Joomla! 1.5 Content Administration: Keep your web site up-to-date and maintain content and users with ease

Access to the Control Panel is through a link relative to the website address. Using the Party People example, the content editor will type in http://partypeople.com/administrator/ and be presented with the login panel to enter a Username and Password before proceeding to the Control Panel.

Having logged in successfully, you are presented with the Control Panel screen (the central hub for managing your content). This is where you begin creating and managing articles, uploading images, as well as a host of other functional activities. Clicking one of the icons (as seen in the following screenshot) gives you access to various sections of the administration interface. We'll address these progressively throughout the chapter.

The icons presented are quick links to the most frequently accessed content editing and management activities and are supplementary to the main menu structure located at the top of the administration interface. Use either the icon or the menu to take you to the section.

The icons on display are determined by the level of authority the website developer has created for your role.

As the Control Panel is the central hub of the administration interface, it can also be accessed from other areas of the site through the top menu.

Click the Site | Control Panel link from anywhere within the administration interface to return to this screen. You will need to close or save your current updates in order to enable the link.

This contains links to all of the key site settings, which include the following:

This links to the section where you can organize the management of the menus established on your site. The menu manager link takes you through a list of the menus presented on the frontend of your site, where you can manage them by clicking the links.

All the information presented on the site can be accessed through here, as there are links to the following:

We'll cover the details later in this chapter.

Components are a section of your site that provide a specific functional feature, such as the Newsfeed or a Poll. Any components built into your site can be accessed using this link. Components are covered at the end of this chapter and Chapter 8, Menus, Modules, and Components covers some of the more popular ones in detail.

Extensions are extra functional features your site has installed within to customize it. They are referred to as Modules or Plugins. They are also addressed at the end of this chapter and Chapter 8, Menus, Modules, and Components covers some of the more popular ones.

The site template and languages can be managed through here; however, they are for more advanced users and generally best left to your developer to make changes to.

This menu provides access to a number of useful administrative tools. For example, the administration interface provides the capability to leave messages for other users and they can be accessed through here. The specifics of what users can do are addressed in Chapter 5, User Management in detail, but the Tools menu includes links to the following:

A comprehensive list of terms and key phrases are contained within a database of information. This is the site-wide Help database and contains broad information for all areas of the site.

To access the individual manager screen for Sections, Categories, or Articles, use either the Control Panel icons, or go to Content | Section Manager | Category Manager | Article Manager from the menu.

Using the Section Manager as a guide, we can edit and manage all the Sections created for your site. Double clicking the name of the section provides access to the details.

Use the icons on the toolbar to create a new Section, delete an existing one, or publish/unpublish them.

The Category Manager and the Article Manager are accessed the same way.

Within the Party People website, there are five Sections, each with at least two Categories within them. Articles are then created and allocated to each depending on their content.

When your developer established your site, he/she would have created a Section and a Category for the content to be allocated. Chapter 2, Creating, Editing, and Organizing Content looks at this in a detailed manner when we create and allocate content to Sections and Categories.

Articles generally used for content that is not associated with any particular Section or Category are saved as uncategorized. They are content items that are used in certain locations, where the content remains the same and doesn't require user input or regular updates. Content that requires updating regularly and may include enabling a user to add comments is allocated to a category. For example, a "Welcome to the Site" message may be listed as a static item.

The Global Configuration screen can only be accessed by users with Super Administrator access and presents all the fundamental settings required to ensure that your site runs smoothly. It can be accessed from the Control Panel or the site menu: Site | Global Configuration.

Having said this however, it is best to leave any changes to this section to your web developer.

There are three tabs within the Configuration screen: Site, System and Server. All of the settings within have been set up by your developer and should be left as they are. If they are changed, the front and backend of the site may go offline or some of its functionality will be affected. Approach with extreme caution if you are not familiar with any of these settings.

Outside the scope of the previous screenshot, which shows the three sections within the Global Configuration, within the Site section there is also the SEO Settings, seen in the following screenshot:

These settings were established by your developer and should be left as they are. Enabling settings that are set to No without some in-depth technical knowledge of .htaccess among other things will most likely result in the incorrect presentation of your site.

Being the most sophisticated extension, Components provide a specialized functional element and are mostly displayed within the main body of the website, that is within the middle column. They include features such as the Contacts page, Advertising Banners, a Web Links list or possibly an image gallery, or a Web Poll. The following screenshot shows how the Contacts section of the Party People website sits in the middle of the layout.

All components can be managed from the Components link on the menu bar.

These are smaller extensions that generally appear in the header, footer, or side columns. They may also work with a particular Component to extend its capabilities. There are a number of core modules installed behind the scenes that are required to make your site work, but there are also some modules included that may be activated on your site to present a News Flash feature or a Most Read Content display. The following screenshot shows the main menu and Login Form modules enabled on the Party People website.

All modules can be managed from the Modules link on the menu bar.

Smaller again and task related, Plugins offer behind the scenes functionality. They intercept information from the code of a web page and manipulate it so that the information is presented correctly. The installation of a video feed from YouTube, or, as the following screenshot illustrates, a plugin that changes the link to the administration login address will be covered in Chapter 7, Security—Recovery and Precaution on security.

This is how part of the plugin parameters appear in the administration interface. The jSecure Authentication plugin is an example of a system plugin that operates in the background of your site.