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Knowledge Base Knowledge Base https://support.joomlabliss.com/ Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:27:05 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 https://support.joomlabliss.com/media/com_maqmahelpdesk/images/themes/default/48px/kb.png Powered by MaQma Helpdesk https://support.joomlabliss.com/ Knowledge Base Basic Website Content Management: Joomla Training index.php?option=com_maqmahelpdesk&Itemid=475&id_workgroup=&task=kb_view&id=6 Website Content Management: Daily Tasks This section covers basic website content management tasks on a Joomla website that an average business/organization would be performing on a regular basis; most of our Ottawa web design clients request this information, so we created a special web page for this purpose. But before we begin let us address what matters most - quality of your website content. First of all, at Joomla Bliss we advise all our Ottawa website design clients that the main rule to remember is that "content is king" so when you write content for your website do not copy and paste portions of your press releases on different pages. Write unique content for each page on your website. The next thing is to make sure that your content is useful to your readers and visitors. Granted, you need to describe your company and your services in the About section. But if you have a Blog, do not write about how great your team lunches are. Your visitors do not care about that. They care about their needs, and this is the main reason why they are on your website, so you need to anticipate your customers' needs and address them while writing content for your website, especially your Blog. It is better not to have a Blog than have a meaningless one that is present there only as a check mark. Make your website content useful to your readers. If you have a forum, it is better not to have a forum at all than have an empty one. So if you launch a forum and there are no content contributors within a month, you need to start promoting it heavily, and if it does not work, it is better to disable the forum. The main reason why forums stay empty is censorship on the part of the website owner and tedious login process. If you want your forum to thrive you need to allow for opposing opinions, conflicts and even risky statements. If the nature of your business prevents this, then you need to make sure to present this as a disclosure in a very visible way. If this is the case, then the other way for you to populate your website's forum is to provide valuable advice to your website visitors in the area of your expertise. Update your website content regularly, make sure that your readers see a date stamp on your pages. If users provide their comments, reply to their comments as much as you can. With websites the principle is the same as with restaurants: people will discover good quality and will come back for more. If your restaurant is empty, hire a new chef. If your website does not attract visitors, create new content. Your website content needs to be useful and interesting to your visitors first and foremost. Ensure that formatting of your website pages is done nicely. Add white space between sentences and sections, do not clutter your text. Do not use long sentences, split them up in shorter ones. Use a lot of images. Use humour. Make it easier for your customers to read and perceive the content on your website. Ask for feedback and reviews. We ask all our Ottawa website design clients for their opinions and try to incorporate their feedback as much as possible. Below is a list of most common website content management tasks that our clients perform on a regular basis. The information is based on Joomla 3. Table of Contents Design Layout: Locate Required Items on Your Website (#s1) What Not to Do When Managing Your Website (#s2) Basic Website Content Update Tasks (#s3) Website Contact/Registration Management (#s3-1) Edit Your Existing Articles (#s3-2) Add a New Article to Your Website (#s3-3) Main Menu on Your Website: Add or Rearrange Items (#s3-4) Edit Existing Modules on Your Website (Contents on the Side Bars) (#s3-5) Upload a New Image (#s3-6) Replace an Existing Image with a New One (#s3-7) Copy and Reuse Elements in Your Website (#s3-8) Email List Management (ACYMailing) (#s3-9) Image Galleries (#s3-10)(Phoca Gallery) (#s3-10) General SEO / (#s3-11)iJoomla SE (#s3-11)O (#s3-11) Backup Your Website: Akeeba Backup (#s3-12) Other Installed Features (#s3-13) Keeping Your Website Updated (#s3-14) Additonal Security Measures (#s3-15) I. Design Layout: Locate Required Items on Your Website http://www.acyba.com/support/documentation.html (http://www.acyba.com/support/documentation.html) 3.10 Image Galleries (Phoca Gallery) https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/akeeba-backup-documentation/automating-your-backup.html (https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/akeeba-backup-documentation/automating-your-backup.html) Make sure to save the backup file offline, on your hard drive. 3.13 Additional Features Edit Resources Archives: any articles created in the ‘blog’ category will be shown in the archive page. Edit the ‘Latest News’ module in position ‘bottom-b’ to edit the Latest News module on the homepage Set the ‘Recent Tweets’ module’s username to start displaying tweets on the homepage. Edit Homepage Slideshow: Component > Widgetkit > Slideshow > Frontpage Slideshow. (970px x 400px) Edit Homepage Testimonials: Component > Widgetkit > Slideshow > Frontpage Testimonials to edit/add testimonials to the rotation. Edit the ‘Footer’ module to change footer social icon links in code mode. For the homepage icons in the middle, edit the ‘Contact Us’ module instead. 3.14 Keeping Your Website Updated Joomla Core: Components > Joomla Updates Addons: Extensions > Extension Manager > Update > Find Updates 3.15 Additional Security Measures If you have Admin Tools installed, you can use the Quick Setup Wizard to add a secret key to your Admin Url. (The resulting url will become abc.com/administrator/index.php?secretword) This helps prevent some bot scripts to automatically attack the website admin. CAUTION: Make sure the new updates are compatible with your Joomla version. It is best not to update complex functional components independently. Simple components like Extplorer, JCE editor (for article management) are generally safe to upgrade. IMPORTANT: Upgrade from Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x is a separate project. It cannot be performed independently. Further versions, i.e. after Joomla 3.0 can be upgraded with relative ease. But please do not click “upgrade” on the Joomla version by yourself. It can break the site. If you decide to risk it, make sure to backup the site and save it offline on your hard drive first. Sat, 05 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0100 How often should we upgrade to a new Joomla version? index.php?option=com_maqmahelpdesk&Itemid=475&id_workgroup=&task=kb_view&id=2 As with any software, a new release often has bugs in it and it takes a couple of months to get it stabilized. In addition, it takes time for the Joomla website development (http://www.joomlabliss.com/) community to upgrade existing extensions. There are over 6000 Joomla extensions (http://extensions.joomla.org/)! Granted, the most reputable and popular Joomla extensions do upgrade quickly, but this is software, and designers are only human, so mistakes always happen, bugs are always present, so it is wise to wait until the newly released version gets stabilized. With all that said, upgrading from Joomla 2.5+ to Joomla 3.0 is not difficult. And futher, from Joomla 3.0 to its subsequent sub-versions is promised to be a breeze. If you have a Joomla 1.5 site, it is necessary to upgrade to Joomla 2.5 first and then from it to Joomla 3.0. The only alternative is to re-creare your site anew using Joomla 3.0. If your site is more than 3 years old, this maybe a good excuse to get a new website. In other words, with new Joomla 3.0 version, upgrades should be fast and easy and can be done from the Joomla admin back-end. Joomla is saying they will be releasing a new version every 6 months. It will be hard for the extensions community to keep up with these new versions, so upgrading once a year should be sufficient. Note that not each newmajor Joomla version is good to upgrade to. Sometimes it is best to wait until it matures. Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0100 Do you offer Joomla training? index.php?option=com_maqmahelpdesk&Itemid=475&id_workgroup=&task=kb_view&id=1 As part of all our contracts Joomla Bliss provides three hours of training to all website users within the client organization at no additional cost. Website training can be conducted online or in person. Website training covers the following main topics: Basic principles of a web CMS (i.e. Joomla) How to login and logout into a website How to create a new article (page), edit or delete existing ones How to create a blog post, edit or delete it How to add, remove or replace an image How to change address and Google map info How to update info on the home page How to update images on the top slider How to upload documents and ensure that some of them are available to registered users only How to create a survey and view results How to add/remove website users How to create an online and offline back up of a site Answers to specific questions (Q As) A concise summary in a Word doc Joomla Bliss recommends that Joomla training be conducted immediately prior to launch of the new website. This way clients can capitalize on the two weeks of free support included in almost all contracts. Anything that was missed or forgotten during training can be covered and refreshed in the first two weeks after launch of the website. Our clients report that this time is sufficient to acquire a high level of comfort in using a new CMS (i.e. Joomla). Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0100 Any good PDF libraries to generate pdf files? index.php?option=com_maqmahelpdesk&Itemid=475&id_workgroup=&task=kb_view&id=5 mpdf (http://www.mpdf1.com/mpdf/index.php) and tcpdf (http://www.tcpdf.org/) are good libraries to work with. Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0100 I upgraded to J3.1.4 and my Syndicated Feeds are messed up! index.php?option=com_maqmahelpdesk&Itemid=475&id_workgroup=&task=kb_view&id=4 This is a bug in J3.1.4. Updating to the latest version (3.1.5 as of Aug 2013) solves the issue. Specifically, mod_feed/tmpl/default.php is missing a closing </div> tag. Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0100 Should I upgrade to Joomla 3.0 if I am using Virtue Mart. index.php?option=com_maqmahelpdesk&Itemid=475&id_workgroup=&task=kb_view&id=3 VirtueMart is only supported for Joomla 1.5 and 2.5 at the moment (Aug 2013). If VirtueMart is the main component on your Joomla site, you should consider using J2.5 for the moment. Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0100