Joomla Kick-Starter Guide Series - Part 2

patronage. As promised, on this second part of this series of Joomla Kick-Starter Guide we will dissect the commonly used technical terms and jargons used in Joomla.

Joomla Technical Terms & Jargons Explained

Alias

• Aliases are used by Joomla to make URL’s (Uniform Resource Locator, or simply web address) become search engine friendly.
• You can fill in an alias yourself. If you leave the alias field empty, Joomla will automatically create an alias for you.

Anchor

• An anchor is created using the <a> tag in HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language – it is the main mark-up language in creating web pages).
• An anchor allows you to place a bookmark or hyperlink inside an HTML page.

Article

• Article is a piece of content consisting of text, possibly with links to other resources (for example, images).
• The Article Manager maintains or manages all the articles in a Joomla website.
• Articles are the basic units of information in the content system and the bottom level in the content hierarchy.

Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)

• A Cascading Style Sheet or CSS is used to control the presentation of a web page.
• A CSS file will often control the background graphics, font, color, margins, and other features of a web page's appearance.
• In Joomla, CSS files are normally part of the template.

Category

• Category is a collection of Articles.
• A website might have Categories called "Joomla" and "Learn". Within the "Joomla" Category, the website might have Sub Categories such as "Forum" and "Developers". Within the "Learn" Category, the website might have Articles such as "More About Joomla" and "Beginner’s Guide."
• Categories are maintained using the Category Manager.

Component

• Components are the main functional units of Joomla.
• They can be regarded as mini-applications.
• An easy analogy would be that Joomla is the operating system and the components are desktop applications.

Extension

• An extension is a software package that extends your Joomla installation.
• The term extension is generic and the following specific extension types are available:
  • Component
  • Language
  • Library
  • Module
  • Package
  • Plugin
  • Template

Language

• This allows both the Joomla core and third party components and modules to be internationalized.
• Languages are packaged as either an extension language pack or a core language pack.

Menu

• Menu is a set of menu items used for website navigation.
• Each menu item defines a URL to a page on your site, and settings that control the contents (articles, category lists, tagged items, etc.) and style (modules, layout) of that page.

Modules

• Modules are lightweight and flexible extensions used for page rendering.
• These modules are often “boxes” arranged around a component on a typical page.
• A well-known example is the login module. ➢ Modules are managed in the Joomla Administrator view by the Module Manager.

PHP

• PHP is a computer scripting language designed for creating dynamic web pages.
• PHP is widely-used for web development and can be embedded into HTML.
• It generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating web pages as output.
• Joomla is primarily written using the PHP language.

Plugin

• Plugins provide functions which are associated with trigger events.
• When a particular event occurs, all plugin functions of the type associated with the event are executed in sequence.
• It also offers extension developers a way to allow other extensions to respond to their actions, making extensions extensible.

Template

• A template is a type of Joomla extension that changes the way your site looks.
• There are two types of templates used by the Joomla! CMS: Front-end Templates and Back-end Templates. The Front-end Template controls the way your website is presented to the user viewing the website's content. The Back-end Template controls the way your website's administrative tasks are presented for controlling management functions by a Joomla! Administrator.

Once again, it’s a pleasure providing you this information. Stay tuned for the next part of this series will talk about Joomla installation.