Since curiosity had oftentimes killed the cat you might as well take a lesson from it – trying to decipher the Joomla! Jargon may land you in deeper water than accepting it as an award-winning content management system (CMS) which enables you to build websites as also effective online applications. However, Joomla! also consists of a mighty lot of other terms that may look pretty simple from outside yet form the underpinnings of this complex content management system and so needs your attention.However, here are some of the typical Joomla! Terms

Control Panel

The Control panel in Joomla! provides access to sundry default Joomla! features and functions. From here you can also create and manage articles, sections and categories. Most of the features available through the control panel include media, menu, language and user managers. What is more, you can access your site’s global configuration from here.In order to access the control panel, you need to logging into Joomla’s back-end. And the first screen after you log in will be the control panel. You may also access the control panel from yet another area in the back-end – by going to Site>Control Panel

User

Joomla! sites boast of a wide variety of users, ranging from customers who go through your site to the administrators that possess access to everything. In fact, there are 9 different levels of users listed down below through access level ranging from least to most.

• public front-end

• registered

• author

• editor

• publisher

• public back-end

• manager

• administrator

• super administrator

Article

So far as Joomla! is concerned, an article is a piece of content consisting text (HTML), mostly with links to other resources, such as images. However, Articles in Joomla! are the primary units of information in the content system, as also, the bottom level in content hierarchy.

Category

Articles in Joomla! are placed in categories. From Joomla! 2.5, each article is in exactly one category. A Category can be in another category, thus creating a sub-Category. Of course, it is also quite natural to have un-categorized Articles that exist sans being associated with any Category.

Section

In Joomla! versions up to and including [X1.5], a section forms a collection of categories. Also, it is the highest level in the hierarchy Sections – >Categories- >Articles. Incidentally, a website may have sections known as ‘Animals’ and ‘Plants’. In the ‘Animals’ section, the website can include Categories such as ‘Birds’ and ‘Mammals’.Sections, however, are maintained using the Section Manager, which can be accessed within the Administrator (Back-end) by clicking first on the content menu and then the Section Manager Menu item.

Media

Even though media in Joomla! usually refers to images, it can, nevertheless also allude to any non-HTML document on your site. As a matter of fact, Joomla! includes a very wide media management system, an extensive part of it constitutes Social Media.

Web Links

The Web Links Manager permits you to manage links to other websites and organize them into categories. However, in order to access, select Components → Weblinks → Links from the drop-down menu of the Joomla! Administrator Panel, or select the “Links” link on the web links Category manager screen, when available. As a matter of fact, the Web Links Manager also permits you to add, edit and remove links to other websites on your Joomla! website and collocate them into categories. It is up to you to display these links on your site, and let visitors add new links if they so desire.

News Feeds

News feeds in Joomla are nothing but RSS feeds.

Extensions

There are in fact, 5 types of extensions in Joomla! that are being described below.

• Components, which are more or less like mini-applications that consist of an administrative piece as well as a customer piece. Components perform many duties such as handling user registration or setting up user polls. However, every menu item runs a component while components themselves are driven by menu items.
• Modules, being less powerful extensions, are generally used for page rendering. Modules are also found as ‘boxes’ around Joomla! sites (login module). Modules are not connected to perform as components and so can be just static HTML or text.
• Plugins purely act as event managers to instruct Joomla! about things to be done as an event is triggered on your website.
• Template is the design of your site. It is up to you o organize the template to determine what content will be displayed where and what will it be its overall look.
• Language provides the basis for organizing site translations.

Menus

are the navigation system of a Joomla! site. In fact, every page and component is built with a menu. Also, while defining a menu, you create a page.

Bottom Line

When setting up a new website there are a lot of factors to consider, like your design and domain name, but the most important of all is choosing the right platform. This is crucial and not a decision to be taken lightly.There are a number of factors that need to be taken into account, such as cost, time, quality, flexibility and control.There is only one award-winning content management system used by millions around the world, including some of the most respected corporations, that meets all of these needs: Joomla.