Don't fret your not the only person who has this problem. In fact it is one of the biggest challenges with making changes to your Joomla based website. However, I find as you better understand the foundation of how Joomla works you will be able to quickly find what you are looking for and make any changes in a matter of seconds. A far cry from your current struggles.

Joomla is built with a database in the background to manage all of the content for your website. This is a good thing as it allows your website to by dynamic, upgradeable, and flexible. Joomla is broken into several facets: joomla core, components, and extensions.

Understanding the Joomla Framework - Menu Items

For all intensive purposes this post will focus on the items that are important to managing changes on your website related to the content. The Joomla core is built with the menu manager, content manager, module manager, and the template manager. I know that is a lot of moving parts, but they all have a specific purpose. To start like's take a closer look at the Menu Manager.

As mentioned earlier Joomla is dynamic and flexible. This functionality is built on the backbone of the menu items. Your site can have multiple menus or just one. Most 70 sites websites are built with two menus. The Main Menu and the Hidden Menu. When visiting your site guests will visual see the main menu (at the top, sides, or bottom of the site) and will use this to get to various places on your website. To start take a closer look at the menu manager by hovering over the menu item and then choosing menu manager. Next select the main menu in the list by click on the title. This is the exact same structure that can is seen by visitors on the front end of your website. Most pages are of type single article. However, some more complex pages will be of different types based on your website functionality. Click on the Home Page Menu Item and let's examine some of the settings. In the top left the menu item type is set to single article. To the right you will see that the article the menu item is referencing is the Home article. This means when a user click on the home page Joomla will go to the database and retrieve the content that is associated with the Home article. This means your menu item name doesn't have to match your article names. Thus the first place to check when attempting to make changes to your website is the menu item type and the selected options. Again 90% of the time you will find the menu item type to be set to single article and the menu name will actually match or closely resemble the article name. This is done to reduce confusion.

However, some menu items may be set to display Category Blog Layout. The options to the right will then select the category of articles to display, number of articles to display, # of columns etc. In this case the Joomla framework goes to the database and pulls the articles based on the options set in the menu. This page layout is great for using the read more functionality to display a small teaser to your visitors with a read more allowing them to get more details if they are interested in the topic being discussed. Later we will discuss how to make changes to the specific content on these pages.

Components

The last 5% of your website (or more depending on the complexity of your site) will be menu items of type Components. These components may include RS Events, Easy Blog, Hika Shop, etc. Components are built to provide robust functionality like e-commerce, blogging, forums, etc. There will often be several menu choices associated with these menu item types depending on what you want to display to the user. The Joomla database will have specific tables that contain information for these components and based on your selection and options set Joomla will query the database and retrieve these items and display them to the user. Similar to an article being retrieved, but the content will not be managed in the Content Section of the administrative panel, but rather the Component specific admin Menu item and component specific admin panel.

Article Manager

To make edit's to pages of type single article or category blog layout you will navigate to the article manager. In this display you will notice several options displayed for every article that is on your website. Additionally you can sort by these article settings as well as filter the articles to display only those of a specific category, state, or keyword. In the status column the green icon signifies the article is published. A red icon unpublished. This means if your menu item is pointing to an unpublished article it will not be displayed. However, just be cause an article is published doesn't mean that it is automatically added to your menu. You have to create a new menu item that points to the article before it is added to the menu. You can make changes to the article content by clicking on the desired article title. Next use the JCE Editor (70 Sites default installed editor also know as a WYS/WYG (Wiss-e-wig)) to make any desired edits.

So you now at least have a general idea of the main categories that your website is built and comprised of. This is really only 75% of the puzzle the other 25% is found within the extension manager which consists of Modules and Plug-ins. Of this 25%, 95% of the content is built on modules. With that in mind the majority of your website is built from Joomla Articles, Components, and Modules.

Modules - Secondary Content

First it is important to define the word Modules. Joomal Modules are small portions of a website that make up a pages secondary content. Modules are displayed along the top, side, or bottom of the main content. In fact, if something is displayed on more than one page or all pages it is most likely a module. Modules can be set to display on all pages or just on pages that you select. These settings can be found with in each module settings at the bottom of the admin page. Additionally each module has a module location which determines where on the page the module displays. These module location names are self documenting to make it easier to locate your content. (i.e. footer left, or logo). Additionally in the template manager under the options section you can choose to allow the positions to be displayed on the front end of the website. Once this setting is turned on from any page append ?tp=1 to the URL and you will see the locations in an opacity with the module position name in white text. This is a great way to identify the name of your specific module location to help you drill down to your specific module you want to edit.

Now let's take a look at the module manager and module settings/content. Navigate to the Extensions Manager and then click on Module Manager. Like the content Manager this view allows you to see the general settings for all of the modules on your site. Again you can filter and search for specific modules. Notice that not all modules are of the same type. Similar to components your site will have different modules depending on the complexity and functionality of your site. However, most modules will be of type Custom Html. This allow for simple text and images to be inserted and displayed throughout the site.

Custom HTML Modules

To edit the content in one of these custom HTML modules click on the module title and this will drill you specifically to that modules settings and content. As with the content you can make changes using the WYS/WIG editor and save them with the controls at the top. As mentioned before modules are managed by the selections on the bottom of the page. This allow you to develop specific secondary content per page or to have a module displayed on every page. Or only on pages that aren't selected.

Other module types often have settings that again allow you to retrieve information from the database and display them to the visitors. Like custom HTML modules you can also select what pages these modules display on.

Plug-ins

If you have ever opened an article and seen something like {ContactForm}. This code is used as a find a replace code for a plugin to replace with more complex code that integrates with the joomla framework and database. To edit the setting of what is displayed on such a pay you must navigate to the extensions menu and then select plug-in manager. Once you arrive at this location you will have to select the appropriate plug in and change the available settings. This is not frequently used on your site, except maybe on pages that use forms or other specialized content.

The last category that determines main content is the components area. Again the menu manager determines what view is displayed to the user based on the menu item selected, however the settings or content of this content is usually controlled in the component admin section. For your events component you will navigate to Components and then RS Events. For your blog content you will navigate to the components menu and select Easy Blog.

Dig in and Don't Fear

Do not be afraid of the complexity of Joomla as it is built to handle large scale complex and dynamic websites. However, as you spend more and more time making edits to your website you become more familiar with the locations of items and have the ability to easily navigate to the content you wish to change or update. After all it is a good idea both for SEO and user experience to update your content on a monthly basis. And as always if you don't have the time for it we would be more than happy to manage your site for you. To set up a free no-obligation consultation fill out our contact form and we would love to learn more about your needs. Additionally if you want more one on one hands on training we also offer training services as detail on our training page.