They say that WordPress and Joomla are basically even in terms of website building or blogging power, but how far is it true?
Today I’ve prepared for you a Joomla tutorial for beginners that is written in human language and is not crammed with tech notions that scare average users.
In case you’re just exploring your opportunities regarding which engine to use for your website, Joomla might be a good option for you.
WordPress adherents will start shouting that their favorite engine is the only one to be used, just because it powers 1/3 of all websites. Though it doesn’t mean that something extremely popular is worth being used without any doubts.
Another strong argument from WordPress fans would be themes design, there are literally myriads of WordPress themes (both free and paid) that are powered by drag’n’drop builders like Elementor. Whereas Joomla could not boast with an equal number of super trendy designs…up till now!
TemplateMonster team just released a Joomla template that is about to turn upside down your website building experience in terms is style and functionalities. The name of this product is Joomix – Multipurpose Modern Joomla Template.
Demo | Download | Hosting | ONE
Basically, it’s a bundle of super stylish Joomla templates that you can use for building an absolutely amazing website, blog or online store.
Further, I’ll show you how to use Joomla.
If you want to create a Joomla website you need to complete the following steps:
- Choosing a Domain Name
- Registering a Hosting Account
- Joomla CMS Installation
- Joomla Theme Installation
- Joomla Theme Customization
Choose a domain name
Not a single website can exist without a domain name, previously we’ve created a manual for beginners on how to choose a website name, you can download it using the form below.
Register a hosting account
Another essential thing for your website is the hosting, we recommend using the InMotion hosting since it seamlessly fits all popular CMS’s.
There you can choose between three pricing plans: LAUNCH, POWER, and PRO.
The difference between LAUNCH and POWER is quite significant. POWER package can handle up to 6 websites and is ecommerce optimized, just in case you are going to build a store power package is exactly what you need.
On the previous step we were talking about the domain, I hope you already chose one. When you opt for the hosting package (on the third step of the checkout) you will be offered to buy a domain name.
This is the moment of truth.
In case you decide to change the domain it’s not going to be a catastrophe for your business website since your newly created resource won’t lose any traffic.
Install Joomla CMS
Now when you have a hosting account it’s time to install Joomla engine. At the dawn of DIY website creation, we had to create database, user and so on manually, now we have a tool called Softaculous 1-click install.
You can check this tutorial by InMotion (even though it may seem to be outdated the process remained the same). The Softaculous tool is quite awesome and provides you with an extensive range of applications that you can install.
Please note that you can install CMS engine either into the route directory or into the subfolder, please don’t mix this up otherwise your website won’t load when you type https://yoursiteurl.com in the address bar, but will load when you type https://yoursiteurl.com/subfolder/
But still, if this happens you can set up a permanent redirect via .htaccess file.
Theme installation
In case you were using a WordPress forget about the Appearance >> Themes section, you won’t find anything like this in your Joomla admin interface.
Instead, there’s Extensions section. Every component like theme, plugin, module, language is installed via the Extensions section, basically, it’s quitу convenient since you don’t have to wonder around admin interface trying to understand where to upload the thing you’ve downloaded.
The section can be accessed from the top menu.
Now you need to click Manage and drop the theme package into the Upload & Install Joomla Extension section.
Let’s take Joomix theme as an example, and exactly it’s the Default theme.
The package archive contains all theme components including dump.sql and images. This way you’ll be able to install the theme making it look like our demo.
Into the Extensions >> Manage section I’ll drop theme and all extensions one by one.
Wait a bit till everything uploads…
When the theme is installed don’t forget to activate it from the Extensions >> Templates section, marking it as default for all pages.
After uploading the theme, we need to install all modules including the SP builder to make sure that every theme function works perfectly. All Joomla modules are installed via the same interface Extensions >> Manage.
In order to work properly with Joomla, you need FTP access to your server, so you could upload theme’s images and language files.
All Joomix’s child themes contain the folder called to_root_folder, if you want to make your install look the same as our demo you need to upload the contents of this folder to your server. You can use a free FTP client like Filezilla to access your hosting via SFTP.
You can get your FTP credentials in your hosting account section Files >> FTP Accounts. You can watch this explanation video to learn how to setup FTP connection in InMotion hosting.
After uploading a theme, modules, and images now we need to upload SQL file to make this work.
There’s an important thing you need to know about the dump file, you need to change the database prefix so you could install successfully the dump file.
Use any text editor to open it and with the help of a Find and replace tool replace the prefix jos_ with one your tables have.
How to find your database prefix? That’s pretty easy, first three symbols in the name of tables of your database stand for the prefix.
Mine are clw_ so I just replaced jos_ with clw_ and uploaded the dump file.
The dump.sql file should be uploaded via Databases section in your hosting account. Open application phpMyAdmin go to Import section, hit the button Browse and upload the dump file.
When your dump file is uploaded you will see the success notification.
Also, you can check this explainer video to see how quick and easy this process is.
Now when all components are installed you’ll be able to see the same design as on the demo.
Now let’s see what makes Joomix a really awesome Joomla theme.
The two fundamentals of this theme are the SP Page Builder and the Helix Ultimate framework.
Both items are developed by the JoomShaper company and have proved to be absolutely amazing and powerful Joomla components.
Theme Customization
SP Page Builder
When you install all theme components the SP Page Builder link will appear on top of your admin panel.
Also you will get additional links on the home page of your Control Panel.
Clicking the Add New Page link you will open the SP Builder editor, and when you click on the Pages link you will access all pages created with the same Joomla website builder.
Another interesting thing about SP Page builder, when you access the pages section you will note that there are two possible ways how you can edit a page: via the backend editor, or the Frontend Editor.
For example, when you click on the Frontend Editor of the Home page this is what you will see.
One more thing, the Frontend Editor will ask you to log in again.
The front end editor looks more interesting since all of it’s blocks and add-ons can be accessed from the side menu.
Whereas in your backend editor you need to create a new row and then click on the big plus… (in case you create a new page)
…and then choose an addon from a popup.
If it’s your first experience with Joomla (but there’s some other builder that you have used) you won’t face any difficulties working with SP Page Builder.
When you click on the Add New Page the editor will load.
There you’ll be offered three options, either to Add New Row, and keep on filling it with blocks, or to Import a page, or to import ready-made Page Templates.
You may want to know that if you choose the Page Templates you will have to by PRO version of the builder, the Joomix template and all of its child themes provide you with a version of SP Builder that doesn’t include updates or page templates importing.
And here’s another thing that you need to know, any time the builder is updated you will still be able to get the latest version since we’ll deliver it to you as well as the updates of the Joomix theme.
Buying or not the PRO version of the builder is up to you, anyways Joomix default theme has enough page designs and customization power so you could build a beautiful website without referring to JoomShaper’s predesigned pages.
On the Addons menu tab, you can preview all theme addons in action.
Helix Ultimate
What’s Helix? It’s the best Joomla Template Framework. With the help of Helix, you can edit the header and footer layouts easily via drag & drop layouts builder. Helix is compatible with Joomla 4 which means that your website won’t get outdated for a long time.
Helix Ultimate Layout is based on Bootstrap 4, 12 column layout. It includes a powerful mobile-first flexbox grid system for building layouts of all shapes and sizes.
You can choose columns preset or set your own grid. The grid system is responsive, and the columns will rearrange depending on the screen size.
- In the current version of Helix Ultimate, you can use Predefined Headers.
- Each Row can have its own column structure and unique settings.
- Icon with arrows allows you to change positions of rows by moving them up or down.
- Use plus icon to add new Row, then choose column structure and select module position(s) used there. We also suggest inserting a short ID name for the new Row.
With Helix, you can edit various aspects of your theme that SP builder is not able to assess.
How to open the Helix editor? Go to Extensions > Templates > Styles. There you will see the list of your themes.
Click on the themexxx – Home… and then on the big green button.
Now you can see what parts of your Joomix powered website can be edited with Helix
- Basic
- Logo
- Header
- Body
- Footer
- Social Icons
- Contact Info
- Coming Soon
- Error Page
- Presets – tab gives you the ability to configure color settings. This includes being able to switch between pre-configured presets and custom color sets.
- Body
- Header
- Top Bar
- Menu
- Footer
- Layout Builder – allows you to build a flexible layout based on module positions, with its help you can customize the existing template in almost any shape without code customization.
- Navigation – here you can find general settings for MegaMenu.
- Mega Menu
- Off-Canvas
- Typography – in Helix Ultimate templates is mainly based on Google Fonts collection (850+ fonts).
- Body
- Headings
- Navigation
- Custom
- Update Font list
- Blog – this area of settings allows you to enable some appearance elements (Image Sizes) as much a social comments, Author Info, and social share buttons.
- Images
- List
- Details
- Comments
- Custom Code – customize Helix Ultimate Framework with your own custom code (CSS, JavaScript, Metatags, links and verification code) using custom fields.
- Advanced
- Compression
- SCSS
- Import & Export
As you can see there’s a really great number of options that you can modify.
Previously our Joomla themes were based on less powerful frameworks and builder what makes Joomix a really top of the line product.
More specific customization Joomla tutorial will be released shortly.
Stay tuned.
CYA
Read Also
How to Create a Website [Ultimate Guide]