Getting Started
This week we’ve been working with a Content Management
System (CMS) called Joomla!, and while I had my challenges, I always enjoy
learning to work with a new program. I
started the process by watching the two hour demonstration webinar, in fact, I
watched it twice. When I really started
working with the program, it helped to have the webinar open in one video and
the program open in another so I could toggle back and forth to watch and then
work.
I decided to stay with the “protostar” template since that
was the one demonstrated in the video, and the first thing I did was to play
with the template and background colors.
I also went ahead and installed the recommended text editor since I knew I would use this for my articles:
Categories, Articles, Menus…
Next, I edited the modules by getting rid of the ones I no
longer needed and edited the home page article.
I did learn that after you add an image and you decide that you want to
edit the layout after you have inserted it, you can simply “grab” the borders
of the image and drag them to increase or decrease the size. You can also click on the “insert image”
button and it will re-open the editing window. I also added a new logo to replace the plain
text.
I played around with inserting a "Banner" module, but in the end it just looked awkward, so I decided to leave it out. I composed two additional articles and linked them to the
two menus I created. I did clean up
their appearance by hiding the details:
Finishing Up
To finsih up the site, I added an RSS feed from the Library of Congress and a search function. I did try to install some of the social media functions, but Joomla! was unable to complete the installation process.
All in all, Joomla! was a little more complex than I had anticipated. However, after I started working with it, it became a little easier to navigate. Check out the finished product!
