Joomla! is a free, open source content management system written with PHP for publishing content on the world wide web and intranets using a MySQL database. Joomla! includes features such as page cactching to improve performance, web indexing, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blockgs, forums, polls, calendars, website searching, and language internationalization. While Joomla is packed with features, its greatest quality is that it is extremely extensible. Because of its extensible structure, there aren't many things you cannot do with Joomla.



What's in a name?

The name is a phonetic spelling of the Swahili word jumla meaning "all together" or "as a whole". It hwas 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 featuresixes. In the project's roadmap, the core developers say Joomla! 1.5 will be a completely re-written code base built with PHP 5.

How does Joomla Work?

With traditional website design, there is a bottleneck whereby the webmaster must enter all the content into the site. In a large organization, it's possible to have designated contributors each with web editing software like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, but the costs add up, and each person must be trained to work with HTML. The larger the group of contributors, the higher the cost. Speaking from experience, a couple of incorrect keystrokes can ruin a website. One poorly trained contributor can make a huge mess.

With Joomla! a template is set up by the developer, the owner/administrator can give permission to others who would simply need internet access to log in and enter content on their own schedule. There are tools build in to the back end to customize the look and feel of the page, much like you would use in creating a Word document. The administrator can allow others to publish directly, or have it approved first.

The ?J? Factor

Joomla open source cms is recognized as one of the most popular content management systems ion the internet today due to the following factors.

1) User friendly easy to use administrator and front end interface.
2) Secure, Flexible, scaleable modular architecture.
3) Wide range of open source and commercial modules.
4) Open source - no licensing fees.
5) Thriving support community.
6) Wide range of plug-ins including shop's, forums, galleries etc.

Basically Joomla enables you or your business to manage and maintain your web site content with out the need for expensive specialized web development skills or paying someone to maintain your website content.

The administrator interface is very easy to use and is similar toin some respects to a Microsoft word editor, you can add text, images and manage, publish your content with a click of a button.

Features Provided By Joomla:

? Completely database MYSQL driven site engine.
? News, products or services sections fully editable and manageable.
? Topics sections can be added to by contributing authors.
? Fully customizable template layouts including left, center and right menu boxes.
? Browser upload of images to your own library for usinge anywhere in the site.
? Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for getting on-the-spot results and much more.
? Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris and AIX.
? Search Engine Friendly system for getting highest search engine ranking position.
? Open source backend server architecture utilizing apache, MYSQL, PHP.


Administration Features:


? 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.
? Automatic Path-Finder. Place a picture and let Mambo 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.