Joomla! Documentation™

Welcome to the Joomla! 1.5 Template Tutorials Project. Here you will find information about how we are going about writing these fabulous new tutorials. If you would like to volunteer to lend us a hand then please send an email to Chris Davenport.

Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.

Introduction

New or potential contributors to this project should read the Introduction to the Template Tutorials Project. The process of writing the new template tutorials is also an experiment in single source modular documentation. The idea is that we write the material in "fragments" or "chunks" which can be re-used in a variety of contexts. In order for this to work, we need to write the chunks in a context-free manner so that they can be assembled into different output documents in any sequence. In other words we need to ensure that each chunk still makes sense even when taken out of context.

The following is the current Table of Contents for the Template Tutorials:

• J1.5:Getting Started with Templates
• Understanding Joomla! templates
• J1.5:Customising the Milky Way template
• J1.5:Customising the Beez template
• J1.5:Customising the JA Purity template
• Creating a basic Joomla! template
• More advanced Joomla! templates
• Customising the way modules are displayed
• J1.5:Template parameters
• How to override the output from the Joomla! core|Template overrides
• Making templates translatable
• Distributing Joomla! templates
• Advanced topics
• Template reference material

How to do stuff

• Adding a new chunk to the database.
• Categorising a chunk.

Stuff you need to refer to

• Outline of the Template Tutorials

  This has been produced as a starting point. The tutorials listed on the main page show how one document can been produced by automatically assembling, on the fly, fragments which are stored and managed as individual wiki pages. Click on the Edit tab and see how the source for each of these tutorials is simply a list of references to modules. There is no actual content in any of them.

• Template Tutorial Guidelines

  These guidelines will help us to keep some consistency over all the tutorials where multiple authors are working on different sections of the material. They will be continuously revised and refined in the light of experience.

• JDOC:Who is working on what

  If you want to work on one or more pages of the documentation then please update this page so we don't get duplication of effort. If you want to collaborate with someone on one or more pages, that's fine too of course; you can use this page to find out who to contact.

Content Categories

The following sections on this page list category pages for all the principal categories required for the Template Tutorials Project. You can use these pages to help you find a suitable module to include (or rather transclude) into a compound document. You can't create new chunk pages using these pages.

Contents by Chunk Type

• Primary chunks (listed alphabetically)
  • Definition lists

    These are most commonly used to list components, so for example, we might create a definition list which lists the names of the principal files contained within a template and introduce the purpose of each.

  • Glossaries

    These are a specific form of definition list that defines technical terms.

  • Procedures

    These are step-by-step instructions that explain how to perform tasks.

  • Processes

    These are similar to procedures and topics. Processes differ from procedures in that they are narrative rather than imperative. They explain what someone or something does (declarative), not what users should do (imperative).

  • Topics

    These are texts that answer specific questions.

  • Troubleshooting scenarios

    These are a hybrid of topics and procedures. Each scenario explains one problem and its solution.

• Secondary chunks (listed alphabetically).
  • Examples
  • Figures
  • Itemised lists
  • Notes
  • Tables

Secondary chunks are always included into primary chunks. They are never used directly. Secondary chunks can be constructed separately, although they don't have to be. For example, figures will probably be constructed using a separate graphics package and may well be produced by a graphic artist working independently within the documentation team. Secondary chunks can be re-used within different primary chunks. Documents are assembled from primary chunks only; secondary chunks must be integrated into primary chunks before they are used.

Contents by User Experience Level

• Beginners
• Intermediate
• Advanced
• Reference

Contents by Joomla! Resource Type

• Components
• Modules
• Plugins
• Templates[[Category:JDOC Projects|Template:Subt:PAGENAME]]