What is Joomla?
Joomla is an award-winning content management
system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online
applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and
extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software
available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is
freely available to everyone.
What's a content management system (CMS)? A
content management system is software that keeps track of every piece
of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps
track of books and stores them. Content can be simple text, photos,
music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. A
major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical
skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content,
you don't have to. What are some real world examples of what Joomla! can do? Joomla is used all over the world to power Web sites of all shapes and sizes. For example: - Corporate Web sites or portals
- Corporate intranets and extranets
- Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
- E-commerce and online reservations
- Government applications
- Small business Web sites
- Non-profit and organizational Web sites
- Community-based portals
- School and church Web sites
- Personal or family homepages
Who uses Joomla?  Here are just a few examples of Web sites that use Joomla: More examples of companies using Joomla can be found in the Joomla Community Site Showcase. I need to build a site for a client. How will Joomla! help me?  Joomla
is designed to be easy to install and set up even if you're not an
advanced user. Many Web hosting services offer a single-click install,
getting your new site up and running in just a few minutes. Since
Joomla is so easy to use, as a Web designer or developer, you can
quickly build sites for your clients. Then, with a minimal amount of
instruction, you can empower your clients to easily manage their own
sites themselves. If your clients need specialized
functionality, Joomla is highly extensible and thousands of extensions
(most for free under the GPL license) are available in the Joomla Extensions Directory. How can I be sure there will be Joomla! support in the future?  Joomla
is the most popular open source CMS currently available as evidenced by
a vibrant and growing community of friendly users and talented
developers. Joomla's roots go back to 2000 and, with over 200,000
community users and contributors, the future looks bright for the
award-winning Joomla Project. I'm a developer. What are some advanced ways I can use Joomla?  Many
companies and organizations have requirements that go beyond what is
available in the basic Joomla package. In those cases, Joomla's
powerful application framework makes it easy for developers to create
sophisticated add-ons that extend the power of Joomla into virtually
unlimited directions. The core Joomla framework enables developers to quickly and easily build: - Inventory control systems
- Data reporting tools
- Application bridges
- Custom product catalogs
- Integrated e-commerce systems
- Complex business directories
- Reservation systems
- Communication tools
Since
Joomla is based on PHP and MySQL, you're building powerful applications
on an open platform anyone can use, share, and support. To find out
more information on leveraging the Joomla framework, visit the Joomla Developer Network. Joomla! seems the right solution for me. How do I get started?  Joomla is free, open, and available to anyone under the GPL license. Read Getting Started with Joomla to find out the basics then try out our online demo and you'll quickly discover how simple Joomla is. If you're ready to install Joomla, download the latest version here you'll be up and running in no time.
Joomla Core Features
Joomla is so much more than just a powerful content management
system. Here is a list of features "out of the box," but the true power
of Joomla is in its extensibility. User Management Joomla
has a registration system that allows users to configure personal
options. There are nine user groups with various types of permissions
on what users are allowed to access, edit, publish and administrate.
Authentication is an important part of user management and Joomla
support multiple protocols, including LDAP, OpenID, and even Gmail.
This allows users to use their existing account information to
streamline the registration process. Media Manager The
Media Manager is the tool for easily managing media files or
folders and you can configure the MIME type settings to handle any type
of file. The Media Manager is integrated into the Article Editor tool
so you can grab images and other files at any time. Language Manager There
is international support for many world languages and UTF-8 encoding.
If you need your Web site in one language and the administrator panel
in another, multiple languages are possible. Banner Management It's
easy to set up banners on your Web site using the Banner Manager,
starting with creating a client profile. Once you add campaigns and as
many banners as you need, you can set impression numbers, special URLs,
and more. Contact Management The Contact Manager helps
your users to find the right person and their contact information. It
also supports multiple contact forms going to specific individuals as
well as groups. Polls If you want to find out more about your users, it's easy to create polls with multiple options. Search Help navigate users to most popular search items and provide the admin with search statistics. Web Link Management Providing link resources for site users is simple and you can sort them into categories, even count every click. Content Management Joomla's
simplified three-tiered system of articles makes organizing your
content a snap. You can organize your content any way you want and not
necessarily how it will be on your Web site. Your users can rate
articles, e-mail them to a friend, or automatically save a PDF (with
UTF-8 support for all languages). Administrators can archive content
for safekeeping, hiding it from site visitors. On public Web sites, built-in e-mail cloaking protects email addresses from spambots. Creating
content is simple with the WYSIWYG editor, giving even novice users the
ability to combine text, images in an attractive way. Once you've
created your articles, there are a number of pre-installed modules to
show the most popular articles, latest new items, newsflashes, related
articles, and more. Syndication and Newsfeed Management With
Joomla, it's easy to syndicate your site content, allowing your users
to subscribe to new content in their favorite RSS reader. It's equally
easy to integrate RSS feeds from other sources and aggregate them all
on your site. Menu Manager The Menu Manager allows you
to create as many menus and menu items as you need. You can structure
your menu hierarchy (and nested menu items) completely independent of
your content structure. Put one menu in multiple places and in any
style you want; use rollovers, dropdown, flyouts and just about any
other navigation system you can think of. Also automatic breadcrumbs
are generated to help navigate your site users. Template Management Templates
in Joomla are a powerful way to make your site look exactly the way you
want and either use a single template for the entire site or a separate
template for each site section. The level of visual control goes a step
further with powerful template overrides, allowing you to customize
each part of your pages. Integrated Help System Joomla
has a built-in help section to assist users with finding what they
need. A glossary explains the terms in plain English, a version checker
makes sure you're using the latest version, a system information tool
helps you troubleshoot, and, if all else fails, links to a wealth of
online resources for additional help and support. System Features Speedy page loads are possible with page caching, granular-level module caching, and GZIP page compression. If your system administrator needs to troubleshoot an issue, debugging mode and error reporting are invaluable. The
FTP Layer allows file operations (like installing Extensions) without
having to make all the folders and files writable, making your site
administrator's life easier and increasing the security of your site. Administators
quickly and efficiently communicate with users one-on-one through
private messaging or all site users via the mass mailing system. Web Services With
Web services, you can use Remote Procedure Calls (via HTTP and XML).
You can also integrate XML-RPC services with the Blogger and Joomla
APIs. Powerful Extensibility These are just some of the basic Joomla features and the real power is in the way you customize Joomla. Visit the Joomla Extensions Directory to see thousands of ways to enhance Joomla to suit your needs.
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