Will I Lose My Work If I Re-Install?

At times you might have problems with your Joomla, such as certain functionalities not functioning as they should. When that happens, you might be tempted to simply re-install Joomla.

The wonderful Joomla logo!

If that is the case, keep in mind that while this may fix the problems you encounter concerning the functionalities, this will also result in you losing any work you have done upto that point. Thus, instead of re-installing, give the below a try:

- Change your template to the default template to see if this changes anything. Many problems encountered are the result of faults in templates.

- Upload the Joomla files to your site to write over the old files. Sometimes there are corrupted files and everything could be fixed if you can replace that corrupted file with an uncorrupted version. But since you won't be able to determine which is the corrupted file (well, at least not the common user), you'll need to overwrite all of the files. However, do not FTP the installation folder. This will only affect the original Joomla files and will not touch any files that came with other packages (e.g. templates installed after installation will not disappear).

The fastest way to carry out the action presented above is to get your Joomla setup zip, take out the installation folder from it, upload the zip to your site and then extract the folder. This can all be done from cPanel, which I'm sure almost everyone has some familiarity with by now.

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In the "Submit Article" portion, what if text color isn't right? (For Joomla Administrator's ONLY!)

One issue that seems to happen with many Joomla templates is that the text within the "Submit an Article" section blend in with the background, like this:

(This image was taken AFTER I fixed the issue)

To change the color to something that will stand out from the background, simply edit the template's CSS. (template.css)

Once in, find "td.key"

Behind that, change the color to whatever you want. Once saved, your "Submit Article" portion of the website should be easier to use.

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Hiding Information in an Article

At times, you might not want to show some automatic information which is available when viewing an article. For example, you might not want to show the author or the creation date of the article.

Basically, there are three places where such information's settings exist. These are article settings, menu settings and the global configuration. What you need to keep in mind is that the article settings override the menu setttings and that the menu settings override the global settings.

Th changes are made in Parameters > Advanced. Once you go there you will see many options. Let us take the one called Author Name is a choice. You can see that you have Use Global, Show and Hide as the three options. The choice you will have within settings of the article at hand, will determine whether the author of the article will be shown or not. But this will only affect this article. Thus, from where you want to make the changes depends on what you wish to do. If you just want to hide certain information from a few articles or if each article will have a different info hidden, then you should make the changes within the articles' parameters.

If you wish for the global settings to be used, you need to choose

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The Article is Currently Being Edited by Another Editor

If you have more than one editor at your Joomla site, you need to keep in mind that only one editor can edit an article at a time. So, once an editor has gone inside an article to make edits, the other editors will not be able to go in that article until the first editor has finished his or her editing.

But what might happen at times is that the editor who went in the article could end up not making any changes and rather than closing the article with the cancel button, he or she might just close the browser or browse away from the backend. This will result in the article being locked.

If this is the case, you simply need to go to Tools > Global Checkin. This will get rid of the locked status of any article which might have ended up staying as locked.

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How to See the Module Positions

As you know, each theme can have different module positions. In fact, some of them can be quite different from what the default theme's positions are. When that is the case, you might not be able to show a certain module in where you think it needs to show up.

For example, usually there is an area called top, just at the top of your theme. Similarly, you might have a left and a right area. The problem is, this does not necessarily mean that the person who made the theme called the top area of the theme, "top." He could have just as easily called it "user4" or something else. Thus, you need to see the names of the module positions to be able to place a module in the right place.

To do this, simple add index.php?tp=1 to the end of your site's main address when viewing your site. Easy as that, you will be able to see all your site with the module position names in place.

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RSS Feed on Frontpage of Site?

Some Joomla users were wondering if there's a way to show RSS feeds right in the center of your frontpage, rather than in the modules and without the need of any extensions to be installed. Well, there is, and it's much simpler than one thinks.

In your backend, you should go to Menus and find your main menu. Once in there, click on Home. Once in, you will see on top that you have the option to Change Type. The type you want to switch to is News Feeds.

Once you select that, you will be presented with three choices: Category List Layout, Category Layout and Single Feed Layout. The choice here is totally up to you. But do remember that to be able to select a feed, you will need to first create your feeds and categories under Components > News Feeds.

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Can you post articles from the frontpage?

The answers is, yes. But to be able to do so, you will need to have the login module and the submit article link show in your template. The login should automatically be there when you install Joomla, but you might have removed it at one point. If so, look under Extensions > Module Manager to locate the related module. Its name is mod_login. This module is necessary because unless you are logged in from the frontpage of your site, you will not be able to publish and article.

You should have your settings in such a way that once logged in, user levels for which you have provided the option should see a user menu. Under this user menu, you will need to have the Submit Article link. If for some reason you don't have this, don't worry. You can just create a new one. In your administration backend, go to Menus. From there, go to the User Menu. Then click on the green New button to create a new menu item. From there, select Articles > Article > Article Submission Layout. The ability to submit articles will only work for user levels Author and above. So even if you were to make the related link public, only you and people you have designated as authors and above will be able to make use of it.

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How to create an Article in the Back-End.

BEFORE YOU CREATE AN ARTICLE, YOU MUST FIRST HAVE A MODULE AND MENU ITEM SET UP. To see how you create a Module, follow this link. To see how to create a Menu, follow this link.

1. Go to Content>Article Manager (if you are in the control panel of the Back-End, simply click on Add New Article.)
2. A new screen should appear. Give it a name in the Title box.
3. Decide whether or not it will be published
4. Decide whether or not it will be shown on the front page of your site
5. Select which Section, and which Category your article will be shown in.
6. On the right side of the screen, decide who the author is (this usually defaults to your name since you are logged in.)
7. Decide the access level (which users can see the article)
8. Pick a Start Publishing Date. This defaults to the time and date of when you create the article. You can change it to a different time in the future, allowing you to create the article and it not publish until the time you decide. (Please remember that the time for this is military time.)
9. Pick a date for Finish Publishing. If you do not want the article to stop publishing until you manually turn it off, then leave this blank.
10. Under Parameters, change the settings to what you prefer. If you are wondering what each setting does, simply put your mouse over it for a second and it will explain.
11. Enter in the content you want on your site.

Once everything is complete, click the Save or Apply button on the top right. It will immediately be seen on your site, under the previously determined menu item.

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How to create a Menu Module

You must first rememeber what a module is. They are the boxes you find either on the left or right side of the site. If you want a menu with various links inside it, then you must create that menu first. Follow these steps to create the module.

1. Create the section by going to Content>Section Manager
2. Click New, and label your section. (For example, all sites need a Main Menu.)
3. Now you create the menu. Go to Menus>Menu Manager
4. Click New, and label the menu you want to create.
5. Now you create the module that associates with that menu.
6. Go to Extenstion>Module Manager.
7. Click New>Menu>Next>Give it a title, and on the right, select the Menu Name
8. You also want to pay attention to the Position drop down. It defaults to left, but if you want the module to show on the right side of your site, then change it to such. You can also decide what the access level is. If you have it set to Public, then anybody who comes to the site will see the module and everything in it. If you have it set to registered, then it will only show up when somebody is a general registered user on the front-end of the site. If you have it set to special, then only those who are registered and have access to the back-end of the site will see the module. Those who are only registered for the front-end will NOT be able to see the module if it is set to Special.

Once you have finished those steps, the module will be visible. To add menu items within the module, then please read the posting labelled "How to add menu items in a module."

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