HRDF Course-Joomla 3.x Essential Training

This course will teach how to use Joomla CMS to build a website from scratch—all without a single line of code. Discover how to create and organize content, add menus and sidebars, change the look of the site with templates, control who creates and edits content, and much more. The course also shows you how to evaluate the quality of extensions, plugins, and templates and how to download and install them.

Topics include:

• What is Joomla CMS
• Completing Joomla CMS installation
• Planning your website
• Organizing content in Joomla!
• Creating categories, articles, and menus
• Formatting text and images
• Using modules and components
• Identifying and installing good-quality third-party extensions and templates
• Supporting multiple languages with Joomla!
• Managing users and their permissions
• Changing the look of the site with templates
• Launching your site

Module 1. Introduction

• Understanding Joomla CMS
• Understanding Joomla's release cycle and versions

Module 2. Installing Joomla CMS

• Understanding the installation process;
• Installing Joomla 3.0

Module 3. A General Overview of Joomla!

• A quick tour of the Joomla! interface
• Exploring responsive design in Joomla! 
• Modifying the global configuration 
• Using the Media Manager
• Creating content in Joomla CMS

Module 4. Creating Categories

• Creating categories for your site 
• Publishing, unpublishing, and trashing categories

Module 5. Creating Articles and Basic Formatting

• Creating individual articles;
• Formatting articles
• Adding an external link
• Adding article images
• Using Read More
• Exploring featured articles and pages
• Publishing, unpublishing, and trashing articles-Linking to a PDF or other document - Dividing and formatting long articles using page breaks and the Pagebreak plugin
• Customizing which HTML tags are permitted by changing the text filter in Joomla SM
• Adding a YouTube video to an article
• Using article-specific images and links
• Styling images with bootstrap classes

Module 6. Creating Menus for Your Site

• Understanding and configuring menus
• Linking an article to the menu
• Understanding parent and children menu items
• Configuring Category Blogs
• Advanced Category Blog configurations 
• Configuring Category Lists
• Advanced Category List configuration
• Creating a featured blog for the News page and configuring the homepage
• Publishing, unpublishing, and trashing menu items
• Creating a new menu and a login link, and displaying the menu in the footer
• Creating menu aliases 
• Reordering menu items
• Adding products, moving the main menu, and configuring a dropdown menu
• Configuring secondary navigation

Module 7. Setting Display Options

• Setting global configuration options for articles
• Setting menu display options;
• Comparing page headings, article titles, and browser page titles
• Turning off the homepage heading
• Configuring the back-end and front-end article administrator screens and options

Module 8. Using Modules 

• Configuring modules
• Creating a search module
• Creating a custom HTML module
• Modifying the breadcrumb module
• Creating a random image module
• Including a module in an article using loadposition
• Exploring administrator modules and turning on the Joomla! version

Module 9. Using Components

• Using the content component
• Using the contact component
• Formatting the contact page
• Configuring CAPTCHA for a form
• Creating a contact list
• Formatting the contact list
• Using the weblinks component
• Using the redirect component

Module 10. Using Templates 

• Changing the look of the site using templates
• Setting the default template style and assigning template styles
• Creating new template styles
• Adjusting template masters with the HTML and CSS editors
• Adding an editor.css style sheet for access to certain classes in TinyMCE
• Introducing the Hathor admin template
• Customizing the Isis admin template
• Working with Joomla! templates from third-party providers

Module 11. Access Control List (ACL) Essentials 

• Introduction to ACL 
• Exploring default groups in Joomla!3
• Creating a user
• Exploring default access levels
• Configuring content for users behind a login
• Configuring content for guest access
• Configuring user registration and user options s
• Configuring a logout button 
• Configuring a better login screen and adding an Edit Profile button
• Extending user profiles
• Working with user notes

Module 12. Extending Joomla CMS 

• Evaluating extensions in the Joomla CMS Extensions Directory
• Installing and creating a backup with Akeeba Backup
• Installing and creating a site map with Xmap 
• Upgrading extensions

Module 13. Launching Your Site and Beyond 

• Preparing a site for launch 
• Launching a site 
• Placing a site in offline mode and changing the offline image
• Thinking about site maintenance and front-end editing 
• Understanding the importance of backups and coordinating backups with a web host
• Updating your Joomla! site and the Joomla! update notification