This page contains some quick explanations on performing more advanced Joomla tasks. Depending on the popularity of this tutorial, we will add more in the future. Sign up for the Sun Powered Productions newsletter to be notified of future tutorial updates and additions.

Change Username & Password

Login to the Joomla Administrator. Go to "User Manager" in the "Site" dropdown menu. Select your username (probably "admin"). Enter your preferred username and new password. Click "Save".

Meta Keywords & Description

Login to the Joomla Administrator. Go to "Global Configuration" in the "Site" dropdown menu. On the "Site" page, under "Metadata Settings" enter a description for your site in "Global Site Meta Description" and keywords separated by commas in "Global Site Meta Keywords". Select "Save".

Turn Caching On

Caching saves a version of your websites pages in a temporary cache. As a result, the database does not need to be the source of all the information. As a result, your website pages load much faster.

Login to the Joomla Administrator. Go to "Global Configuration" in the "Site" dropdown menu. On the "System" page, under "Cache Settings" select "Yes" to "Cache". Set the "Cache Time" to 500 or more minutes. Then Select "Save".

Note: Caching may cause changes that you make to your website to not immediately appear. Turn caching off if you are working on your site.

Change rhuk_milkyway Colors

The "rhuk_milkyway" template is an unusually advanced template with some extra features. Not all templates allow you to select different color schemes, but this one does.

Login to the Joomla Administrator. Go to the "Template Manager" in the "Extensions" dropdown menu. Select the "rhuk_milkyway" radio button and click "Edit". Select a color from "Color Variation" and "Background Variation", then click "Save".

Add Category Blog Page

Joomla allows for a variety of ways of displaying your articles. Thus far we have only displayed single articles on a page.

To display several articles in a blog format, go to the "Section Manager" in the "Content" dropdown menu. Select "New". Enter a title for the section, then click "Save". Then go to the "Category Manager" in the "Content" dropdown menu. Select "New". Enter the title for the category. Next to "Section", select the name of the section you just created. Then click "Save".

Now create several articles and choose the Section and Category you just created for each. Go to the menu of your choice in the "Menus" dropdown menu. Select "New". Select "Articles". Then select "Category Blog Layout". Enter a title for your blog page. Under "Parameters (Basic)", select your category from the "Category" dropdown. Then enter "100" for "# Leading", "0" for "# Intro", "1" for "Columns" and "0" for "# Links". Select "Save".

Note: there are many different ways to display your articles. This brief walkthrough is just meant to get you started. Feel free to try different settings for all the parameters on the "Menu Item Type" page.

FTP Client

For a variety of reasons you may want to access the files on your website. You can do this using an FTP client or installing an FTP extension in Joomla, but the easiest way to get FTP access is through the Hosting Accounts "FTP Client".

Login to your Hosting Account. Click on "Hosting" under "My Products". Click on "Manage Account" next to your hosting account. This will open the "Hosting Control Center". Select "FTP Client" from the "Content" dropdown menu. The "FTP Client" lets you browse your websites files, rename your websites files and move files between your website and your computer. Careful!!! This is one area that a wrong move can bring down your website...

SEF URL's

Joomlas default URLs read something like "/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=4". This is a difficult URL to tell someone over the phone and doesn't contain any keywords for search engines to read. Joomlas "Search Engine Friendly Urls" feature turns the URLs into something more like "/About-Us".

Follow the procedure above to access the "FTP Client". Find the file on your remote systems root folder (this should be the folder you start out in) named "htaccess.txt". Rename it ".htaccess" by selecting the file and then selecting the "Rename" icon below (second from the left). You may need to wait for about 1 hour before moving on to the next step.

Now login to Joomla's Administrator. Go to "Global Configuration" in the "Site" dropdown menu. On the "Site" page under "SEO Settings" select "Yes" for "Search Engine Friendly URLs" and "Yes" for "Use Apache mod_rewrite". Select "Save".

Login/Register

It is possible for Administrators to login on the front end of the website. You can edit articles without going through the backend "Administrator". Also, new "Users" can register on your website. If you learn about setting permission levels for registered users, you will be able to protect webpages so that only visitors who register will be able to see certain pages.

Go to the "Module Manager" in the "Extensions" drop down menu. Select "New", choose "Login" and click "Next". Enter a title for your login module. We recommend module position "left" for "rhuk_milkyway" and many other templates. Make sure the module is enabled and select "Save". A login module will now appear on your website which allows you to login to the front end and allows new users to register.

Note: new users will be given "registered" user permissions. They will not be given the ability to edit your websites pages unless a Super Administrator changes their access level. Again, we are just scraping the surface in this walkthrough. There are many ways Joomla can work with registrations and permissions. There are also many extensions that add some extraordinary features to Joomlas registrations system.

We hope you have benefited from this Joomla Tutorial. We hope to add more chapters if the interest proves it worth while.