Trying to find my way around Joomla

[boristhemoggy]

I am brand new to Joomla and have just installed the latest version. I'm struggling to do anything with it so yes, I clicked on "Absolute beginners guide to Joomla", which after you follow a series of links, appears not to have the tutorials it says are there.
In other words I can find no help at all in setting up for the first time, and something as simple as publishing an article doesn't work on mine.
So, can someone please point me to the precise link where I can find tutorials for initial setting up?

[boristhemoggy]

By the way I have uploaded the Forum Post Assistant, but when I navigate to it I get a 404 error.

[edward68]

Hello, have you tried https://docs.joomla.org/ .. I find that the forums are a great way to get help fairly quickly. If you need help with something specific let me know

[toivo]

I clicked on "Absolute beginners guide to Joomla", which after you follow a series of links, appears not to have the tutorials it says are there.

Did you try these tutorials which explain how to create articles:
https://docs.joomla.org/Articles
https://docs.joomla.org/Adding_a_new_article

[boristhemoggy]

Hello, have you tried https://docs.joomla.org/ .. I find that the forums are a great way to get help fairly quickly. If you need help with something specific let me know

Hi, yes I followed those links, Beginner tutorials, Getting started with templates
Looks to me just explaining what you can do but not saying how you actually achieve it. I'll give it another try.

[boristhemoggy]

I clicked on "Absolute beginners guide to Joomla", which after you follow a series of links, appears not to have the tutorials it says are there.

Did you try these tutorials which explain how to create articles:
https://docs.joomla.org/Articles
https://docs.joomla.org/Adding_a_new_article

Thanks, it's not just articles. It's knowing where to start, and how to actually do things, like add text, photos, albums, change the look of the site, all those things.
Is the best start point Templates?

[toivo]

It is good to understand templates and how Joomla uses template positions in for example the Protostar template which comes with Joomla.

Search for "joomla tutorial video" and you will find videos and tutorials by template providers and hosting companies, for example:
https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla-video/

It is also useful to install Joomla with the demo data on a localhost server on your workstation, running XAMPP, MAMP or Wampserver.

[edward68]

Planning your website is the best place to start. Once you know where your content will go then you can go about setting your website up. Its helpful to get to know your template so that you know where to place things. Say for example you wanted to put some text and images on the front page. You have some options. You can write an article using the built in editor. It allows you to add text and images. Save the article and then go to menus. Go to the main menu option and select menu type :single article and then select the article you have just written. Choose a template position and then save your article. You should then be able to see your article on the front page. There are methods for doing everything. The forums are a great place to troubleshoot and get help. Use the documents area to get comprehensive help. Hope I have helped you. If you want to add third party plug ins then the extentions are is the place for you. Best just work out what you want to do and get step by step help along the way.

[boristhemoggy]

Yeah my website is pretty much drawn up on a3 sheets.
Sounds very complicated to me, an article must be more like a page than a 'post'.
I'll google some videos see if I can find anything that's useful.
Thanks everyone.

[edward68]

Its all really simple once you try it for yourself. Articles are not really pages. You can for example have multiple articles on a single page. Hope you find the help that you are looking for.

[MasterD]

I'm having much the same issue. I have my website designed in JustInMind and now want to implement it in Joomla. So I have my Categories and Articles completed but struggling with the layout or look of the website.

I would help to plan in Joomla terms. so is there a website format template you can create your website? By this I mean a format so I can create the structure for the website in Joomla and then create it using the format map?

[boristhemoggy]

I finally did mine in Wordpress, much simpler

[kiasati]

for start u can watch the tutorial that lynda.com has. it's an awesome learning course.

https://www.lynda.com/Joomla-tutorials/ ... 275-2.html

[Gany]

I finally did mine in Wordpress, much simpler

Yes, it is. Until you want to manage your articles, images and go multilingual on a more serious level.

[jonBuckner1]

Wordpress would be simpler because he wanted joomla to work the same way.... and was annoyed that it didn't...

[boristhemoggy]

I finally did mine in Wordpress, much simpler

Yes, it is. Until you want to manage your articles, images and go multilingual on a more serious level.

With respect to Joomla, it is a different platform to Wordpress and I recognise that. However, it still is an unnecessarily complex piece of software and rather than relying on a comprehensive but easily to use basis, it relies on people who are utterly dedicated to learning it's vast complexities in order to get the best from it.
I suspect if it was not free no-one would ever go near it.

[jonBuckner1]

Hi

i agree, Joomla is complex an difficult to understand. From a beginners perspective the terms plugins, modules and components and extensions can get confusing. All the various places you have to go to configure things....

There is a lot to get your head round.

But I am really glad I chose Joomla, I saw a friend's Wordpress site the other day and the troubles that he is encountering would be easily solvable from my perspective if he was using Joomla. His solution seems really longwinded and over the top.

I have tried Drupal and that is just toooooo much for me. I couldn't even work out how to get a hosted trial site working, though locally I have experimented plenty
Concrete5 looks nice but I soon found reasons to not enjoy it so much. It didn't match my brief, for others it definitely will.
It seems to me that non-tech-savvy people can use wordpress easier but soon end up accepting bits they can not adjust or fix, or think that the norm is to pay someone to change a slideshow or move that widget 'there'