So you want to set up a new site, and you have decided it’s gonna be a Joomla! site?

There are two ways to go about this, depending on your preference and your host’s possibilities:

• Setting up Joomla! using the download from joomla.org
• Setting up Joomla! using your host’s cpanel interface

My only experience with setting up Joomla! (and the most convenient and easy option) is the latter: setting up Joomla! using cpanel.

Does your host not have cpanel or another interface that allows easy setup of Joomla!? In that case, you will have to use the manual install of Joomla! using the download the people from Joomla! provide. Via this page you can download the latest version of Joomla! plus the PDF Installation Manual and Quick Start Guide.

Using cPanel To Set Up Joomla! 1.5

I use a great and inexpensive host in the US to host all my websites called Hostgator. I can host all my sites using one account, the tech help is awesome, and the monthly fee is negligible.

Hostgator gives you access to cPanel to manage everything about your websites, from files to security, database management and a whole lot more. One of cPanel’s nifty features is a service called Fantastico DeLuxe.

Fantastico allows easy setup of all kinds of software onto your host, including blogs, forums, e-commerce solutions and wikis. The option we are interested in here is the possibility to set up a content management system to run our site. Fantastico gives a lot of possibilities here, but the one we are going to use is Joomla 1.5.

To enable me to show you what I am talking about in this blog I will set up a fresh Joomla! installation called joomlademo and refer to that in my posts. I expect you will have your own host set up with a domain name you can set up your installation on.

The first step is to click on the Joomla 1.5 link. Fantastico comes up with screen Installing Joomla 1.5 (1/3):

In this screen, you need to set:

• The domain you install Joomla! on ( I blurred the names in my setup for understandable reasons)
• The directory in which you want to install Joomla! (leave blank when you want Joomla! to install in the root of the domain)
• The administrator name (you can change this later on)
• The administrator password
• The administrator e-mail address
• The full name of the administrator (how you want to be called in Joomla!)
• The name of the site
• Install Sample Data: nice when you want to see how a site is set up, but for a new install you actually want to use, make sure you uncheck this box

Press the Install Joomla 1.5 button:

In this screen the install program shows you the location of the Joomla! install you have selected, plus the MySQL database name it created for this installation.

Press the Finish installation button:

Joomla! 1.5 has now been installed, and this screen gives you the necessary information to go to the administrator area.

For your administration, fill in your mail address and press Send E-mail to get all details for the installation, which will definitely come in handy when you want to manually adjust data in your MySQL database.

When you have finished, you can click the Back to Joomla 1.5 overview and close cPanel.

You can now visit the administrator area by going to http://www.yourdomain/administrator/, or – when you installed Joomla! in a separate directory – to http://www.yourdomain/directory/administrator/.

In the next post, we will start preparing Joomla! to get the best results possible!

Robin Roelofsen

"I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface."
Jaron Lanier

What is Joomla!?

Joomla! is the most popular Open Source Content Management System in the world at this moment.

Joomla! is on version 1.5 right now (at the time of this writing, it actually is on version 1.5.15), and efforts are being made to get version 1.6 out in the near future. I will concentrate on version 1.5 for now and get to 1.6 when it actually comes out.

I give you the definition of a content management system as it is given on the Joomla! website:

A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them. Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content, you don’t have to.

Joomla! can be used for all kinds of websites, including corporate websites, online newspapers, portals and personal websites.

If you want to know more about Joomla!, check out this link.

What is Open Source?

The definition of Open Source is (from SearchEnterpriseLinux.com):

1) In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available.

2) Open Source is a certification mark owned by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Developers of software that is intended to be freely shared and possibly improved and redistributed by others can use the Open Source trademark if their distribution terms conform to the OSI’s Open Source Definition. To summarize, the Definition model of distribution terms require that:

The software being distributed must be redistributed to anyone else without any restriction.

The source code must be made available (so that the receiving party will be able to improve or modify it).

The license can require improved versions of the software to carry a different name or version from the original software.

My take on Joomla! is, that it is a great system to build beautiful, comprehensive websites, which gives you an easily manageable interface to set up the site the way you want it to look and work. The unbelievable amount of free and paid extensions makes Joomla! the most versatile CMS platform around!

Robin Roelofsen

"I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface."
Jaron Lanier