How to Create Joomla Blog and News Site and Improve Site Navigation
Working with Joomla, it is very important to keep in mind division of content into sections and categories.
This option will give you a lot of advantages in future such as: simplified creation of newswires, subscriptions and blogs, ability to create easy-to-use site navigation, quick search of articles, etc.
In order to create a new section you should:
1. Enter to the administrator’s panel;
2. Select Content-> Section Manager menu item;
3. Click New button at the top of the page;
4. Enter a Title;
5. Click Save.
To create a new category please follow:
1. Enter to the administrator’s panel;
2. Select Content->Category Manager menu item;
3. Click New;
4. Enter name of the category to the Title field and select one of the existing sections from Section drop-down list;
5. Click Save.
From now, while adding a new article you should first specify section and category for it. If there is no appropriate section (category) create new ones.
Article allocated on your site in such manner can be easy found with the help of filter.
Now let us consider the main areas for using of content division.
Creating a blog
So our content is now divided into different sections and categories. And it is possible to create blog using such division:
1. Enter to the administrator’s panel;
2. Select a menu item you wish to create a link to your blog in from the Menus;
3. Click New button at the top right corner of the page;
4. Select Articles->Category Blog Layout;
5. Enter name of a link to the Title field;
6. At the Parameters (Basic) area select category for blog generating from Category drop-down list;
7. Set up other settings (Leading, Intro, Columns, Links);
8. Click Save.
Refresh the site main page and you will see the created link. Clicking this link will show the page in the form of blog.
Creating a newswire
To create a newswire you should repeat steps 1-5 for blog creating and then make the following settings:
1. At the Parameters (Advanced) area set value of Primary Order value to Oldest First;
2. Within the Parameters (Component) area, make your settings for a newswire. Read popup tips if you meet any problems;
3. Click Save.
Our newswire is ready; all articles will be published from the specified category in chronological order. The latest news will always be at the top of the page.
Creating and setting up modules for different pages.
Content division is also very useful for creating and setting up of modules for different site pages. How can we make some module to be displayed at a certain page?
1. Enter to the administrator’s panel;
2. Select Extensions -> Module Manager menu item;
3. Select a module (check it from the list and click Edit);
4. Within the Menu Assignment area, set Menus option to Select Menu Item(s) from the List;
5. Select pages this module will be displayed at. If you wish to display this module at more than one page, select them holding CTRL key;
6. Click Save
You can set an individual set of pages for every module. The module will be displayed on all of them.