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Do you like the way the website looks? Would you like how to set up a similar website? I spill the beans in this article. It's easier than you think!
The first thing you need is a web host. I had a paying one for a year, plus several free web hosts that weren't any good. But in the end I found two free ones that were actually better than the one I was paying good money for. One of them died in a short time, but the other one seems to be growing and has a bright future about it.So here's the name: x10hosting.com. They have several hosting packages, but the free one with no forced adds is plenty for a website like this. After you sign up (the process is a bit involved, but you can figure it out), you want to request to have your PHP privileges upped one notch (it's an automated process), because we're going to be running Joomla!
The next thing you need is the Joomla content manager, which creates the webpages on the fly as they are requested, and makes things quite easy and good-looking. You could also use a blog system like wordpress, but I prefer joomla because of its greater flexibility to do whatever you want with your website. Joomla also has a very good multilingual side to it, which was essential for my website. So head to joomla.org, and get the latest version of the software here.
Here's the tricky part. Now you need to go to your webhost control panel (in 10xhosting, it's your-website-name:2082) and upload and extract the joomla zip file. Some webhosts allow you to do it with a couple clicks, others force you to extract first and thenupload by ftp, others make it nearly impossible. You also need the control panel to create a mysql datbase, whose name and host you need to jot down. Good luck here. If everything goes okay, you can type your-website-name on the browser and the joomla configuration screen will pop up. Everything is fairly straightforward here, if you took good care when creating the mysql database. For good measure, tell joomla to load up some sample data, when the option comes. The joomla installer ends by telling you to remove the "installation" directory. Go ahead and delete it using the control panel.
If you now type your website's url, you'll get a generic joomla page, which we're going to change using the backend. Type in the browser your-website-name/administrator and supply the name (default is "admin") and the password your supplied during the installation. The backend is where you put together your website. Joomla calls articles and pictures "content", which must be assigned to a certain "section" and "category" within a section. This is a good time to bring out a piece of paper and decide what kinds of things your website is going to be about; those are the "sections". Then you can make categories inside those. Joomla has a section manager and a category manager where you can enter the structure you just dreamed up. Don't worry if it's a bit loose now, since you can change it later.
Now you can try writing an article (use the content manager), which has a title, an alias (won't be shown), and must fit within existing sections and categories. The "read more" button at the bottom allows you to split it into two parts: one that shows with the heading, and the other that appears later.
That's it! Now, if you want it to look really cool and have some more capabilities, you need to install some more stuff on the backend. Just about everything on my website was found and downloaded through the joomla extensions webpage. I'll go from top to bottom:
- The cool look was achieved with a template from rocketthemes.com ("replicant 2", joomla 1.5 version), into which I replaced my own logo, made in photoshop. The sliding menu effect is part of the template.
- The animated picture was made with a few pictures (made with photoshop) placed in a directory, to which the module "image slide show" was pointed.
- The search box is pixsearch, replacing the standard joomla search module.
- The language selection flags are the tip of the iceberg that is joomfish. Once installed, joomfish allows you to keep as many language versions as you want, and helps you to keep the translations up to date. It won't do the translations, though, but there are automated systems to do that (ranking from bad to awful) if you feel lazy.before you install joomfish you need to install the appropriate languages in joomla.
- The buttons for "share", "export as pdf", and so forth are due to "alphatoolbar," which is a plugin that gets added automatically to every page. Plugins must be enabled in joomla's plugin manager before they can be active.
- Other plugins used at different points in the website are: allvideos (to display videos and music), tabs and slides (to do just what they say), yvcomment (so users can add their comments to the articles), HD interactive viewer (to show panoramas), alphacontent (to make an index page), simple image gallery (to show pictures in a lightbox), bigocaptcha (to generate numbers in a box so automated robots don't abuse the comment system), and attachments (so files can be downloaded from the articles). You may find that you need different plugins for your website; you may be able to find them at the huge extensions website.
