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What is Joomla?   
Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build Web sites and other powerful online applications. Best of all, Joomla! is an open source solution that is freely available to everybody.

Joomla! in Action
Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate Web applications. Here are just some of the ways people use our software:

• Corporate Web sites or portals
• Online commerce
• Small business Web sites
• Non-profit and organisational Web sites
• Government applications
• Corporate intranets and extranets
• School and church Web sites
• Personal or family homepages
• Community-based portals
• Magazines and newspapers
the possibilities are limitless…

Joomla! can be used to easily manage every aspect of your Web site, from adding content and images to updating a product catalogue or taking online reservations.

Joomla! for End Users
The basic Joomla! package is designed to be easy to install, even for non-programmers. Most people have no trouble getting our software up and running, and there is plenty of support available for newcomers. We have a growing, active community of more than 250,000 friendly users and developers on our forums eager to help. Once Joomla! is installed and running, it is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your company or organisation go. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site.

Using a simple, browser-based interface you will be able to easily add new press releases or news items, manage staff pages, job listings, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your site. You can try our simple demo to get a quick taste of what Joomla! is all about. You can use the self running CD or visit the demo Web site: http://demo.joomla.org/


Taking Joomla! to the Next Level
Out of the box, Joomla! does a great job of managing the content needed to make your
Web site sing. But for many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in the application framework that makes it

possible for thousands of developers around the world to create powerful Extensions. Here are just some examples

of the more than 4,000 Extensions currently available:

• Dynamic form builders
• Business or organisational directories
• Document management
• Image and multimedia galleries
• E-commerce and shopping cart engines
• Forums and chat software
• Calendars
• Blogging software
• Directory services
• E-mail newsletters
• Data collection and reporting tools
• Banner advertising systems
• Subscription services
and many, many more…

You can find more examples over at our growing Joomla! Extensions Directory. Prepare to be amazed at the amount of exciting work produced by our active developer community!

Joomla! for Developers
Many companies or organisations have requirements that go beyond what is available in the basic Joomla! package or in a freely available extension. Thankfully, Joomla! offers a powerful application framework that makes it easy for developers to create sophisticated add-ons that extend the power of Joomla! into virtually unlimited directions. and designed to be easy to install and easy to use... even for non-programmers.

Using the core framework, developers can easily build:

• Integrated e-commerce systems
• Inventory control systems
• Data reporting tools
• Custom product catalogues
• Complex business directories
• Reservation systems
• Communication tools
• Application bridges
or any kind of application to suit a unique need…

If your company or organisation hires a third party Joomla! developer or builds in-house software using the Joomla! framework, you are building on an open platform that does not tie you to any one developer or to a proprietary, closed application.
You can learn more about developing on the Joomla! framework over at our developer’s network. The beauty of Joomla! is that you can leverage our framework and user interface to deliver applications to your end users in a familiar, powerful environment.

So what’s the catch?
There is no catch. Joomla! is free, open, and available to all under the GPL license. We don’t claim to be perfect, and can’t promise to meet every requirement in the world. But for many Web applications, our software is perfectly suited to the job. We are adding great new features with each release, and with the help and advice of our incredible user community we plan on delivering award-winning software for years to come.

Joomla! Features
• Completely database driven site engines
• News, products or services sections fully editable and manageable
• Topics sections can be added to by contributing authors
• Fully customisable layouts including left, centre, and right menu boxes
• Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site
• Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for onthe-spot results
• Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX server, Solaris, and AIX Extensive Administration
• Change order of objects including news, FAQs, articles, etc.
• Random Newsflash generator
• Remote author submission module for News, Articles, FAQs, and Links
• Object hierarchy - as many sections, departments, divisions, and pages as you want
• Image and file library - store all your PNGs, GIFs and JPEGs, PDFs, DOCs, XLSs, Open Office files online for easy use and access by others.
• Automatic Path-Finder. Place a picture and let Joomla! fix the link
• News feed manager. Choose from over 360 news feeds from around the world
• Archive manager. Put your old articles into cold storage rather than throw them out
• E-mail-a-friend and Print-format for every story and article
• In-line Text editor similar to Word Pad
• User editable look and feel
• Polls/Surveys - Now put a different one on each page
• Custom Page Modules. Download custom page modules to spice up your site
• Template Manager. Download templates and implement them in seconds
• Layout preview. See how it looks before going live
• Banner manager. Make money out of your site.

Technical Requirements
The ideal server software versions for a successful, new Joomla! 1.5.x. Installation are the most up-to-date stable releases of the software available.

Currently these are::
• PHP 5.2.6
• MySQL 5.1
• Apache 2.2.x

Whilst Joomla! will run on earlier versions, you are more likely to encounter issues with these. You must also make sure that the server includes the necessary extensions for XML, MySQL, and zlib functionality. It is a good idea to learn about Joomla! In the comfort of your own home, and to achieve this you require a Web server on your local computer. To achieve this there are a number of packages (AMP Stacks) for the various operating systems that will assist in establishing these requirements. Do not use these AMP Stacks as the basis for live Web servers.

XAMPP - cross-platform - Apache, MySQL, PHP, installation. Check out the XAMPP Web site for full details.http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

LAMP - Linux platform - Apache, MySQL,PHP, installation. Most Linux distributions have their own versions of the software installed or readily available from their own software repositories. Use either the package manager that came with your distribution or the command line, to install the software.

WAMP Server 2- Windows platform - Apache,MySQL, PHP, installation.http://www.wampserver.com/en/

MAMP - Macintosh platform - Apache MySQL, PHP, installation.http://www.mamp.info/en/index.php

JSAS - Joomla! Stand Alone Server Preconfigured server with Joomla! pre-installed. Not for “live” sites. http://jsas.joomlasolutions.com/

On remote, hosted or dedicated servers the configuration and availability of these applications will depend on the host provider or the operating system that is installed upon the server. The variation that can occur between providers and OS can be significant and is outside the scope of this brief instruction. We suggest checking with the host before taking up any contracts with them. In particular check the current versions and how often the host updates their servers.

Joomla! can be used with alternative Web servers such as Microsoft© Internet Information Service but this is not a path we are exploring here. It does not run without PHP or MySQL being installed on these alternatives.


For more information visit the Joomla! Web sites:

Joomla! : http://www.joomla.org/
Community News: http://community.joomla.org/
Events: http://community.joomla.org/events.html
Blogs: http://community.joomla.org/team-blogs.html
User Groups: http://community.joomla.org/user-groups.html
Connect:: http://community.joomla.org/connect.html
Translations: http://community.joomla.org/translations.html
Contribute: http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla/contribute-to-joomla.html
Documentation & Help: http://docs.joomla.org
Forum: http://forum.joomla.org/
Extensions: http://extensions.joomla.org/
JoomlaCode: http://joomlacode.org
Developers: http://developer.joomla.org/