Overview

What is Joomla!? - Joomla is a system for creating a database-driven website. What is a database-driven website? In the early days of the web, websites consisted of linked pages written in HTML. All of the "content" and all the "links" were written right there in the HTML files. In a database-driven website, the HTML page has code (scripting) that makes calls for the insertion of data from a database. The data is then retrieved from the database and inserted in the HTML pages. The database stores all of the website's content including all of the text and all of the menu hyperlinks, hence the saying "database-driven." In the end it is an advanced way of creating webpages and utilizing the power that access to a database has to offer. If you are still not sure what constitutes a database driven website then ask yourself this question, "Does the website ask me to create a user account and login password?" If it does chances are it is a database driven site because all those user settings like username and password are easily stored retrieved and modified by accessing a database.

In order to develop a Joomla site on your own computer, a database-driven website, you need to have a database server (in this case MySQL), a special scripting language (in this case PhP), and a webserver (in this case Apache). Our first hands-on project will be to set up a test environment on our own local computers (see below), so we can test out Joomla!, and start developing practice websites. In my class, I recommend that the students purchase the latest edition of "Joomla! A Users Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website" by Barrie North. It is a helpful text when learning how to work with Joomla.

Assignment 1 - Download and Install WampServer

Your first assignment is to (1) read the preface and chapter 1 of the textbook, as well as the appendix on Wampserver or Wamp5, depending on the version of the book that you purchased. I just found out recently that the book has an updated version. Either version of the book will be fine since they are extremely similar. (2) I want you to install Wampserver on your computer or laptop. If you are working in my lab you should install it to one of the computers in the lab. You can download WampServer here: http://www.wampserver.com/en/

Video Tutorials

I have created a series of video tutorials on this process:

Install WampServer Part 1

 In this video, I show you how to secure your WampServer by adding a root password to the MySQL server