SiteGround Tutorials

Joomla!™ Tutorial What is Joomla?

Joomla is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS). Here you will learn how to create your website with Joomla. If you have little or no programming skills, Joomla is the right tool for you! With Joomla you can quickly set up a professional-looking website, choose among many free Joomla templates, create articles, add contact forms, polls, counter, allow user registrations, install extensions for additional functionality, etc. And the best of all, Joomla is absolutely free (GNU / GPL license).

 

This Joomla tutorials collection is dedicated to showing you the basics of the Joomla 1.5 CMS. After reading it, you will be able to create a fully-functional website with Joomla in just a few minutes. If you don't have a Joomla website yet, you can sign up here for a Joomla hosting account and get a free Joomla 1.5 installation. If you need to change your Joomla hosting provider, we offer free website files and database transfer.

Joomla tutorial covers the following topics:

How to install Joomla via Fantastico or manually; How to customize the layout of your Joomla website How to create articles in Joomla How to create a Contact us page in Joomla How to link articles to the Joomla Menu How to create a Poll in Joomla 1.5 How to create search engine friendly URLs How to add a counter in Joomla How to install extensions to your Joomla website How to change Joomla templates How to create a simple Joomla 1.5 template How to add a drop-down menu to Joomla 1.5 How to secure your Joomla website How to optimize your Joomla website How to create a backup of Joomla 1.5 How to upgrade Joomla 1.5 to the latest stable version How to upgrade from Joomla 1.0 to Joomla 1.5 How to fix the most common Joomla 1.5 issues How to convert a static website to Joomla

For further Joomla related questions you can check our SiteGround Knowledge Base.

  Check also our SiteGround Joomla 1.5 Video tutorials:

 

Add Category Change install directory Hide your site Manage menus

Add contact form Change language Install extension Manage plugins

Add paypal Change php access Install Joomla Media manager

Add section Create article Install modules Recover admin password

Block hotlinking Database backup Install template Redirect to login

Change admin name Delete super admin Install latest version Stop user registration

Change favicon Display rss feed Login as admin Trash manager

Change home page Enable email notifications Manage global settings Upgrade your site

Use user manager

Page 1 / 20

Manual Installation of Joomla!™

This tutorial will show you how to install Joomla manually. Alternatively, you can install Joomla using an Auto-Installer tool like Fantastico. You can also get a free professional Joomla installation with your Joomla hosting account at SiteGround.com.

How to Manually Install Joomla 1.5

To install Joomla manually follow the steps below:

Step 1. Create a MySQL database for your Joomla installation and add a new user to it. This can be done easily with cPanel by following the MySQL database tutorial. In case you are not using cPanel you can refer to the MySQL manual on creating databases and adding users to it.

Step 2. Create a folder called upload on your computer.

Step 3. Go to the Joomla download page. Download the .zip file with the latest version to the upload folder and extract it there.

Step 4. Upload all the content from upload to the directory on the server where Joomla 1.5 will be installed. SiteGround recommends using FTP for this purpose and the FTP tutorial will guide you through the necessary steps.

S tep 5 . Open the URL of the newly up loaded Joomla f i l es . Th is w i l l be e i ther http://your_domain_name.com or a subdirectory such as http://your_domain_name.com/example.

Step 6. You will be redirected to the Joomla installation page:

On the first page of the installation you will be able to choose the Language for the installation.

The selected language will be valid only for the installation process. Once installed Joomla will be back in English.

We recommend selecting "English" in order to follow easier the next steps from the tutorial.

Step 7. Joomla will perform a pre-installation check of the system environment. Failing to meet a requirement or recommendation may cause functional and security problems later.

Here is a screenshot of all Joomla 1.5 requirements met on a standard SiteGround hosting account:

Page 2 / 20

Step 8. Once you make sure all requirements are met, click on the [Next] button from the top right menu.

Step 9. Next you will have to accept Joomla's license and click on [Next] to continue.

Step 10. The following page will ask about the MySQL details for the new Joomla 1.5 installation.

Here are some example entries and explanations for these fields in case you have difficulties understanding exactly what information you should enter:

Step 11. Next you will have to configure your File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Leave it to the default settings and just click [Next] from the top right menu.

Step 12. From the page that appears you will be able to complete the final Joomla 1.5 settings specifying your email and specifying the admin password. Click on [Next] to proceed.

In our example we will not use the option Install Sample Data because it may cause confusion and require time to

remove all the data populated later.

Step 13. In the last page of the installation wizard you will receive a confirmation that Joomla has been successfully installed.

Before being able to access your new Joomla 1.5 you must delete the installation directory. For this purpose use FTP as described in Step 3.

Well done! Your Joomla website is now installed.

Page 3 / 20

If you would like to learn more about the options the manual Joomla installation offers, please contact the SiteGround support team. Our technical team is expert in Joomla related questions and able to build the perfect environment for running your Joomla 1.5 website.

 

How to create a website with Joomla? How to start a Joomla site?

Joomla! is an easy to use CMS tool, which allows you to create a website with practically no design or programing skills. To start a Joomla site, you need to sign up for a hosting account and have Joomla CMS installed. At SiteGround.com you can get a free professional Joomla installation with your Joomla Hosting account .

This Joomla guide covers the following topics:

Logging into the Joomla admin area Creating Articles in Joomla Creating a Contact us page Linking Articles to the Menu Creating a Poll in Joomla 1.5

Logging into the Joomla admin area

After having Joomla 1.5 installed on your account, you can begin adding your content. In this example we'll assume that your domain is your_domain_name.com. Thus the Joomla's admin panel will be accessible at:

http://your_domain_name.com/administrator

Please make sure you change your_domain_name.com to your actual domain name when following this tutorial.

To log in to your Joomla admin area, enter your login information in the Joomla! Administration Login screen:

Creating articles in Joomla 

If you have installed Joomla through Fantastico or from source with the sample data, you will already have a few articles created and published. You can take a look at how they are written and organized in order to get used to managing your articles. To see them go to Content > Article Manager from the top admin menu.

Page 4 / 20

There you will see several articles listed. Once you click an article link, you will enter the Edit mode for the article. From the Edit menu you can modify the article's title, text, etc. Before building your first article, let's remove all default articles to avoid confusion. For this purpose go back to Content > Article Manager from the top admin menu. Then select all articles by checking the first radio button in the column and click on the [Trash] button from the top admin menu. 

Now let's create your first article which we'll call "About us".

Step 1. From the top admin menu click on [New]. 

Step 2. Then make the following changes in the corresponding fields: Title: About us Alias: (leave it blank) Section: Uncategorized Category: Uncategorized Published: Yes (If the article is not published, it will not be shown to your visitors. It will remain only as a draft.) Frontpage: Yes (This will allow it to appear on the first page of your site.) In the main text field write some information about your company...

Step 3. You can also insert your company's logo. For this purpose click on the image icon at the bottom of the page: 

Page 5 / 20

Step 4. Since your logo is not uploaded yet, click on the [Upload file] link to upload it. Browse your local computer and find the logo image. Click on [Start Upload] to upload it. 

Step 5. You will see a confirmation that the file has been successfully uploaded. Now it can be found in the upper part of the window along with the default Joomla images. Click on logo.png (or whatever the name of your logo is) to select it and then on [Insert] to insert it in your article. The logo's position in the article can be easily adjusted by dragging the image.

Step 6. The last step is to save this article by clicking on the [Save] button.

 

 

How to create a website with Joomla: Contact us page

Receiving feedback from the website visitors is important for every webmaster. In this tutorial we will show you how to create a Contact Us page. It is an easy and convenient way to get in touch with the people that browse your website. For additional information on how to create your Joomla 1.5 website, you can check our tutorial on Creating a website with Joomla 1.5.

Page 6 / 20

Creating a Contact us Page

Let's add a "Contact us" page with an online mail form to your Joomla website.

Step 1. First you need to create a new Contacts Category. For this purpose go to Components -> Contacts -> Categories:

Step 2. Click on [New]. Since we plan to have a simple Contact Us page, you should create only one single category. We will use "General" for its name in the tutorial. Enter "General" under title then click on [Save].

Step 3. Go to Components -> Contacts -> Contacts:

Step 4. Click on [New] and fill in the information. You have to make sure the email you enter is valid since all the mails you receive via this contact form will be sent to it.

Step 5. In order to avoid having your contact's name duplicated later, from the right box "Contacts parameters" check the button Hide next to "Name".

Step 6. Leave the rest of the default options unchanged and click on [Save] from the top-right

Page 7 / 20

menu.

Your contact form will be saved and you will be able to publish it on your site.

Step 7. To publish the new contact form go to Menus in the Joomla administrator area and choose the menu where you would like the link to the new contacts page published.

Step 8. Under Internal Link choose Contacts then Standard Contact Layout.

Step 9. Enter the desired link title (for example Contact Us) and choose the newly created contact from the drop down menu under Parameters (Basic) in the right part of the page. Then click [Save].

 

 

How to create a website with Joomla: Links

In this tutorial we will show you how to link your articles to your menus. After reading this tutorial you will be able to add new items to your menus and expand your website with different sections.

Linking Articles to the Menu

In order to make your pages accessible for your visitors, you should link them in the site menu. To do this, follow the steps below.

 Step 1.  From the admin panel, go to Menus -> Main Menu*.

Step 2. Delete all default links. For this purpose check the first radio button to select all links and click on Trash. (There will be a warning "You cannot trash the default menu item" which can be safely disregarded)

Step 3. Let's add links to your articles and the "Contact us" page. For this purpose click on [New] from the top-left menu and select the item type. In our case it will be Internal link - Article - Article

Page 8 / 20

Layout:

Step 4. Fill in the information about the links. Let's call the link "About us". Then from the left Parameters - Basic click on [Select]:

Step 5. A box with all your pages will appear and you should click on "About us":

Step 6. Save the link by clicking on [Save] from the top-right menu.

How to set a page as default?

While you are still in the Menu Item Manager, let's set your page "About us" as default.

Step 1. For this purpose check its radio button and click on [Default] from the top menu:

Page 9 / 20

Step 2. (Optionally) You can remove the default link "Home" because we will not need it.

How to add the Contact us page to the menu?

 Step 1.  Let's add a link to the "Contact us" page. For this purpose click on the [New] icon from the top menu and choose:Internal Link -> Contacts -> Category -> Standard Contact Layout.

Step 2. Fill the information about your new menu item "Contact us" and click [Save].

Page 10 / 20

 

 

How to create a website with Joomla: Poll

In this tutorial we will show you how to add a poll to your website.

Creating a Poll in Joomla 1.5

Let's place a poll in order to find out what visitors think about your new site. Follow the steps below to add a poll to your Joomla site:

Step 1. From the top menu in the Joomla admin area choose Components -> Polls:

Step 2. Click [New] from the top right menu. Let's call the poll: "What do you think about our site?".

Step 3. In the left menu we will list the poll options: "Great", "Not bad", "Awful".

Step 4. To save the new poll, click on [Save] from the top right menu.

Step 5. Now the poll has to be made public, i.e. to be published. For this purpose click on Extensions -> Module Manager from the top menu:

Page 11 / 20

Step 6. Choose [New] from the top - right menu, find Poll from the options listed and check it.

Step 7. Click on "Next" from the top right menu.

 Step 8. Set the poll title to: What do you think about our new site?

Step 9. Set "Show title" to "No".

Step 10. From the right box, Module Parameters > Poll select the poll called "What do you think about our new site".

Step 11. Click on [Save] from the top right menu and you will have the poll published on your frontpage.

If you experience any issues creating your polls, you can contact the SiteGround support team for assistance.

 

Advanced options in Joomla 1.5

In the Advanced section of the Joomla 1.5 tutorial you will learn how to:

Make the Joomla URLs search engine friendly (SEF) for better search engine indexing;

Page 12 / 20

Add a counter to your Joomla site; Change Joomla templates and where to search for free Joomla templates; How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles (Enabled by default); Optimize the performance of your website; Fix the most common Joomla 1.5 issues and answers to the most common Joomla 1.5 questions.  

 

Advanced options in Joomla 1.5: SEF URLs

This tutorial will show you how to enable  the "Search Engine Friendly" URLs functionality of your Joomla 1.5 application. When SEO is enabled, your links will be in human-readable format and this will help your website rank higher in search results. If you are looking for the perfect environment to create your Joomla website, you can check our Joomla hosting package.

Search Engine Optimization

To have the website better indexed by search engines such as Google and Yahoo, the pages have to be with meaningful names. That's why SiteGround recommends using Joomla's SEO functionality.

To enable SEO for your Joomla website, follow the steps below:

Step 1. Enable mod_rewrite. Mod_rewrite is installed on all SiteGround servers and in order to enable the rewrite rules, you will have to rename the htaccess.txt file in your Joomla installation directory to .htaccess.

 Step 2. Enable Joomla's SEO functionality from  Site -> Global configuration in the admin panel.

Step 3. In the SEO Settings section change Search Engine Friendly URLs and Use Apache mod_rewrite to Yes.

Step 4. Click on [Save] from the top right menu.

This will change the link to, for example, the "About us" page from:

http://your_domain_name.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2

to

http://your_domain_name.com/About_us 

If you experience any issues with enabling the SEF functionality of your Joomla, do not hesitate to contact our Support Team. We are experts in Joomla related questions and will happily assist you.

 

Advanced options in Joomla 1.5: Counter

Page 13 / 20

This tutorial will show you how to add a counter to your Joomla. It will display the number of people that have visited your website. With Joomla you can do this with just a few clicks.

Adding a counter to your site

Joomla 1.5 offers an easy way to add an advanced web counter to your site. To add the counter, follow the steps below:

Step 1. Log in to your Joomla admin panel and go to Extensions -> Module Manager:

Step 2. From the top right menu choose [New].

Step 3. From the listed options check "Statistics" and click "Next" from the top right panel.

Step 4. The next page has many advanced counter options. We will change only:

Title: Counter Show Title: No Hit Counter: Yes (From the right box)

Step 5. Click on [Save] from the top-right menu to save the counter. 

Joomla Templates

This tutorial will show you how to change the default template of your Joomla 1.5 website. You can download many beautiful templates from our Joomla 1.5 templates gallery. Alternatively, you can create your own template. For more information on that matter you can check our tutorial on How to create a simple Joomla 1.5 template. If you do not have a Joomla website yet, SiteGround's Joomla Hosting package will provide you with the ideal environment to build your site!

Changing the default template of Joomla 1.5

One of Joomla's great features is the option to easily change its templates. SiteGround offers many FREE Joomla Templates!

When you find the template you like, download it to your local computer and follow the steps below to

Page 14 / 20

install it on your website:

Step 1. Log in your Joomla admin panel and go to Extensions -> Install/Uninstall:

Step 2. There is a box "Upload Package File" and you have to use [Browse..] to find the template file you have downloaded.

Step 3. Once you find the file, click on [Upload File & Install].

Step 4. Now that you have your new template installed, you should apply it to your site. This can be done from Joomla's admin panel, Extensions -> Template manager:

Step 5. Check the radio button next to your new template and from the top right menu choose "Default".

And that's it :) You have successfully redesigned your website in just 2 easy to follow steps. 

 

Quick Answers to Common Requests about Joomla 1.5

In this tutorial we will answer some common questions about Joomla:

How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles? How to change the domain name for your Joomla 1.5 site? How to speed up Joomla 1.5? How to allow user registrations in Joomla 1.5

How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles?

Step 1. From Joomla's admin panel go to Content - Article Manager:

Page 15 / 20

Step 2. Click on "Parameters" from the top-right menu.

Step 3. A box will appear with all configurable options including author / date posted. Simply set to "Hide" any of the options you'd like disabled.

How to change the domain name for your Joomla 1.5 site?

Previous Joomla versions required a manual re-configuration when changing the domain name of your site. Joomla 1.5 does NOT require such a change as it recognizes the new domain name automatically.

How to speed up Joomla 1.5?

Joomla's performance is usually slowed down when:

Extra features are enabled such as stats and polls; Additional components, modules, plugins, themes are installed; There are too many items on the pages.

Fortunately, Joomla provides an easy way to speed up its performance by enabling its caching function. To enable cache in Joomla, follow the steps below:

Step 1. Go to your Joomla's admin panel > Site -> Global Configuration.

Step 2. Click on the link "System" under Global Configuration:

Page 16 / 20

Step 3. There you will find a box called "Cache Settings" and you have to check "Yes" besides the Cache option:

Step 4. You can leave the rest of the options unchanged and save the change by clicking [Save] at the top right menu.

Enabling the cache may prevent you from immediately seeing changes on your site. In some cases you might have

to clear your Joomla cache.

How to allow user registrations in Joomla 1.5

By default user registration is allowed in Joomla 1.5. You will just have to enable the login form. To do this, follow the steps below:

Step 1. From the Joomla admin panel go to Extensions -> Module Manager:

Step 2. From the top right menu click on [New] and check the "Login" option:

Page 17 / 20

Step 3. Click on "Next" from the top-right menu to proceed.

Step 4. From the options that appear we will make only one change:

Title: Login

Step 5. Save the progress by clicking on [Save] from the top menu and you will find a login form on your site.

 

Upgrade from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5 Upgrading Joomla to the latest stable version

More information about this can be found in our tutorial on how to upgrade Joomla 1.5 to the latest version.

How to upgrade from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5?

In this tutorial we will show you how to upgrade from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5.x.

Note that it is highly recommended to backup your existing Joomla web site before you proceed with the migration

process.

 

The Joomla upgrade to 1.5 will preserve ONLY the content of your Joomla 1.0.x. No components/modules/plugins/templates you have will be available in the upgraded Joomla 1.5.

Step 1: Install the Migrator component

The first step is to install the Migrator component to your existing Joomla 1.0.x web site. You can download the Migrator component here.

More information on how to install a component in Joomla 1.0.x can be found in our Joomla 1.0 tutorial.

Once you have installed the Migrator component, you will be able to access it from the Components menu > Migrator.

The migrator component allows you to migrate your current Joomla 1.0.x data to the Joomla 1.5 database format.

Step 2: Create Migration SQL File

To proceed with the database migration click the Create Migration SQL File button located at the bottom of the Migrator component page:

The next step is to download the extracted SQL from your 1.0.x Joomla:

Page 18 / 20

You can now download your SQL dump by clicking on the Download link available on the right section of the page and upload it into your Joomla! 1.5 installation. Later, when importing this SQL file into your 1.5 installation, make sure to select Load Migration Script and use the prefix '_jos' (by default).

Step 3: Make a clean Joomla 1.5 installation

Next you should perform a manual Joomla 1.5 installation. For the purpose of this tutorial let's install Joomla 1.5 in a folder called dev.

Download the latest Joomla 1.5 package from the official website and extract it in the dev folder.

Open the dev folder by going to http://www.your-website.com/dev. You will see the Joomla start installation screen. Select your language, you should already have a database and user to fill them in.

Step 4. Perform the migration

Proceed with the installation until you reach Step 6: Configuration:

Fill the name of your web site, your admin e-mail and password details.

The key part here is to choose the Load Migration Script option:

Fill the old table prefix _jos and leave the encoding unchanged unless needed and you are familiar with this option.

By clicking on the [Browse] button you should select the Joomla 1.0.x migration dump you downloaded

Page 19 / 20

earlier.

Make sure to check the This script is a Joomla! 1.0 migration script. check box as well.

Proceed by clicking on the [Upload and execute] button.

Once the data is imported you should see the following screen:

Click on the [Next] button near to the upper right corner.

You need to completely remove the installation directory.

Now when you open the front end of your newly installed Joomla 1.5 you will see all the articles from the previous Joomla.

 

 

Page 20 / 20