Sunday, July 20th, 2008
I decided that today would be a good day to start configuring Joomla.
I logged in and began at the “Site” section of the Global Configuration area. I took a quick look and noticed that there wasn’t all that much to configure. Here is what I did:
- Changed the editor from Tiny MCE 2.0 to no editor. I don’t like giving others access to HTML on my sites.
- Changed the Global Site Meta Description to Fiixer. (Just a fill in word to get rid of Joomla)
- Changed the Global Site Meta Keywords to fiixer.
- Switched the Search Engine Friendly URLs and Use Apache mod_rewrite from no to yes. Search engine friendly URLs using Apache mod_rewrite is pretty simple if your server and system support it. Some people say doing this enhances your website’s indexing and ranking in search engines. Basically, it changes “index.php?a=aboutus&b=andaboutyou” to “index/aboutus/aboutyou.” It’s cleaner and gives your visitors a chance to remember your URLs. It’s up to you if it’s worth it.
Next, I visited the “System” section of the Global Configuration area. In this section, I mostly kept everything set as it came, but did change two areas:
- Changed the New User Registration Type to “Author.” (I think this gives the registered members the ability to submit articles and web links, but they must be approved by an administrator)
- Turned Cache on. (speeds up page loads on heavy traffic sites)
In the “Server” section of the Global Configuration, I left everything alone.
Ok, that was fairly painless.
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Friday, July 18th, 2008
Ok, so on to the installation of Joomla 1.5.
Before I did anything, I bought a domain name and pointed it to my server. That is basic stuff. I set the domain up on my server and created a mysql database for this application. That’s more basic stuff.
After that was all good to go and the domain resolved to the server, I went over to Joomla for the latest download, which happens to be version 1.5.4. I clicked the link in the left navigation column and downloaded the “Joomla_1.5.4-Stable-Full_Package.zip” file and saved it to my desktop. I unpacked the zip file and placed the contents of it in my website folder. Since I already had the FTP account set up on my server, I uploaded to contents of my website folder to my server. Here is a word of warning…there are almost 4,000 files. If your host has file limitations, you should find out what they are. Since I have a dedicated server, I am not worried about that. Also, remember that your database is still empty. That will be populated during the install.
After all the files were uploaded, I headed back over to Joomla and clicked on the “New Installation” link about half way down their homepage. Since I am familiar with these types of installations, I skipped past all the upper links and clicked right on “Installation.”
Apparently, there are two different types of installs…one being the web browser method and the other being the manual install. In this case, I did the web browser installation.
In my case, I am did a remote installation to the domain root directory. I did not use a sub-domain, a local install or install the package in a sub-directory. If you would like to, there are instructions on how to go about this on the Joomla website (the same instructions I am using). Basically, you have to visit your domain and, if you have done everything correctly so far, you should see the first Joomla installation screen.
The first screen asks you to choose your language. Simple enough. Since I speak English, I kept the default “English” setting and hit the “Next” button.
The next screen checks the server to see if everything is set correctly and if Joomla is able to utilize it’s resources. In my case, everything checked out fine, but I was told that the “configuration.php” was not writable. After reading the instructions, I found out that this is a regular occurance. I actually didn’t see a “configuration.php” file. I clicked to the “Common Issues & Error Handling” page and read about it. The page gave a few options:
* Do a manual installation
* Create a completely empty file, name it as configuration.php and upload it to your joomla_root/ directory before commencing the installation. Joomla! will then enter the details as the installation proceeds as normal.
* Wait until the end of the installation when at Step 7 the Finished Screen is displayed a list of the variables and settings for the configuration.php file will be displayed. These should then be copied and pasted into a new text document and saved as configuration.php
* As with the last suggestion wait until the end and using the information provided in Step7 manually alter the content of the configuration.php-dist file (this is simply an example file and not a part of the functioning installation) included with all Joomla! installations. There is clearly a greater chance with this method of making mistakes so greater care should be taken. Once the variables have been correctly edited, change the name of this file and save it as configuration.php
I decided to go with creating an empty file named, “configuration.php” and upload it to the root directory. I also chmod the file to 777.
This time, everything checked out, so I clicked the “Next” button.
The next screen is nothing but the license agreement. I read the entire thing and understood it. Then, I clicked the “Next” button.
The next screen is the database configuration. Remember that empty database you have sitting there? Well, you have to fill in the required information.
I entered the information and clicked the “Next” button.
The next screen is the FTP configuration. This is the first time I have come across something like this, but I filled in the FTP information. They suggest to create a local FTP account and not use one that can control the entire server.
Since I am getting slow in my old age, I placed in the FTP username and password and then clicked the autofind path button. That worked and filled in the path automatically.
The next screen is the main configuration. I placed in the main (Super Administrator) email address and password. Then, I clicked the “Install Sample Data” button. I was told that the sample data imported properly.
A word of warning: My first attempt at installing this application gave me an error message that read, “Error: the XML response that was returned from the server is invalid.” on the FTP page and when I tried to install the sample data on the main configuration page. The reason for this had to do with the “configuration.php” file. I needed to upload one and set the permissions correctly. After I did that, I was able to pass those pages. You can read more about the issue here.
The last page looked like this…
Basically, the page gives you the option to view your site or log in to the admin section. I always like to log in to the admin section so I can get the URL. Also, the system says to delete the entire “installation” directory. Lastly, I like to download the now populated config file for backup.
To log in to the admin area, the username is “admin.” Obviously, you should change this.
You can take a look at the site I just set up at http://www.fiixer.com. Next up, configuring and customizing Joomla. Ye haw.
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
For some time, I have been looking for a versatile CMS (content management system) that would allow my mind to wander. So far, I have set up some pretty nice systems. They are meeting my goals, but I wanted to see how things would be outside the realm of business. I mean, a new website would certainly be set up under the business name, but it would be sort of a hobby site in the beginning and we would see what it looks like after a year or two.
There is a blurry line between CMS applications and blog applications now. I understand blogs are becoming actual CMS applications, so who knows what will happen with that. I can see WordPress staying my favorite for a while, but I feel like learning something new.
Here are some of the top open source CMS applications I looked at:
- Joomla
- e107
- Drupal
- Plone
- Mambo
- PHP-Fusion
- PHP-Nuke
- XOOPS
After going over a bunch of these, I decided upon Joomla (along with about a million other people). Just to let you know, there is a really great website that lists many top content management systems, along with blogs, wikis, etc… All listed systems are open source and the website has a link to their homepage as well as a demo of the front page and the admin. This helped tremendously during my research.
I really don’t know what I am going to do with this website yet, but I am sure that once I go through all the plug-ins, I will start forming a plan. For now, I am just going to do the install and document the process here. After that, I will document all the exciting things I come across.
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