Joomla

[JeffandAnnie]

Anyone know a good self start guide?

[Jane S]

I just used the online resources and wikis you can access via the Joomla site:

http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners

This is also useful :

http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task048/joomla_15_quickstart.pdf

There are also quite a few videos on You Tube and the like if you do a search and the Joomla forum where I've found a lot of answers to my questions : http://forum.joomla.org/

[JeffandAnnie]

Thanks Jane. I have ordered a book from Amazon too, so hopefully I'll be able to suss out what to do. 

[Jane S]

Thanks Jane. I have ordered a book from Amazon too, so hopefully I'll be able to suss out what to do. 

I nearly ordered a book but I have so many web design books I barely look at so figured I wouldn't bother I found the best thing to do was just download Joomla and start playing around with it to see how things work (I use Xampp to run it on my PC)

[JeffandAnnie]

The issue I had was I couldn't even work out how to download it  It seems I need to download it to a server for publishing (didn't even know that until I read the book, which arrived today  ). All the "homemade" websites I have done in the past have been via self-build sites, but you have to pay quite a lot to add a half decent directory, so it seemed better to spend a tenner on a book and try to suss out how to do it myself with Joomla.   

[Jane S]

The issue I had was I couldn't even work out how to download it   It seems I need to download it to a server for publishing (didn't even know that until I read the book, which arrived today  ). All the "homemade" websites I have done in the past have been via self-build sites, but you have to pay quite a lot to add a half decent directory, so it seemed better to spend a tenner on a book and try to suss out how to do it myself with Joomla.    

Good luck If you're buying webspace to host your Joomla site, many use control panels where you can download Joomla automatically just by clicking a button which saves having to do it yourself. But if you want to play around with it on your own computer first, I followed this to run it with Xampp: http://docs.joomla.org/Use_Joomla!_on_your_own_computer

[JeffandAnnie]

Thanks Jane - is there a web host you can recommend? I was thinking 123-reg? I got my domain through LCN, but they don't describe their hosting packages very well  Being able to download Joomla automatically would be great - do you know if 123 does this? If I want to design the site on my laptop using Xampp as a platform, can I then upload it to my hosted server from there?

Lots of questions ( really should read the book as it's probably all covered in there  )

[Jane S]

I'll PM you with the hosting company I usually use - their hosting space comes with Cpanel (the admin control centre) which does have the option to download Joomla automatically (you'll also have to create a MySQL database before you do this but that's also easy to do in your cpanel). I have used 123-reg (usually get domains from them as they are often cheapest) but can't remember what they offer re hosting deals, sorry

Yes you can do all your experimenting and designing on your laptop using Xampp and then you can upload to your hosting space - I use two nifty Joomla extensions called Akeeba Backup and Akeeba Kickstart to do this -they do all the hard work for you Here's an explanation of how they work: http://www.blackhillswebworks.com/2011/05/24/how-to-restore-or-move-a-joomla-website-using-akeeba-backup/

[Holly2009]

I use hubby's server