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This same simple one-level structure would be appropriate for all kinds of small sites with a
dedicated subject maer, i.e. a porolio site for a one man company or an event site. A copy
wring company would have a Joomla! site structure similar to the following:
John Johnson
Copywriting
My work
Examples
About me
Clients
Contact
For an event site—such as a site for a congress or seminar—a structure like the one shown in
the following diagram would be ne:
Web Builders
Seminar
Agenda
Speakers
Location
Contact
Although you'll leave much of the built-in funconality for managing big, content-rich sites
untouched, it's sll worthwhile to use Joomla! for sites like these. All the other advantages
of Joomla! sll hold, such as the ability to add any extra funconality you like. If your client
wants a registraon form for his seminar site, or a photo gallery for his porolio site, you can
add these using Joomla! extensions. And, of course, your client will be able to manage and
update content easily.
How do you go about building a small site?
Creang a small site like the examples previously shown simply means you'll skip a few steps,
as there's no need to create any secons or categories. These are the acons it takes:
1. Create the uncategorized content pages you need.
2. Add menu links to the Main Menu. In this case, you'll link directly to arcles instead

of secons or categories.
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An example is as follows, a three page site based on a "clean" Joomla! installaon (without
sample data). Creang the basic setup of a ny site like this takes just a few minutes.
In this example, in our
new and empty Joomla!
site we've created three
uncategorized arcles.
We've set them all to
display on the Front
Page, too.
For each of the arcles,
we've added a menu link in
the Main Menu (via Menus
| Main Menu | New).
This is what the visitor sees.
The Main Menu contains
three links; the Front Page
shows intro texts to the
three arcles with Read
more links.
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When the visitor clicks on a
link, the full arcle is shown.

That's all there is to seng up a ny one-level website in Joomla!. You can write a few arcles,
and create links poinng to them. Aer that, you can focus on the extras you want to add
(see Chapter 10 on extending Joomla! ) and the design (see Chapter 11 on using templates).
Downsize the home page, too
For a very small site, you can sll build the home page with Joomla!'s default
Front Page tools. Just select a few arcles to display (fully, or only as intro
text) on the Front Page. However, you may want something simpler for this
type of site. You might want to consider showing just one arcle as your
own, customized home page content. You'll read more about this technique
in Chapter 6 on home page display opons.
Have a go hero – organize a site!
Imagine you've been asked to build an informave website for a small company you know.
How would you go about this? Think of what you want to achieve, create an outline of the
main and secondary secons, and translate this outline to Joomla!. What would be your
secons and categories, where would you put uncategorized arcles?
And how about creang a small website about yourself? Using the site structuring skills
you've acquired in this chapter, go ahead and create a great structure that would be both
realizable in Joomla! and appeal to your visitors.
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Pop quiz – test your site organization knowledge
1. What's the best order in which to build Joomla!-based sites?
a. Start with extensions, add content, add menu links, add content containers.
b. Start with menu links, add content containers, add content, add extensions.
c. Start with content containers, add content, add menu links, add extensions.
2. What can you use uncategorized arcles for?
a. To display arcles that have not yet been authorized.
b. To display arcles that do not belong to categories.

c. To display arcles that belong to a secon, but not to a category.
3. How can you get categories to display in the frontend?
a. Categories are backend stu; they're only displayed in the Category Manager.
b. A category can be displayed by adding a specic menu link that points to a
category overview page.
c. Categories are automacally displayed on overview pages when added to the
Category Manager.
Summary
In Chapter 3, you've learned that Joomla! retrieves content from a database, block by
block. Together these blocks form a web page. That's why you start building a site creang
categories; you actually build a well-organized content database. In this chapter, we've
learned what it takes to create content categories and to build a future proof framework for
site content.
Specically, you've learned:
 Every website, big or small, requires planning. It all starts with creang a logical site
map reecng the structure of the content you have in mind. Keep it lean and clean.
Bear in mind that visitors will want to get to the content they're looking for as fast
as possible.
 To transfer your hand drawn site map to a working Joomla! site, rst idenfy the
dierent Joomla! content elements in it. This will help you build the site step
by step.
 The main content containers are secons and categories. You'll create these rst.
Secons hold at least one category, categories hold arcles.
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Chapter 5
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 To show secon and category contents on the site, you add menu links poinng
to secons or categories.
 At any me, you can rearrange and rename secons and categories or move

their contents.
 Small sites, with just a few content pages, can consist of uncategorized arcles only.
In the next chapter, we'll jump from organizaon to creang content. We'll ll the containers
we've just set up with dierent types of arcles.
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6
Creating Killer Content: Adding and
Editing Articles
Once you have created a framework of secons and categories, things can
move prey fast. There's nothing to stop you from creang a content-rich site
—whether you want to add a dozen, hundreds, or even thousands of pages.
In this chapter we'll focus on adding and eding arcles, the type of content
that's essenal to most sites. Later, you might want to add other types of con-
tent (such as image galleries or forums); we'll deal with those in Chapter 10.
When creang the example site in Chapter 4, you've already seen how you
can create a new arcle using the default sengs. You've le all of the extra
funcon buons and parameters alone. But in real life, you'll probably want
more control. You want to make your content look great, add pictures, and spe-
cify exactly how to display things and what details to display. Joomla! allows
you to you edit arcles and tweak arcle sengs to t your needs exactly.
In this chapter you'll learn:
 Creang, eding, and formang arcles
 Split an arcle into intro text and body text
 Dealing with long arcles: spling them into a series of pages
 Adjusng general arcle sengs
So let's get it started!
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Creang Killer Content: Adding and Eding Arcles
[ 134 ]
Articles, content pages, what's the difference?
You might be tempted to think an arcle is the same as page. Strictly, it isn't. You've read
before that Joomla! doesn't think in terms of pages. Joomla! gures any web page is
constructed of a whole lot of database-driven bits and pieces—and almost any combinaon
of those bits and pieces can turn up on the visitor's browser as a web page.
Although the arcle will certainly be at the center of a content page, there's bound to
be much more to that page. Around the arcle there will be all kinds of other dynamic
content—yes, those bits and pieces again. Be that as it may, for the sake of simplicity we'll
just use the word page (or content page) for arcles now and then. As long as we're aware
that content pages may contain more than arcles, that's OK, isn't it? Don't tell Joomla!; it
will be our secret.
Creating and editing articles: Beyond the basics
Over the last few chapters, you pracced adding and eding arcles. Let's recap the
steps involved:
 To create a new arcle, navigate to Content | Arcle Manager and click on New.
 To edit an exisng arcle, navigate to Content | Arcle Manager. Click on the tle
of the arcle to open it in the Arcle: [Edit] screen.
Another way to achieve the same results is to select the arcle (select the checkbox on the
le-hand side of the arcle tle) and click on the Edit buon in the toolbar. The Arcle:
[New] and Arcle: [Edit] are idencal. You're already familiar with some of the most
important funcons; in this chapter, we'll boldly go to secons we haven't explored yet.
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Chapter 6
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The Arcle Editor is shown in the following screenshot:
The arcle eding screen consists of three secons:

1. The actual text eding area oers you a simple word processor like interface for
entering and formang text. Above the actual arcle text you add the Title, select
the appropriate Secon and Category, and so on.
2. The toolbar buons allow you to preview the arcle, save or apply changes, or
cancel changes.
3. The Parameters allow you to set up the arcle to display and behave just as you
need it to. You'll learn more about them in the Adjusng arcle sengs secon later
in this chapter.
Let's now explore the power of the Joomla! arcle editor. We'll nd out how we can tweak
arcles to get them to display exactly as we want them to.
Making it look good: Formatting article text
Your client, the SRUP society, wants to add some new content to their site explaining the
characterisc qualies of ugly art. You've been sent a text le and have been asked to turn
the contents into a new page. Can you please create a new arcle and make it look good?
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Creang Killer Content: Adding and Eding Arcles
[ 136 ]
Time for action – add styling to article text
Let's create a new arcle and see how we can format it adequately.
1. Navigate to Content | Arcle Manager and click on New.
2. In the Title box, enter Just What is Ugly Art? This is the type of factual content
that ts the Facts category, so let's select the Ugly Painngs secon and the
Facts category:
3. By default, Published is set to Yes. Let's set it to No. This way the arcle will
remain invisible to your site visitors unl you're nished with it (and publish it).
4. We don't want this arcle to show up on our home page so leave Front Page
set to No.
5. In the text editor screen, add some arcle text. If you want to copy text from
a word processor document, rst strip out all of the formang. That way you

avoid invisible word processor tags messing up your arcle text. To do this,
open the Notepad applicaon on your PC (or TextEdit on a Mac) and paste
the text from the word processor into the Notepad or TextEdit document.
This will give you a clean text-only le that you can copy and paste into the
Joomla! editor window. Right-click and select Paste from the pop-up menu.
6. In this example we've added ve paragraphs: a short introductory text and four
separate paragraphs. Type a subheading above each of the four paragraphs. In the
example we've used the subheadings Abstract Chaos, Poor Anatomy, Too much
detail, and Hideous Colors.
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