How to deal with Joomla 3.1

I was a graduate of IT, and everyone expected you to know the concepts of IT, in any aspect such as software, hardware and even other techniques that are related to this field. But guess what? Of all the things that I really hate most, are those things that are actually required in the real world job.

PHP, or hypertext preprocessor, is actually a scripting language that generally used in dynamic websites. This language is actually part of the open source project. In short, you can have it for free and customize it. It can be also embedded in HTML.

I have an idea that in my job, it requires to have not just basic, but extreme knowledge about PHP (thanks to Prof. Vladimir Oliva for motivating us) but not in Joomla. Well I heard that Joomla is actually, making your web development life easier. But at the certain point, I didn't get the concept of "making my life more easier".

Joomla, a CMS or Content Management System, is an open free source publisher content web development site that allows user to customize its web development and design experience. It is basically made of PHP codes, with OOP or object-oriented programming techniques, software design patterns, with a MySQL as its database, and support integration and plugins that are downloadable online.

City of Koronadal Water District Homepage. The actual homepage with Joomla 3.1 as its backend.

It is my first encounter to use this system (well actually I am familiar with Joomla, but I was not expecting that it was really hard to understand) and it has similarities with Drupal (still a CMS, but more complicated one). I have two days, atleast, in order for me to familiarize its interface, different usage and content designs available. With this site (http://ckwd.gov.ph) I was able to manage to create all necessary requirements in just a short span of time. Well, what can you say?

So for all those readers wondering how to use Joomla, here are some requirements to accomplish:

1. If you are running offline, you need to download XAMPP 1.8.1. It is a cross-platform web server solution stack package, consist of Apache HTTP Server, MySQL Database, and interpreters of scripts such as PHP and Perl. (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/)
2. If you have your domain, all you have to login to your cPanel account. Instructions are in your corresponding web hosting site.
3. If you able to do either of the numbers 1 and 2, next is to download the latest version of Joomla. (http://www.joomla.org)
4. Once you able to do all the tasks, please refer to this Documentation Site for detailed installation of Joomla. (http://docs.joomla.org/J3.1:Installing_Joomla!#tab=Requirements)

Joomla 3.1 Login

Joomla 3.1 Control Panel

After installing Joomla, you can able to customize its web interface. Mostly, Joomla templates are available online, depending on the version of Joomla. There are compatible with the versions 2.5, 3.1, or 1.1, and so on.. So far, this is the best Joomla 3.0 web template I've ever visited (http://ajoomlatemplates.com/joomla-3.0-templates/). The good thing about it is that its is for free, no required login whatsoever. You can search other Joomla templates via Google if you want more choices.

Aside from its template, it also features wide variety of free plugins and extensions to customize your website experience. You can go here (http://extensions.joomla.org/) to check it out.

But most of all, you need to be creative enough. Most of the websites nowadays doesn't rely on its article, but rather to its interface on how good it is, on how attractive it is, and how functional it is.

Dealing with Joomla is just one week away. And the rest is history.