As many of you know I spend a large percentage of my time teaching people how to use Joomla. Sometimes that is for people who are complete Joomla virgins but more often than not it is for people who have had a Joomla web site built for them and now they want to know how to use it.
Perhaps the biggest problem these people face is that the web site they have had built for them has not been built the Joomla way. As a result the site will often have a complicated structure that is difficult to understand and manage, definitely not what Joomla is designed to be.
Joomla 1.5 is a SCAM
With Joomla 1.5 the first thing that I teach people is that it is all a SCAM.
- Section - create your sections
- Category - create your categories
- Article - create your articles
- Menu - create your menus
Follow the SCAM and you will be building an easy to manage Joomla web site
Explaining the SCAM approach to Joomla is usualy the first thing that I do in a training session and it's great to see the light bulbs pop above the trainees heads as they "get it". I even had a client in Liverpool who said I could go home there and then as everything "just makes sense now".
The second thing I teach is the filing cabinet approach to understand "Sections and Categories".
Joomla 1.6 changed the game
With the release in January of Joomla 1.6, sections have disappeared and we now have multi-level nested categories so it's no longer a SCAM and the filing cabinet has been consigned to history. This is a feature that many many people have been shouting and screaming for, not me but that's a different story, but it has left trainers and authors struggling to find a new "easy to remember" method to explain good Joomla site building.
Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to have a preview of an upcoming Official Joomla! book from Steve Burge, Joomla! Explained: Your Step-by-Step Guide.
As the title suggests it will take you through every stage of Joomla 1.6 until you have built your own, easy to manage, Joomla web site. It reminds me of the Workbooks we used to be given at school for self-paced learning with easy to follow examples and then exercises to complete on your own.
Definitely a book to add to your collection
Late last night just as I was dozing off at my keyboard, again, I had a brainwave.
Joomla 1.6 is all about CASH
Now I know exactly what the first thing will be that I teach users new to Joomla 1.6, CASH!
- Categorise - create the categories you need to organise your content
- Add - - add your content to the categories
- SHow - create the menu links to show the content
So Joomla! isn't a SCAM anymore it's all about CASH
