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Joomla! refers to a powerful and an outstanding content management system. As a matter of fact, Jargon can end up making Joomla! become even more complicated than what it actually needs to be. But if you have never tried hands on this, then it can surely get a little confusing for you. By going through in detail about these Joomla! or jargon terms can actually help you in learning how to manage a Joomla website.

Control Panel

The control panel is the exact location where you do majority of your work. Your starting point is when you log on to the administration page. This page includes all the links to manage categories and sections, links to add the articles and controls which edit and view the sites.

User

There can be different types of users which access the Joomla! sites and it mainly includes all the administrators who have the complete access to your site to the customers who read your site. In all there are nine levels of users that have been listed by the access level and they are as follows:

• Super administrator
• Administrator
• Manager
• Public back-end
• Publisher
• Editor
• Author
• Registered
• Public front-end

Article: All the content in the Joomla site has been divided into articles. These are nothing but some long or short units of content that are used for providing basic elements of information on your site.

Category: These articles are further placed in further categories which further help in dividing your articles in smaller groups.

Section: These categories are placed in the sections which help in constituting the main division of content on the website. Therefore it is quite imperative to place all the articles in a category which is further placed in a section.

Media: This term in context to Joomla is mainly used to describe the images but it can be also used for referring to any kind of non-HTML document on your website. There is an extensive media management system that is included in Joomla.

Web links: These are the links to the external websites which have been related to your websites. They can be put in categories and can be used for defining where exactly to display them on the site.

News Feeds: It is nothing but another term that is being used to describe the RSS feeds.

Extension: Extension is a term that is used to describing how to make Joomla do what you expect it to do. There are five types of extensions that are used in Joomla!:

• Languages
• Modules
• Plugins
• Templates
• Components

Menu: Menus are used for describing the navigation system of the Joomla! site. Each and every page and component has been built using a menu. The biggest challenge here is that menu is considered by almost all the people as just list of pages. But the fact is that the menu section of Joomla! is the place where the decision of the components and modules will be taken.

It is very important to be thorough with the concepts o Joomla as it is not only complicated but also a powerful content management system.

When was the last time that you wished that a copyright notice could be added in all your web pages at once? Or perhaps if you want to ensure that all your web pages contain the same header and footer on them. You also have the option of using the databases for creating the dynamic content as well as the standard content across your web pages. But the biggest drawback of using almost all o these systems is that they are quite expensive.

There is an option of using the HTML pre-processor, which is an application that runs majorly on your servers and has the ability to filter the HTML before sending it to the browser. They can be used in a variety of ways, but they become invaluable for all the web developers as they can create dynamic pages using common elements. It is a common practice to run the pre-processors only after the data files have been created. Your web pages can be easily updated by running the pre-processor for converting the data files into HTML. Some pre-processors such as the hypertext database work in this fashion while the others such as Cold Fusion work on the fly as the web pages are accessed.

But there are many pre-processors available in the market, which are not only freeware but also quite easy to use and set up.

• PHP: Hypertext Processor: It is also known as the open source HTML pre-processor. However, its role is just not restricted to a pre-processor, it acts much more than that. It also functions as an HTML scripting tool and helps in including logic in HTML as well as the other programming functions. This hypertext processor runs on the web server. It comes in the Windows binary distribution and also the source code for compiling on other platforms. It is an Open source freeware.
• GTML: GTML enables you to group all your web pages into Projects or replace capabilities and instant search across the whole project. Macros of different sections which are to be reused, of your site can be created. GTML simply builds the HTML for you by just putting in one word representation of the entire code. GTML is basically a Perl script and runs on any platform that would support Perl. Open Source freeware.
• Htmlppl – The HTML Pre-processor: This html pre-processor also has quite a few of the similar features as mentioned in the other pre-processors. But one of the most amazing facts here is that the Perl code can be embedded and the output can be included on your HTML pages. This pre-processor can also be used for querying flat file databases as well. GNU Open Source freeware.
• HPP: This is quite an interesting looking Perl script which is still under development, which helps in processing directives sent to it through GET requests within the web pages. For example, if you would be writing your PHP enabled web page and then accessing it on the command line of your browser. This ultimately helps you in giving a lot of freedom for including the results of the Perl Scripts dynamically in your web pages. Alpha level open source freeware.

From beginning to Advanced and Everything in Between:

There is just so much that is included within the realm of Web Design. It includes

• HTML
• Design
• Layout
• Programming
• Administration
• XML
• Graphics
• And much more

There is always a scope of learning and growing in the path of web design, no matter where you are placed in this path. But the biggest question is how to decide where to go? Fortunately there are many different path available that you can opt for whether you are new in this field of web designing and HTML or an established in writing DHTML and programs for years.

Beginning HTML:

This is your stop if you are just starting o the path of web designing. The basics of HTML and building a web page are all covered in the beginning HTML resources. There are a lot of tutorials and classes that will help you in getting started. New terms will be explained by new terms.

Advanced HTML:

Once you are clear with the basics of the HTML, the next step to be considered is Advanced HTML. It includes CSS, DHTML, frames and tables. There are a large variety of advances scripting tools available for the advanced HTML programmers. Also you can gain the information about updating your site using multimedia and cookies.

Once you are clear about the concepts of basic and advanced HTML, you will have sufficient skills for taking up web development as your career.

Professional web designers:

Professional web designers focus on both the feel as well as the look of the web page. It is quite imperative that the web designers should focus primarily on creating good layouts, writing and managing excellent content and then promoting and marketing both themselves and the sites created by them.

Professional web programmers:

The main job of the professional web programmer is to focus primarily on the unseen parts of the web pages. These mainly include the programs that make the websites work, scripts and CGIs. Also the programmers have to work on the servers as well in order to keep them up and running. The security of the web pages and the web sites is managed by them. They also manage the e-commerce portals and content management system. The role of a web programmer may not be as glamorous as that o the web designer, but it is certainly as important a role.

XML developers:

The next step of web design and development is XML. Many of the web programmers make a switch from normal web programming into the XML programming. There are a lot of directions that you can choose from within the XML. Whether you are interested in posting your documents for wireless devices with XHTML Basic or WML or you want to focus more on SMIL and multimedia, XML is the point where your programming begins.

Know where you are on the path:

In order to get the necessary resources and information for learning and growing in the field of your choice, it is quite essential to know where you are placed on your path.

Nobody would even think that the web developers would be worried about the viruses in particular. But the fact is that it is getting harder to hide from the smart virus writers. The most common SirCam virus is so dangerous that it is capable of searching the cached web pages or the email addresses. As this virus has an inbuilt mail server, it makes use of those email addresses for sending out the annoying spam email messages. The worst part is that this spammer is not used for sending any mail, but instead sends a virus to all the recipients.

How to protect yourself?

• Add anti-spam messages to your email addresses: These are special messages that cannot be recognised by a virus or a spambot but a person would easily be able to strip out.
• Take off your email address from your web pages: Make use of feedback forms where your email address was embedded in the CGI and not the HTML. The main reason of using the CGI here is that CGI cannot be cached and at the same time, you can still get your comments.
• Convert your email address to an image: Viruses and spammer programs cannot cache the images in the same way as they would be grabbing the email addresses. Always ensure that your email address is not included in your alt text.
• Make use of the JavaScript for building your mailto field: Try to use the JavaScript with variables which has been used for splitting up your email address, for building up mailto link, which cannot be read by the spambots.

Anti-Spam Messages in the Email Address
The easiest method of preventing the viruses and spam from spreading is by making use of the Anti Spam messages. Just add the words that would be recognised and should be removed from your email address in the mailto field.

The biggest drawback o using this method is that people easily skip out on the email addresses while clicking on the mailto link. And there is every possibility that if a bounce back message is received by them, it will be simply deleted.

Removing the email addresses
The most effective method of avoiding span or viruses would be to remove completely your email addresses. You just need to create a web form and send the mail using the CGI. Although there are variety of forms to email CGI is available but it is quite imperative to concentrate on the one which has the ability to store the email addresses in the CGI itself. Virus or a spambot can easily get the email address it is in the HTML.
The biggest drawback of this that people avoid using them as they feel more impersonal. Many of the customers who would have otherwise intimated you about the broken link will think twice before intimating you.

Convert Email Addresses to Images
If you have the comfort with the graphics, you can easily convert your email addresses to the images. There is a free Windows tool available for converting the email addresses to the image format for hiding from the spammers.

The biggest drawback o this is that once your email address is converted to an image, it cannot be used in the mailto tag. Also, your email address will have to be written by the customers themselves which can also cause typographical errors.

JavaScript to hide the email addresses
It is considered to be the most effective ways of hiding your email addresses from the viruses and the spambots, but always ensure that your customers have the convenience o using the mailto link.

The biggest drawback of this is that certain people work with the JavaScript turned off due to security reasons. The mailto link for these people will not be effective at all.

Removal of a page from a website, by the web developer or a designer without putting up the replacement page which would describe the details of the previous pages, leads to the generation of the Link Rot. The reader is treated to a page not found or a 404 error message.

Why do page not found or 404 pages exist? The simple answer to this question is, that it is quite imperative to get some error message, when the user tries to go to the URL that does not exist. But unfortunately, this error message is still seen even when the URL exists. The only problem here is that the link does not exist in the location where the customer went.

There can be a number of reasons why the addresses of the pages are changed by their websites. Some of them are as follows:

• Our site was organised by us for its betterment
• We were not able to keep a proper track of our existing docs.
• Our site is getting rebranded
• Our hosting services have really gone down

At first these reasons might seem to be good enough for moving the page and leaving behind page not found or 404 error pages. But the truth is that, this change clearly indicates to the lack of planning and forethought at the time of creation of URLs.

Why care about the Link Rot?

You might not be aware about who will be having links to your site. You would want your targeted customers should bookmark your pages, but then suddenly your location is changed by you. You might feel that your navigation is too good and the customers should be able to find page anyway. But unfortunately, this is not always true as would be wished by the web developer. And the fact is that as a website owner, you have exactly eight seconds for forming your very first impression. If someone finds your URL in a book and after typing he gets a 404 or page not found error, there is every possibility that the user will not stay on your site long enough for navigating through your fabulous site.

Do not complain about Link Rot If you cause Link Rot

You are the prime contributor of the link rot if you have complained of it and ultimately changed your page locations without actually compensating or it. But unfortunately, the developer usually gets blamed for linking to you.

The first and the foremost thing is to consider permanent URIs. If your web pages are not at all well organized, take a deep breath and move on. Once your vision is set to recognize your site, make use of the tools which are available with the server for relocating the URIs. But, in case if you do not have the access to the server level redirects, you always have the option of using the JavaScript or meta refresh tags.

Organize Intellectually

• Always date your articles
• Don’t date static pages
• Leave out information
• Consider your software

Do not be a contributor to this link rot. You should always try and make the pages of your site stick around. If at all there is a possibility of moving them, always remember to leave the redirects up so that the customers are still able to find what they have been looking for.

Like many of creative people, website designers can also get caught into the trap of the writer’s block. But there are certainly many methods available which can help you deal with these blocks, and help you get unblocked. The following six methods or suggestions will help to a great extent in getting new design ideas:

• Be prepared for procrastination which can try blocking you: Whenever you will be involved in working on any new article or design idea, you will find that’s the time that new ideas about other projects will come to your mind. For example, when you are working on some project, there is every possibility that you might think about the wool that you have to wash, or may what colour you need to paint your office with or may be the appropriate location in your house for the kitchen garden. Although its quite understandable that these are simply different methods of procrastinating, but you cannot deny from the fact that these are the thing that you would also want to do. If you are currently involved in working or writing a web design, you simply write them down and continue brainstorming the current project of yours. It really works if you write down the things that you would be interested in procrastinating, they would not be really pressing as much as if you just try ignoring them.
• Start in the middle: It has been commonly noticed that for some reason or the other, almost all the web designers follow a top down approach while designing their web sites. Certainly, you will have to think in this aspect about the CSS and HTML, but when involved in web designing, it is important to focus on first things first. For example when writing a web content, if the title is written first, maximum number of times, it will be noted that the actual content will be quite different from the actual title. Many of the times, you will have to rewrite the title by the end of the article.
• Stay away from the computer: It is quite [possible to get stuck on any of the initial technical problems related to Java Script or HTML if you try to design directly on the computer. It is always better to do your initial designing or drafting on a rough paper as it will be easier to erase, scratch and last but not the least throw, if you are just not happy.
• Take enough time that you require: Planning is certainly one of the most important aspects of any project which is both least used and the most important. Most of the web designers just directly jump on to designing the main page. It is always better to first take sufficient time and plan what and how exactly things need to be done. It is a well known that planning can in no ways hurt your website but lack of planning can certainly do.
• Ask for help: Never be reluctant and afraid to ask for help, but always ensure to find the right quality people who can provide you be some kind of constructive criticism.
• Try something else, if you are really stuck: The main idea is to get your mind totally out of the problem that you are involved in resolving. This will enable your subconscious state of mind to think of the problem unobstructed.

Today’s internet is lot different from what it initially used to be. With the latest developments such as web standards and the search engine optimisation, it is just not possible to cut the websites the same old way. The W3C lays down certain regulations and guidelines, which have to be followed by all the web designers so as to make their website functional as well as accessible as far as possible. Making the website compatible with standards of W3C ensures that your site is able to achieve its maximum potential across a wide range of systems. But the W3C standards keep on changing on a daily basis. But does this mean that your website will be suffering aesthetically? The simple answer is NO. With the evolution of CSS the web designers have the freedom to do almost anything on web. CSS also has the capability of giving much better usability, foundation for SEO and compliance with the web standards.

From the perspective of web designing, the biggest advantage of CSS is the cross browser compatibility. Almost every web designer would have tested his website on other computers just to ensure that layout is not mangled. The main reason for this is that different versions of the same web browsers as well as different web browsers would always display different websites differently. As a matter of fact, all the web site designers have to forcefully test their websites on as many browsers as possible so as to minimize these unwanted problems. As a web developer, it is virtually impossible for you to control all the variables present in your code but can definitely try to minimize these problems. It’s a well known fact that if the user has the ease and the comfort level on your, he will surely return back to the site.

Though all the website users are conversant with the powers of CSS but surely many of them have never utilised to its maximum capabilities. The cascading feature of CSS is actually the most important part of the web designing, yet it is most overlooked. The designer can easily alter one file, which is the style sheet and the entire site can be modified just by making the necessary changes in one file. CSS is capable of creating the code that is less bulky and cleaner as compared to the other scripting languages. Less code would just imply that the search engine would have a better access to the content of your web site. As a result of this your website will be indexed more effectively and will have more targeted users or clients.

Another great benefit of CSS that cannot be overlooked is its increased efficiency and ease in its use. Once you have successfully attained knowledge about the programming techniques, it is quite easy to control the designs of your website using CSS. For a website to work properly, it is not essential that it should be boring and simple. CSS surely does not limit the designing capabilities of your web site; instead it gives the designers the power of creating fully functional and aesthetically pleasing site.

It has been around ten years since cascading style sheets or most commonly known as CSS have been around, considering from the beginning during its development in the year 1997. But, surprisingly it has been into public consciousness relatively for a short time now. The main reason for this is that until 2000, its features were not supported and recognized by most of the web browsers. Gradually down the line there have major improvements where almost all the web browsers support atleast the minimum level 1 of all the web browsers and a few support level 2 and some have even gone way beyond and support level 3 as well.

As a matter of fact, you cannot find even a single site which would not be utilizing CSS in some for or the other in their development and design. In fact, all the web sites that are completely developed using HTML are becoming extinct or following the footsteps of dinosaur. There are no two thoughts to the fact that both HTML and CSS are important aspects of web design and will continue to do so for years to come. CSS has been successful in bringing in a widespread impact upon W3C.

Originally CSS was developed just with the intent of providing the web developers a means for defining both the feel and the look of the web pages. Using this, web developers were able to treat both the design and the content of the web page as two different entities. As a result of this HTML was able to perfume its functions more in accord with its actual intended purpose which is to focus only on the markup of the content of any particular website.

The style sheet in CSS or cascading style sheet here refers to the document itself. This concept is nothing new for the web developers, infact the documents have been used by the web developers for many years now. To be more specific, style sheet can be defined as those specifications which are used for governing the layout of the particular website, whether it is on print or online. The cascading style sheets are not only capable of determining the technical specifications of any particular document on the web but also provides with an added functionality of communicating with the viewing vehicle, here the web browser. The most important thing to be remembered here is the keyword Cascade. The cascading style sheet, by virtue of their nature, is capable of flowing or cascading through any number of separate style sheets or documents.

In the areas of XML and XHTML markup, cascading style sheets go way beyond the font specifications. This clearly indicates that Cascading style sheets can be used for defining the look of any XML and XHTML markup language that is being used by you in your website. Cascading style sheets can be considered to be one of the most powerful tools that can be used by the web designers which can undoubtedly impact the entire feel and look of the website. It is crucial to have a thorough knowledge of CSS if you are planning to be a web designer.