The Great Content Management System Joomla!

A content management system is software that allows you to create and manage Web pages easily by separating the creation of your content from the mechanics required to present it on the Web. In a site, the content is stored in a database. The look and feel are created by a template. The Joomla! software brings together the template and the content to create Web pages. To expand on that specifically in relationship to Joomla!, it is a content management system that is Web-based and that allows content and data to be collaboratively shared and created. Joomla! allows people with or without technical knowledge of coding to be able to have dynamic Web sites that they can easily manage. One way we like to describe Joomla! to people who are new to content management systems is to compare it to a standard office. The whole of Joomla! is the room. The filing cabinet in the office is the Article Manager, where you have sections (drawers of the filing cabinet), categories (file folders), and your articles and content items (pieces of paper, images, videos, sound, and other data inside the file folders). You can extend or add things to your office such as a phone (Joomla! extension: live chat extension), fax machine

or scanner (Joomla! extension: form submission), and computer (Joomla! extension: content editor) to make your workflow easier. The great thing is Joomla! keeps all of it organized for you. (Extensions are described more fully later in this chapter in the “Joomla! Extension Directory” section.) Another powerful way that Joomla! allows you to manage your site is through the User Manager. The User Manager allows you to control how your users interact with your site through the use of simple user groups, which is similar to being able to lock your door to your office or filing cabinets. This allows you to give permissions on specific levels to those viewing or browsing your Web site and a different set of permissions to those who are contributing content to your Web site or managing your Web site with

you. The Media Manager helps you manage your media files such as images, videos, or documents by allowing you to create folders to organize them, and it integrates with the

built-in Content Editor, which makes it easier to insert them into your content items. It is very similar to how your computer helps you store and find your files to use them effectively. Joomla! right out of the box has the functionality that most people need to have a basic, easy-to-manage, informational Web site. It also allows for a very high level of extendibility to create very complex Web sites and information systems.