NB : This article pertains to Joomla! version 1.0.xx, however notes (***) have been placed to show the main differences with the 1.5.x version.

Let's have a closer look around the front page of your site similar to the Front Page Tour article.. Go to http://www.yoursite.com.

Again, if you installed the default Joomla! package and you haven't changed the template, you will be looking at rhuk_solarflare...

If your installation was done with the sample data included, you can click on the menu item News, either in the main menu or top menu, and you will be clicking on what's known as a Section. On the resulting page (center), you are now in the "News" section. Near the bottom you will see a link called "Latest News" - this is a Category and clicking on that Category brings you all the Items that have been put in that Category. Think of those Items as being pages of your information. (You can have many Categories in a Section, and many many Items in a Category)

So the content management flow of a dynamic item goes like this:

• A Section (like a box or main outer file/folder/file drawer)
• A Category (a folder that you put in that Section/box)
• Then the articles/stories/information itself. Each "page" is told which Category to be in, and each Category is told which Section to be in.
• *** NB !!!! The structure above has changed in version 1.5.x, there is no "static page" menu and content pages do not have to be placed in a section and category : they can be "uncategorized"

Now you have a logical presentation system that can handle thousands of files !

ALL TYPES OF CONTENT:

There are 4 main ways that you can place content in Joomla! :

• Static content (example - a custom 404 Not Found page)  (***No longer with v. 1.5.x)
  
• Dynamic content (organized in sections and categories), as mentioned above...
  
• Components (example - VirtueMart and all your saleable products)
  
• Modules (example - using modHTML to place Adsense code) (*** Now called "plugins" in 1.5.x)
  

You GAIN access to your content through MENUS

• The content you created is stored in the database and you create menu items to be able to display it
• When you create each item, click "apply" and then you can see other features including menu creation
• Generally you create a menu item (there are a number of types) in the main manu, and then do a URL link from other menus (top etc) to that main menu item.
  Learn about the way menus are created in Joomla!

Inserting items INTO your Content

• Your content editor will allow you to insert pictures, audio/video links depending on what editor you are using
• If you use JCE, it allows you to create a link and navigate to any dynamic or static content item on your site. You can also navigate to a weblink, contact item or manu item.

Formatting your content

• If you need to specially format (alter the appearance) of your content as you enter it, you can do that by using the content editor on the content item page. If it is formatting you might repeat throughout the site, you should learn some css, add it to your stylesheet, and then use the content editor to apply the style. If you don't, then you will be partially defeating the whole principle of a dynamic site. Make sure that you proceed so that if you change your mind about the appearance of your content (font, font size etc) you only have to change it in one place.

TIPS:

• Dynamic content:
  Remember - section, category, item... You can’t put content items in a section, they must go into a category (***Not applicable to version 1.5.x)
  
• Make sure your menu link, and item title are all related to your content. Do a PLAN of your content layout FIRST so you can see logical and related flows utilizing key words where possible.
• You ITEM can be unpublished, yet you can link to it via your content editor, and display it outside its present content flow. For example, you could have an unpublished category of special offer pages, and link to any one of them as you need to, yet that category and those items will not be displayed via the normal menu display (because they are unpublished)
• Using a content editor like JCE lets you easily find the link url to content on your site
• ***The content parameters which used to reside in "Global Configuration" in 1.0.x now can be found in > Content > Article Manager menu in 1.5.x, at the top, titled "Parameters"