Beginners (Concise)

From Joomla! Documentation

There are several options for installing Joomla!:

• Purchase an account at a host with "cPanel" and "Fantastico" and run the Joomla! script; or
• Even if your host does not have Fantastico, you can often ask your host to install Joomla! for you. (Fantastico does make things easier, though); or
• Download and install Joomla! onto your own server.

Joomla! download links appear on the left side at http://www.joomla.org

You must choose between version 1.0 and 1.5. Version 1.5 is awesome, but there are a number of extensions that have not yet caught up with 1.5. So do some research to make sure the functionality you seek exists in your version. Go to http://extensions.org to download extensions and http://forum.joomla.org to see what people are saying about the extension, and any barriers they may have encountered in configuring it.

Once Joomla! is installed, the first things you need to do are to create a section and a category. These options appear under Content. You could run your entire site in one Section/Category, but more than likely you will want at least multiple categories. Do not feel that you need a separate category or separate sections for every main menu item. The Sections and Categories do not have to match the menu structure. Do make sure to create a separate category if you want a group of related articles to appear on a page (for example, a Joomla! "blog").

Once you have got at least one category (you cannot create a category without having at least one section to contain it), use these steps:

1. Create articles (Content).

2. Add the articles to the menus (Menus).

If you want to change the look of the site, download either a free or commercial template, and install it under 'Extensions > Install/Uninstall.

Voila!