What is Joomla? What are its Features? Is it Free?
Joomla is an open source content management system referred by tens of thousands as the best CMS in the world.
Once installed, the website administrator can login to the backend administration console and set up sections, categories, content items, polls and much more; administrating the entire frontend of the website from a point and click interface. When new content is created, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor allows for simple edits without the knowledge of HTML. While it is not mandatory the user have knowledge of HTML, it is recommended to engage in a few HTML primers in the event that something needs to be edited on a more custom level. The Joomla community forums are available with thousands of programmers and designers to help new and advanced users when possible.
Joomla is a free, open source content management system written in PHP for publishing and managing content on the web and intranets using a MySQL database. Joomla includes features such as page caching to improve performance, web indexing, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, newsflashes, blogs, forums, polls, calendars, website searching, and language internationalization.
The name is a phonetic spelling of the Swahili word “jumla” meaning “all together” or “as a whole”. It was chosen to reflect the commitment of the development team and community to the project. The first release of Joomla (Joomla 1.0.0) was announced on September 16, 2005. This was a re-branded release of Mambo 4.5.2.3 combined with other bug and moderate-level security fixes. In the project’s roadmap, the core developers say Joomla! 2.0 will be a completely re-written code base built with PHP 5.
The project site can be found at www.joomla.org.
Joomla! is released under the GNU General Public License.
Joomla! Features:
- Completely database driven site engines
- News, products or services sections fully editable and manageable
- Topics sections can be added to by contributing authors
- Fully customizable layouts including left, center and right menu boxes
- Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site
- Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for on-the-spot results
- Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris and AIX
Extensive Administration:
- Change order of objects including news, FAQs, articles etc.
- Random Newsflash generator
- Remote author submission module for News, Articles, FAQs and Links
- Object hierarchy – as many sections, departments, divisions and pages as you want
- Image library – store all your PNGs, PDFs, DOCs, XLSs, GIFs and JPEGs online for easy use
- Automatic Path-Finder. Place a picture and let Joomla! fix the link
- News feed manager. Choose from over 360 news feeds from around the world
- Archive manager. Put your old articles into cold storage rather than throw them out
- Email-a-friend and Print-format for every story and article
- In-line Text editor similar to Word Pad
- User editable look and feel
- Polls/Surveys – Now put a different one on each page
- Custom Page Modules. Download custom page modules to spice up your site
- Template Manager. Download templates and implement them in seconds
- Layout preview. See how it looks before going live
- Banner manager. Make money out of your site
So where do I get it?
You can download Joomla! from the Joomlacode website or you can grab the latest release right here from our downloads section.
How much does it cost?
Joomla is free software written by an organized group of dedicated code contributors under the GPL License.
Most of these developers contribute their time as a side project and many still have families and full-time jobs. Some people have been able to offer services for Joomla like templates, components, and other add-ons that make it even more dynamically functional. If your looking for a straight out of the box solution for managing web content and the ability to expand on a low budget, this is definitely for you.
About Joshu Thomas
I enjoy blogging about webmaster related stuff and technology. Xtras - I Design, Develop, Blog and Support the Open Source. Passions: I Love Music, Photography, Design, Development, Cycling, Travelling.
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10 Responses to “What is Joomla? What are its Features? Is it Free?”
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Founder of OrangeCopper Webmaster Networks, Writes for our latest Launch of 2011 - HippieMonk Tech & LifeStyle Blog!
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Founder of OrangeCopper Webmaster Networks, Writes for our latest Launch of 2011 - HippieMonk Tech & LifeStyle Blog!
You can have your very own professional portal in few clicks, and be able to handle a big quantity of content and visitors. Free Article
You can have your very own professional portal in few clicks, and be able to handle a big quantity of content and visitors. Free Article
orangecopper.com is very informative. The article is very professionally written. I enjoy reading orangecopper.com every day.
orangecopper.com is very informative. The article is very professionally written. I enjoy reading orangecopper.com every day.
Thanks again for a nice site.
Thanks again for a nice site.
Very nice – easy to follow, simple, and working. Thanks for the knowledge!
More templates easy to download
Very nice – easy to follow, simple, and working. Thanks for the knowledge!
More templates easy to download
I’m not sure if I agree with everything written but this was definitely informative and well-written.
I’m not sure if I agree with everything written but this was definitely informative and well-written.