First steps with Jumla

It is impossible to debut with Jumla without hitting some pitfalls. Let's see how to avoid them.

First of all, you need to ask yourself if Joomla is the best CMS for the site you want to build. It goes without saying that if the goal is to create a blog or news site, then Joomla is not the right software.

Joomla has the advantage of providing most of the services that are expected from CMS for the portal site from the start. This is simpler than Drupal, requiring configuration processing for each site service.

And its disadvantage is the frozen structure. In Joomla, we work in a formatted environment, in a system that cannot be changed, especially at the category structure level.
Other drawbacks include a fuzzy interface that works differently depending on the case, weak documentation, and bagged extensions.

Choose a topic

If your choice is made, the first step after installing CMS is to choose a theme other than the default one that is too recognizable.

Go to Extensions -> Template Manager and select the default template. Other templates can be added via Extensions -> Install.

Select Online Editor

Two online publishers are preinstalled, including the indispensable Tiny MCE. Necessarily, but also very annoying because it changes the source of your tickets without leaving you with any options, which is good in the Jumla line.

Preconfiguration

The Joomla parameter set is defined from a hierarchical menu similar to local software. Even the database configuration is displayed!

The first important choice is the use of URL rewriting by the system.

If you select mod_rewrite is recommended, it uses the FTP client to rename the rtaccess.txt file to .htaccess.

Then go to:

Control Panel -> Global Configuration -> Site -> SEO Settings (à droite). 

Select a URL alias to have file names from keywords and mod_rewrite to do so at the server level.

Multilingual website

To have articles in different languages, avoid Joomfish, which will create glitches in the CMS. In general, extension propagation should be avoided, since they are tested on a basic configuration and mutually compromise each other.

To create a site in several languages, it is better to create directories for languages ​ ​ (/ru/,/es/etc) and install a version of Joomla in each, which is not a problem.

Jumla in the subdirectory

Whether for a multilingual site or not, if you prefer to install Jumla in a subdirectory rather than at the root of hosting, an additional configuration step is needed.

The.htaccess file must be enabled by renaming rtaccess.txt to .htaccess, as we said.

The directory name must be specified in the following rule:

# RewriteBase /fr/

Replace Catalog Name.

Category menu

To have a category menu, you must first have categories and a module for that menu.

Create Categories

1. Go to Content -> Section Manager.
2. Click New to add a section.
3. Go to Content -> Category Manager.
4. Click New to define a category and assign a section to it.

Add Menu

Go to Menu -> Menu Manager and click the New button to add a menu.
Select a menu name, such as Categories.

The menu is added to the menu list.

1. Click the menu name to add items.
2. Select a type. On the Select Item Type menu, click the name of the section you created to open the tree.
3. Select Category Blog Format.
   Thus, the submenu displays category articles in the same format as the home page.
4. Name the category element and select the category on the right.
   

The name that will be displayed for the menu is the name specified in the Modules part, not the name specified in the Category Manager part of the menu!

Create Module

Each menu is a module for Jumla.

Go to Extensions -> Module Manager and activate the module corresponding to the created menu.

Default Home Page

By default, the home page displays a list of recent articles in all categories.

To select only one category for your home page from the categories menu you created.

To return to the default global list, select Home as the default page.

Delete or Change Homepage Title

To change the name, go to Menu -> Main Menu -> Home.

Click Home and open the System Parameters window. Enter a page title for your home page to avoid showing it, click Show Cover Page Number.

The same can be done for category pages.

Change Menu Order

Ordering menu items is easy with the item number, but changing the order of the menu that Joomla assigns without asking your opinion on how to do it?

You need to go to the manager module and with arrows, move the modules up or down. Very curious global ergonomics, but it works.

Remove Category from URL

By default, URLs are generated with the category name, number, and list of keywords. If you prefer pure URLs, as in WordPress (properly configured), you need to add an extension.

Download extension sh404SEF (the name is completely impossible to remember, this is in Jumla's philosophy).
Install by Extensions -> Install.
A new row is added to the Components menu, but the extension is not yet enabled.

1. Preconfiguration is required, go to Components -> sh404SEF.
2. Click in the blue menu on the right to switch to advanced mode
3. Go to the Setup sh404SEF.
4. On the Hand tab, select Enabled Yes.
5. Save.
6. Click the Advanced tab.
7. Change the Rewriting Mode to htaccess (you need to rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess).
8. Select a suffix. Default html, leave blank if we don't need a suffix.
9. Open the "Plugins" tab, select the "No category" check box
10. Save.
11. Open the Language tab
12. Clear Insert Language Code in URL -> No.
13. Back up.
14. Back to Control Panel.
15. Click the Clear SEF URLs icon.

Other display options are available that you will check.

Change display language

Download the plugin for the selected language.

From the Extensions menu, click install/install.

You can specify a ZIP file on your hard drive or an Internet URL. It will be automatically installed regardless of the extension type.

From the Control Panel menu, go to the Language Manager and select the default language.

Do not show author or icons

If there is only one author for a site, displaying the name on each article may seem pointless.
Go to Article Manager and click Options in the icon bar.

To delete an author, choose Author name -> hide.

Clickable name

Oddly enough, you can't click on article titles on the home page to access them, this is disabled by default!

As above, we go to Article Manager -> Parameters and check the Title Linkable checkbox.

Also select the Linkable Category check box to select categories if they are displayed.

Conclusion

Now 90% of the problems we face debuting Joomla are solved this way, and the Joomla forum is at your disposal if you want to uncover other problems.
Adapting a theme is still your responsibility to customize it and make your site unique... Until then, good luck.

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