Turning content "on" and "off" in your new Joomla! site...
This How To Use Joomla! Overview presumes you are new to Joomla! and CMS's in General (Content Management Systems)
1/ For Those Who Installed Joomla! Sample Data
If you have included the Joomla! Sample Data when you installed Joomla!, you'll find you have a good start in understanding how "sections", "categories" and "articles" work. However, you will not want to leave the data in its installed state as all the links will get picked up by search engines, and initial visitors are likely to get very confused! That can be quickly fixed though, and here's how to do it :
- Log into your Administrator panel
- To turn off any menu, go to > extensions > module manager > ... look down the list/pages until you find the entry for the actual menu, and click the "enabled green tick" icon to disable it.
- Don't disable all menus, keep at least one where a "Home" and "Contact" entry are showing.
- Then go to the menu you've kept > menus > "your chosen" menu > and turn off everything except the required "Home" item, and keep the menu item "Contact (Us)" if there is one. If it doesn't already exist, click "new" at the top right and choose > Contact > Contact - Standard contact layout. Then give it a title and make sure it is published.
- Now go to > Components > Contacts > Contacts... open the line entry "name" and edit it with your details. Save it, make sure it is published.
- Ok, now go to > Content > Article Manager... Look down the list looking for the "Welcome to Joomla" article. It should have a green tick icon in the "Front Page" column. Open it and edit it with some words about your website, what it's about, etc. This is just to remove the non-applicable content there.
- Then while still in the article manager, go through each of the pages in the main list and turn off (click the green tick) any other "Front Page" articles. Remember there may be several pages of articles, look to the bottom of the screen to see the pages count/navigation.
Ok, for those who installed the Joomla! install sample data, now you've cleared the non-applicable content from your Joomla! site, given a link to the home page, and supplied a contact form for anyone to get hold of you.
This is just a quick start, now you need to get down to the more serious stuff of planning out your Joomla! site's content...
