What is Joomla? Well there’s a question I’ve been asked a few times and I’m ashamed to say I never even thought to post about it before as I had always assumed anyone visiting this blog would be would be looking for more in depth information about the CMS.
So what is Joomla?
Joomla is a “web content management system” – we’ll refer to that as a CMS from now on. A CMS gives you a way to manage your website. At it’s most basic a CMS (Joomla in this case) is a system that enables you to build and manage your website, add pages to your website, change content and make postings. That’s not all it does (not by a long shot) but that is it’s true core function.
You may ask why that’s important. Well, not everyone is a web developer, in fact most people do not have the knowledge, experience or time to build and manage their own websites using computer languages like html, css, php, asp, etc. Joomla and other CMS systems, like WordPress, gives everyone the ability to manage their own websites.
Think of it this way, if you are a lawyer and simply want to post your thoughts about the latest news in the legal world would you prefer to learn programming languages and spend weeks build your website or would you prefer to install it and then edit it in a similar manner to writing and email or editing a Word document – I bet it’s the latter. With Joomla one can simply log into an area of one’s website and create a new article (which is the same as a Page or Post) using an easy to use editor (see image below):
So as you can see it’s simple as pie. Just decide what you want to write about, create a new page in Joomla and write it in Joomla’s editor and publish. The new page will now appear on your website for all to see.
What can I use Joomla for?
So what kind of websites can I use Joomla for? Well Joomla is a very generic platform and you could use it to build personal websites, websites for your business, websites advertising products, product catalogues, blogs (though I would probably recommend using wordpress for a blog – there’s a short learning curve) and even fully fledged online shops with eCommerce fullfillment for you to accept credit card payments, Paypal, etc.
Where can I learn more about Joomla
Joomla.org is the first stop shop for information about the platform but there are a plethora of resources around the web that you can use, including this website.
For information about how to install Joomla have a look at my post “Installing Joomla” here
or check out Joomla’s official help documentation on joomla.org here “Installing Joomla” for 1.7 upwards or Install Joomla here for 1.5
For more joomla goodness, tutorials, tips, hints and thoughts check out the joomla section of this blog
Hopefully I’ve answered the question “What is Joomla” . Feel free to leave feedback, questions and suggestions using the comment form below.