Freegle Makeover: Joomla

Joomla

Joomla Vs. Wordpress

http://www.sitepoint.com/wordpress-v-joomla-the-winner/

We established that WordPress is slightly more user-friendly and entails less of a learning curve if you’re a web newbie.
I also suggested that WordPress may be your best choice if you’re starting a blog/content-driven site, whereas Joomla may be better for static or corporate sites and things like intranets, with eBay being a prime exponent of that.
We also discussed the fact that WordPress themes are generally designed with a specific purpose in mind; usually content curation/blogging. Joomla templates seem to be designed to be a lot more versatile.
Joomla’s structure is more intuitive than WordPress’ once you get the hang of it.
There is no hiding from the fact that WordPress is substantially better for SEO than Joomla. While Joomla isn’t horrible in the SEO department, it can be a bit of a hassle to get 100% right.
Joomla, on the other hand, really is trying to foster its community. The website is really attractive and intuitive, it has a number of great initiatives on the go and its support forum is phenomenal.

http://www.howdesign.com/featured-interactive/top-content-management-systems-designers/

Wordpress

WordPress is by far the most widely used CMS.
WordPress stands out for ease of use.
it’s not as customizable as the other systems, and it has a reputation for being prone to security holes.
WordPress is generally best-suited for sites with relatively simple requirements, or where the users responsible for content-posting or site administration are not technically proficient.
To build custom themes from scratch, you’ll need a solid grasp of CSS and at least an entry-level understanding of PHP

Joomla

It’s more customizable than WordPress
It has a sizable developer community, but the selection of add-ons is relatively limited—about 7600 compared with 25,000 for Drupal and 30,000 for WordPress.

Install Joomla

Link to install Joomla, however I need to do some stuff first.

http://www.joomla.org/download.html

First I need to install a Web hosting to Joomla.

Joomla have a list of services:

http://resources.joomla.org/beta/

Joomla online hosting servers.

https://www.siteground.com/joomla-hosting.htm?utm_expid=339965-1.LaxO5QYKT0C___XCGPzVAA.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.siteground.com%2Fjoomla-hosting.htm

http://www.2020media.com/index.php

http://www.rochenhost.com

http://www.getsimple.net

https://web173.secure-secure.co.uk/hostmode.co.uk/

http://www.inchhosting.co.uk

http://www.hurrayhost.com

What do I need to consider before paying a host: (Marriot, J. 2011. The official Joomla {book})

Does the host meet or exceed the recommended technical requirements for running your Joomla! site?
Does the host offer the customer support options that are important to you such as e-mail, phone, or live chat?
What is the online reputation of the host?
What is the host offering in terms of storage space and bandwidth limits?
Be careful of “oversellers.” Overselling is a term used for shared hosting services companies (many individual hosting accounts share one server) that sell server storage space and bandwidth in excess of the actual capacity they have available, in the hopes that the individuals will each not utilize all of the storage and bandwidth sold to them.
What are the host’s server and service uptime statistics and/or guarantee, as well as security record? Can they articulate their security practices, equipment failure mitigation protocol, data storage, and backup procedures?

However I'll try first in a virtual server

Virtual Server

Install MAMP
"MAMP installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it MacBook or iMac. "

http://www.mamp.info/en/downloads/

Some initial guidelines
http://www.mamp.info/en/documentation/MAMP-3-User-Guide.pdf

http://joejoomla.com/news-articles/40-installing-joomla-on-your-local-macintosh-using-mamp.html

Joomlart T3 framework

Another framework to work over Joomla
http://www.joomlart.com/t3-framework-feature

How to customise my T3 framework
http://t3-framework.org/documentation/customization.html

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I found this website useful.

http://docs.joomla.org/Portal:Beginners
http://docs.joomla.org/Converting_an_existing_website_to_a_Joomla!_website

"As a simplified explanation, think of a Joomla! website dynamically bringing together three elements.

Your content, which is stored in a database and called articles.
Modules, additional pieces of special content which is also stored in a database.
Your template, which controls the design and presentation(fonts, colors and layout) of your content and modules.

"
http://docs.joomla.org/Portal:Administrators

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I find difficult to know where to start
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XAMPP install

https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html

This is a another local serve, and also it congaing link to easy install Joomla and Wordpress
https://bitnami.com/stack/xampp

User management

http://docs.joomla.org/User_Management
I would direct my attention to the User first:

I rearrange to customise to my website

NOTE: CUSTOMISE LOGIN SETTINGS AND PROFILE

I tried to customise users and Login setting and I couldn't open my administrator page, so I installed everything again.

This time I'm going to start to work with menus as they give the structure to my website:

JEvents

"JEvents is a long established Events calendar and listing addon for Joomla - and was first released over 8 years ago when Joomla was born! JEvents consists of a number of modules and plugins for Joomla!. It is highly configurable and customisable with a long list of addons available to extend its. This makes JEvents is the ideal choice for your websites."
http://www.jevents.net

also I looked to some templates with the layout that I want.

Leather craft got a sticky menu with Login at the top

http://jm-leathercraft.demo.joomlart.com

JA bookshop got the top menu that I want

http://ja-bookshop.demo.joomlart.com

JA Biz have a side menu for the pictures, a link into the picture an the top menu, however I would like sticky top menu.

http://www.joomlart.com/demo/#ja_biz

JA Purity III

"Responsive Joomla template for Joomla 3 - Purity III is a powerful Free Joomla template for any Joomla lover.
Much like its name, Purity III stands out as a simplicity Joomla template and a great starter theme to craft your site from scratch with multiple layouts per your need. Simplicity though highly compatible, Purity III works in perfect sync with most of the popular 3rd party Joomla extensions, such as: EasySocial, EasyDiscuss, EasyBlog, JomSocial, Mijoshop, Kunena, and etc."
http://www.joomlart.com/forums/downloads.php?do=cat&id=519

http://www.joomlart.com/documentation/joomla-templates/purity-iii

Build your own page

Step 1: Clone the default style

When you install Purity III template, there is only one style: the default style. However, you can create an unlimited number of different styles for your template.

To create a new style in Purity III, open the template manager panel, select Purity III default style then hit the Duplicate button.

On the demo site, we have already duplicated a number of styles for different layouts.

Step 2: Assign layout to the newly created style

Open the new style then select the respective layout that you want to assign to.

Step 3: Assign menu type

Now open menu item that you have assigned to the newly created style to configure it.

We add new menu type for each layout, so you have to select the correct menu type.

Page	Layout	Menu type
Blog page	blog	xLayout-Blog
Magazine page	magazine	xLayout - Magazine
Coperate page	coperate	Category Blog
Portfolio	portfolio	xLayout - Portfolio
Features Intro 1	features-intro-1	xLayout - Features Intro
Features Intro 2	features-intro-2	No specific menu type is required
Glossary page	default	xLayout - Glossary