and save the changes.
In Yandex.Metrica, check whether data is coming from the site.
To add a site to the Google and Yandex webmaster accounts, you must confirm rights to manage the resource. This can be quickly done using the Webmaster site verification extension.
After installation, enable the plugin and go to the settings page. Add site verification IDs and save changes.
After this, confirm your rights in the Google and Yandex webmaster accounts.
On the editing page, specify the title of the publication and add text. Select a category. To add an image, use the button marked in the illustration on the editor panel.
In the window that opens, you can add the alt attribute, select the alignment method and photo resolution.
On the Publish tab, add a description and optional keywords for the page.
The Images & Links tab allows you to add and edit images for previews and content, and add links to redirect users. On the Display, Editing Options, and Permissions tabs, you can change the corresponding settings. In most cases, the default settings are suitable. After editing is complete, publish the material using the “Save and Create” button.
In the “Material Manager” section you can manage publications: edit, delete, unpublish, estimate the number of views.
The answer to this question depends on the tasks you face, personal preferences and habits. Look for a clear solution yourself. To do this, work with two engines.
Joomla is not as simple, logical and intuitive as WordPress. Therefore, it will be easier for a beginner to understand WordPress. And Joomla! has more built-in capabilities that can be used to solve practical problems without installing additional components.
Some experts consider Joomla! a more suitable CMS for implementing large-scale projects, for example, large online stores or information resources. Perhaps this is just a matter of personal preference, since there are many examples of successful implementation of large-scale projects on WordPress.
The benefits of Joomla! Before WordPress we can include:
In CMS WordPress, the listed tasks can only be solved with the help of additional plugins.
The disadvantages of Joomla! can be attributed:
If previously almost every girl kept a diary of personal experiences in her desk, now the entire Internet community is interested in various thematic blogs.
Joomla blog templates are the perfect way created to manage your content. Today, almost every famous person has their own blog. It is very interesting to learn news about the life of your favorite singer or artist, but this does not mean that it is not at all interesting to look through the pages of ordinary people. It's always productive to read useful tips, interesting experiments, as well as the latest news from the fashion industry.
Now there are no difficulties with organizing personal space on the Internet. You can simply look through the news and purchase your favorite blog categories for joomla.
Blog templates that are published and accessible to everyone are ideal both for creating an interesting personal portfolio and for a magazine dedicated to fashion trends. There are even special developments designed for music lovers who decided to start their own blog to unite like-minded people. In this case, you will be able to select both a design and a directly informative series with the main emphasis on the presentation of various video clips and, accordingly, audio tracks. If you wish, you can even create a personal social network without any problems, which will be intended for especially sociable fans of various musical genres.
Have you decided to create your blog on joomla and combine it with online sales? Then you need to pay attention to joomla 3 blog templates, which provide the ability to implement online sales.
Each of the presented Joomla templates It is distinguished by beauty, style, and at the same time you can easily adjust it to your own needs.
Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Today we will continue, which we have already raised once before, and also learned. Today we will try to look at various options for displaying articles on website pages using various menu items.
The menu is one of the fundamental parts and usually acts as navigation elements. But in addition to navigation, they determine what exactly will be displayed on dynamic page after following the link to it. In fact, they determine what will be displayed on a particular page.
This is not so easy to understand, especially for those users who have dealt with static sites in which the role of the menu was reduced only to providing navigation. In general, the issue of organizing content and methods of displaying content is one of the most difficult for beginner Joomlovians.
At first, it is very difficult to grasp the entire relationship between the menu, its items, the content of web pages and the modules in which they are displayed. But let's talk about everything in order. Firstly, they, as in any other website, can be located either horizontally (most often in the upper part of the window, but it is also possible to create a lower one) or vertically (either in the left or right column of the template).
What’s noteworthy is that the navigation menu item in Joomla can lead to either a page with one single article or a blog or a list of materials contained in a category or section. Moreover, the same publication can be accessed through different links from the menu.
Some links will open them all alone on a web page, while others will display them as a list or as a blog of the category or section to which it belongs. You probably still don’t quite understand what we’re talking about we're talking about, but I hope that this understanding will come when you finish reading this guide.
So, you can see all this wealth in one place - in the menu manager. It can be accessed from the admin panel by selecting “All menu” - “Menu” from its top line. For each of them, you can create items that will form web pages with one or another.
Their appearance is set from the settings of these same menu items. This is very important to understand, because knowing where to look for certain settings will make your task much easier. , as well as setting up modules for them.
Having entered the menu manager, you can click on the icon in the column opposite the one you need, which will open a list of all the items that are already there. This page can also be accessed by simply selecting in the admin panel from its top line “All menu” - “Name of what you need”:
As a result, a window with a list will open:
At the top of it you will see buttons, among them there will be a “Create” button, clicking on which will open the wizard for creating a new navigation element:
In this window you will see a tree structure of the types of menu links that you can create in Joomla. This tree contains nested elements that will open after clicking on the selected parent branch. Everything is quite simple and clear.
It serves so that we can select the option of presenting the page to which we will go after clicking on the created menu link. In other words, you will have to choose one of the Joomla page templates. Different templates allow you to combine one or more articles based on the sections and categories to which they belong.
Please note that in the tree above there are quite a lot of options and they are divided by type of component (this is), on the basis of which the content will be displayed on the site. We are primarily interested in options that suggest creating a Content component built into the engine by default, which is responsible for working with materials.
But besides the main component for working with articles, there are others, which, in turn, will also add their own options to this tree, allowing you to link to web pages with content generated by our Content.
But for now we will focus on considering the output of materials, and everything else will be considered as best we can. So, a menu element in Joomla can link to three main types of pages: with a single article, an entire category or a section.
In addition, a menu element can indicate either separate component, and on the category of this component. For example, you can create a link that leads both to a page with a list of all the categories of the gallery you created, and to a page with the content (photos) of just one.
This mess might look like this:
At the same time, the following options were selected in the tree from those that were added after installing the Phoca Gallery component:
The main task when creating a website on Joomla is to correctly organize the information content (content, content). I mean the structure of sections and categories, both for articles and, for example, for the photo gallery component. Well, there are quite a lot of methods for displaying well-structured content.
True, it is often the variety of withdrawal methods that causes difficulties for novice users. But I hope that by the end of reading this publication, the confusion caused by the confusing system will decrease a little, and clarity will appear on at least some issues.
If you want to achieve the most convenient navigation, then you should start with the correct formation of sections and categories and the distribution of available articles between them. And to create on this basis an extensive system of menus and their elements for convenient and understandable output for users will be a matter of technology.
To display content that includes articles on your site, you will need to add new elements to the menu from the tree branch called “Materials”. Quite logical, I suppose. By clicking on this tree branch, you will see a list of all possible options, which you can use to display materials on the web pages of your site:
There are not so many of them, but they will allow you to display article content in a wide variety of forms - from individual publications to a blog of an entire section on one page of the website.
Now we just have to understand what this or that option in this branch of the tree serves, and then figure out their settings, which allow us to display blogs or lists of articles in Joomla. Using these settings, you can set the appearance and display order of materials. But first things first.
We will consider the option of outputting one single article at the end of the publication, and there is nothing complicated or requiring attention there. And now I want to dwell in detail on two main output patterns:
Of course, the blog template has much more flexibility than the standard one, which displays the contents of the page in a table only in the form of headings that are links to full versions articles.
The blog format of a category or section allows you to display not only the titles of articles, but also add a small announcement, which allows you to arouse additional interest among visitors to this page to continue reading and clicking on the “Read More” link.
At the same time, you can quite flexibly customize the appearance of articles. You can set how many announcements will be displayed across the entire width of the page, how many will be divided into columns, set the number of columns and determine the number of materials displayed below in the form of links.
Let's first try to create a menu element in Joomla based on a category (or section) blog template and look at all the settings that we can change. They will be almost identical for them. Therefore, we will consider only the option based on the category template, and you can figure out the section yourself by analogy.
So, go to the Joomla admin panel, select their top line items “All menus” - “Name of what you need”. On the page that opens, click the “Create” button located at the top. In the tree that opens, click on the option “Materials” - “Category” - “List Template”. As a result of these actions, a window will open with menu item settings based on the template you selected:
In the “Title” field, as usual, enter the name for this menu element, which will be displayed on the site. The “Nickname” field should only be filled in if . Then you will need.
If you use third-party components to organize the SEF, you will not need to fill it out. I already wrote.
The “Link” field displays a hyperlink to the page generated based on this menu item. You can copy it and use it to create web links from the text of other articles on your site. In the “Show in” field, you will have to select the menu in which the item we are creating will be located.
In the “Parent Element” column, you can select a parent for the element being created, when you click on it, our nested item will be displayed in the menu. If you do not want to make it nested, you should leave the default option “Top”.
In the “Access” area, you can set which visitors will see this item. Either everyone (used most often), or only registered ones, or only Joomla administrators (the “Special” option).
In the “Open in” field, choose whether the page will be opened in the same window, or in a new window, or in a new browser tab.
We go to the right side of the settings, where tabs with parameters responsible for presenting the web page that will be opened as a result of clicking on this link are concentrated. Let's start our consideration with the main parameters located on the tab of the same name:
In the “Category” field, you must select the one whose content will be displayed as a blog. In the “Description” column, you can hide or show the display of the description for this category, which will be displayed at the top of the blog page. The same applies to “Picture Description”.
In the “Full Width” field, you can set the number of articles (most often only their introductory parts - announcements) that will be displayed in the entire width of the web page, without breaking into columns. In the “Introduction” column you specify the number of materials that will be divided into columns, and in the “Columns” field you specify their number. They will be displayed behind those articles that are displayed in full width.
Thus, you can, for example, enter the numbers in these four fields: 1 6 2 4, as a result of which the generated page with the blog will look like this: at the very top one announcement of the article will be displayed, followed by six more announcements from this category, well, at the very bottom there will be a list of four more links.
It's clear? No? Then try experimenting with the numbers in these settings yourself and everything will become clear and understandable to you. Implement in Joomla the display of articles in a blog category or section, first in columns, and then across the entire width of the page - on this moment impossible. Therefore, you will have to be content with what you have.
Oh, by the way, a zero in any of these four fields except “column” will mean that none of the materials in that category will use this display feature. We have looked at the main parameters that can be changed when creating a menu item in Joomla. Now let's go to the advanced tab:
Here are the settings that are responsible for the order of articles. There are a lot of options - by date, alphabetically, in the order of display that you set in the content manager (of this category).
You will need the Order field if you are creating a menu item for a section that contains more than one category. In this case, you can choose the method you want to sort the categories in the section, according to which a list of them will be displayed on the page, generated on the basis of the section’s blog template.
The “Sorting” field determines the order of the articles themselves when they are displayed. By the way, when creating a menu item codenamed “Section Blog Template”, you can sort all articles without taking into account their belonging to a particular category, but to do this you need to select the “Default” option in the previous “Order” field.
If you select the “Display Order” option, then articles from the Joomla category you have selected will be displayed on the page in the order that you set in the content manager, setting a filter only for it.
There are two ways to sort articles in the content manager that belong to the category you need. You can place the numbers you need in the “Sorting” column and click on the diskette located next to the name of this column. You can also use the green arrows in the same column, but with a large number of articles this will probably be inconvenient.
In the “Pagination” column and the next few columns of advanced menu item settings based on a category or section blog template, you can hide and show pagination. Let’s say that if there are more materials in the displayed category than you specified in the settings described above, then Joomla will add numbering (pagination) at the bottom of the generated web page with a blog, unless you disable this in the “Paging” field.
Do not forget that articles intended to be displayed as part of a blog in Joomla must be prepared accordingly, namely, you will need to open it in visual editor to edit, place the mouse cursor after several paragraphs of text and click on the “ More details", located at the bottom of the editor window.
As a result, at the cursor position, a line will appear separating the text of the announcement. Only the announcement located above this line will be displayed on the blog.
Let's now go over the settings you can set when creating or editing a menu item based on a standard section template. First, go to the admin panel, select from the top line “All menu” - “Name of what you need”. In the window that opens, click the “Create” button located at the top.
In the tree of items that you can create that opens, click on the option “Materials” - “Category” - “Standard section template”. As a result of these actions, a window with settings will open.
What is noteworthy is that its left side will look exactly the same as in the one we examined earlier. The main difference lies in the main parameters:
In the “Section” field, you will have to select a section, the list of categories of which will be displayed when you follow this link in the menu. By the way, a visitor, when viewing a list of categories, will be able to view the list of materials in each of them by simply clicking on its name with the mouse. The purpose of the “Description” and “Image” fields is similar to that discussed above.
It will be easier for you to see the purpose of the remaining fields in action than to read about it. All other settings are no different from those discussed above.
Let's try to create a menu item in Joomla based on a category list template and see how the settings differ:
In the settings below, you can set the number of articles displayed in the list, as well as allow or disable the display of list column headings, creation date (you can set your own format for it) and a filter that will allow you to sort materials by headings, authors, or by hits (number of views of the material by visitors).
Well, finally, I’ll say a few words about creating a menu item in Joomla based on a standard material template. Everything is very simple here, in the main parameters you only have the ability to select the article you need from the material manager, which will open when you click on the menu item link.
It is possible that this bourgeois vision of successful blog promotion will be useful to you (the author of the most popular blog on SEO in the bourgeoisie speaks):
Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site
You might be interested
Creation and display of articles (content) in Joomla using sections and categories, a blog on Joomla and a Read more button.
Contacts for the site and feedback form using the built-in Joomla component
What is Joomla
Modules for displaying a list of sections in Joomla, random and latest news, similar materials, arbitrary photos and HTML code
Menu in Joomla - adding a nested or drop-down menu, as well as creating and configuring a module for displaying it on the site
Modules in Joomla - viewing position, setting and output, as well as assigning class suffixes
Organizing content in Joomla - deleting and creating articles in the admin panel, as well as setting parameters for all materials
K2 component for creating blogs, catalogs and portals on Joomla - features, installation and Russification
Joomla admin - a complete manual on all the settings of the Joomla admin panel in details and pictures
Is it possible to make a blog on Joomla? This is usually asked by many people who decide to create a website for themselves in the currently fashionable format. No you can not! This is the answer given by those who work with WordPress or Drupal (today these are the most popular engines adapted for blogging). It’s possible - I’ll answer you! Yes, you can, and often, by creating a blog on Joomla, you can later develop it and transform it into various types of Internet projects without much effort.
True, it is immediately necessary to say about the biggest disadvantage of Joomla in this matter - this engine was not originally created for a blog. This is probably not a minus, but for people who want everything at once, this is often enough and they start working with another system. It is much easier to launch a ready-made system adapted for a blog than to attach a blog to a portal CMS. However, with the release of Joomla 1.5 the picture has changed significantly for the better. But first things first.
This post opens a small series of posts dedicated to the topic of creating a blog on Joomla. In subsequent articles I will talk about several more methods for creating blogs both based on Joomla 1.5 and based on the engine version 1.0.x
I’ll start with a review of the component for creating blogs IDoBlog, which I promised to write Kotofeich-y and Nicomashi in the comments to the article about Comparison of Drupal, Joomla and WordPress
Blog on Joomla 1.5
Many have been waiting for the release of this version - and for good reason. The new Joomla has acquired a number of very useful functions aimed at working in the modern “socialized web”. Firstly, the new Joomla has a much improved mechanism for working with xml. In addition, the engine itself provides close integration with OpenID and Gmail. Initially, plugins for XML-RPC operation of both Joomla itself and XML-RPC - Blogger API were integrated. In general, a big step has been taken in the right direction.
Probably such changes prompted the developers to create a special component for viewing blogs on Joomla 1.5.
This component is called - the name speaks for itself. The component is successfully developing thanks to the efforts of well-known people in Joomla circles: Kotofeicha and Nicomashi.
Today, the component is developing in two directions. There is a version that is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License and a version that is distributed under a commercial license. It should be noted that the free version is quite enough to create a blog based on Joomla. And the frequency of version updates indicates that the branch is alive. However, there may no longer be any special innovations in it, but bug fixes and security updates are promised.
So, what does this component offer us?
Moreover, the component has a number of additional and useful functions. This includes a built-in profile system, Sef links, of course, as well as a flexible notification system for new comments and blog entries.
In principle, there is quite sufficient functionality for a simple blog, but naturally, it does not yet reach the engines designed for blogging. However, in the commercial version it is planned a large number of additional functions, which will allow you to run a full-fledged blog.
Now, in addition to the basic functions, the -Pro version allows you to do the following:
By the way, the issue of pinging, or rather a full-fledged plugin for ping resources important for a blogger, remains open.
Besides, in -Pro version The following opportunities are planned in the near future
In general, the creators of the component are going in the right direction, and the cost of the component is quite symbolic and this is unlikely to prevent you from creating a blog on Joomla 1.5.
In the next post in this series, I will talk about how to create a blog on Joomla 1.0.x using another non-commercial blog component and related components. At the same time, this assembly will be absolutely free...
Review of popular extensions for creating blogs and social platforms based on CMS Joomla.
1. CjBlog
CMSJoomla 2.5/3.x.
To download the extension, registration on the developer's website is required.
The extension is fully compatible withCMSJoomla 2.5/3.x.
The developer's website also has a Russian localization of the extension.
The extension is designed to create personal pages for site users. Key Features extensions are: the ability to create a personal page and edit it using a WYSIWYG editor; loading images, media from the editor; opportunity automatic change image sizes; determining the circle of people who can view the user’s page; search by article title and keywords with convenient display of results; Numerous functions for managing pages and publications, including setting the publication start and end date, adding external links to images, and more.
The extension is installed as standard through the “Extension Manager”. After installation, a new one appears in the list of components - “BS MyJspace”. The main page of the component control panel displays statistics: the number of pages and site users. In the “Directory” section you need to specify the directory in which users’ personal pages will be located. In the “Pages” section, you can view existing user pages indicating their title, author name, creation date, size and access level, as well as create new pages. In the “Categories” section, you can create categories to better group pages and make it easier to find information in them. In the “Tools” section, with one click on the button, you can delete and create folders containing personal pages or delete only empty pages.
The BS plg_pagebreakmyjspace plugin included in the package allows you to break a long personal page into several shorter ones; in addition, there are also plugins that allow you to add information from the profiles of popular social networks to your profile.
Below is an example of a personal page created using this extension.
3. Blog Factory
The extension is fully compatible withCMSJoomla 3.x.
To download the extension, you need to register on the developer’s website or log in via social media. Facebook networks or Google+. The extension contains a link to the developer's website.
Thanks to this extension, a blog on CMS Joomla can become an excellent alternative to the usual Wordpress blogs. Using the “Blog Factory” extension, you can create not only your own blog, but also an entire social portal, each of whose participants will have their own blog, their own user panel with movable panels, bookmarks for social networks, a commenting system, a system for rating posts and comments (“I like”), notifications on email about new messages, RSS feeds and avatars.
The extension is easy to install, configure and update. The installation is standard, after its completion a new one is added to the list of the “Components” menu item - “Blog Factory”. Home page its dashboard contains statistics on the number of new blogs, new posts and new comments in the last week, as well as the total number of posts, blogs and comments. Separate fields are dedicated to the last post (title and author), last blog (title, owner) and last comment (comment, post), as well as the post with the highest rating.
In addition, the extension's control panel allows you to manage comments, messages and user blogs, create categories and leave bookmarks.
The message editing panel offered by this extension is quite convenient:
It should be noted that each message has metadata fields: description, keywords and tags. In the “Settings” section of the component’s control panel, you can disable categories, the rating system for posts, viewing posts by unregistered users and bookmarks, as well as create a “white list” of tags, configure captcha and other parameters for comments, enter a list of words whose publication on the site is prohibited and configure a number of other options. It is important to be able to create backup copy blog and restoring it from the component control panel.
Below is an example of how the extension works on a site running CMS Joomla.
The most functional of the extensions considered is the “Blog Factory” extension, which allows you to create a beautiful personal blog, and a full-fledged social platform where each user can keep his own diary, receiving comments and ratings. The first of the considered extensions, “CjBlog,” is slightly less functional. The inconvenience of working with it is the need to work with a number of plugins included in its kit, although, on the other hand, such a fractional structure of the package allows you to cut off all unnecessary functionality (after all, not everyone needs quizzes and crosswords). In order for the “BS Myjspace” extension to acquire the functionality of the “Blog Factory” extension, it will have to be supplemented with other plugins, although the “BS Myjspace” extension is quite suitable for creating a site for a thematic community with personal pages of participants.