Stephen Burge - Joomla! Explained: Your Step-by-Step Guide (Joomla! Press)

Your Step-by-Step Guide

Stephen Burge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Burge, Stephen, 1978
Joomla! explained : your step-by-step guide / Stephen Burge.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-70378-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-321-70378-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Joomla! (Computer file) 2. Web sitesAuthoring programs. 3. Web site development. I. Title.
TK5105.8885.J86B87 2012
006.78dc23
2011014788

Copyright 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-321-70378-1
ISBN-10: 0-321-70378-2

Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at RR Donnelley, Crawfordsville, Indiana.

First printing July 2011

This book is dedicated to the generations of wonderful
women in my family:

Irene and Miriam
Lynne
Nicky and Katie
Stacey
Eshun and Evelyn

This book was written for my Dad and for people like you.

I teach Joomla! classes all across the United States and talk with people like you who have tried to learn Joomla and other software.

They order books, watch videos, read online documentation, and go to other classes. Many are frustrated and say the same thing: Geeks create this training, and geeks dont speak our language.

So when I was asked to write this book, I wanted to write it in plain English. I wanted to write a book that my Dad could read, understand, and enjoy.

My Dad was a teacher and only took up Web sites after retiring. Maybe youre in a similar situation and Joomla is a hobby for you.

Maybe you went to work one day and your boss said Surprise! Youre learning Joomla.

Maybe youre a Web professional whos looking to make a career from building Joomla sites.

It doesnt matter. We all want to spend more time building Web sites and less time struggling with complicated instructions. After all, the whole point of using Joomla is to allow you to take control of your site quickly and easily.

This book worked for my Dad. He read the manuscript and has now built several Joomla sites.

I hope this book works for you also and that you can create Joomla Web sites that make you proud.

The mission of Joomla! Press is to enhance the Joomla! experience by providing useful, well-written, and engaging publications for all segments of the Joomla! Community from beginning users to framework developers. Titles in Joomla! Press are authored by leading experts and contributors in the community.

Wonderfully, this book stands on the shoulders of the entire Joomla community. Every month, 7 million people visit Joomla.org, which is more people than live in London. Every one of those visitors plays his or her role in helping Joomla grow, from those who drop in once to those who volunteer dozens of hours per week.

Practically, this book was written thanks to the undying patience and support of Debra Williams-Cauley and Songlin Qiu. Thanks also to my Dad, my wife, my friends, and all those gave feedback on the unfinished chapters.

Stephen Burge grew up in and around Portsmouth in southern England. He comes from a long line of teachers and soon became one himself. Teaching never made him rich, but it did pay the bills during years living abroad in Wales, Mexico, Japan, Australia, and the United States.

During his travels he dabbled with building Web sites and in 2003 discovered Mambo, the predecessor to Joomla! Three years later, his evening job as a Web designer was making him more money than this day job as a teacher. Now living in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, he founded Alledia.com, a company dedicated to building Joomla Web sites.

After a few years and few dozen Joomla Web sites, Stephen started to feel the urge to teach again. A friend asked him to teach a Joomla class in Chicago: He tried it and loved it. The reintroduction to teaching lead to more Joomla classes in Atlanta, New York, Washington, and other cities. They went well enough that Stephen ended up combing his two careers and became a full-time Joomla teacher. He now runs OSTraining.com, which helps thousands of people learn Joomla every year.

You can build great Web sites with Joomla!

My name is Steve Burge, and Im a full-time Joomla trainer. During the hundreds of Joomla classes Ive taught in many cities and countries, Ive met a lot of different types of Joomla learners:

Joomla learners come from many different backgrounds. They are accountants, florists, photographers, secretaries, factory workers, stay-at-home mothers, and people from all walks of life. Two of our best students have been an undertaker and a travel agent.

Joomla learners dont need to know anything about Web sites. Some Joomla learners are professional Web designers, but many others have never built a site before and dont know any Web site code or jargon.

Joomla learners dont need any experience. Weve trained people who went to work the previous week and found their boss saying Surprise! Youre running our Joomla site! They often still wore their look of shock.

Joomla learners are of all ages. Weve taught 15-year old students skipping class all the way up to retirees in their 80s.

If any of those descriptions sounds like you, youve picked up the right book. Using plain English and straightforward instructions, we enable you to build great Web sites using Joomla.

Before you start, you probably need to know something about Joomla. This chapter is a brief introduction.