How to Blog on Joomla

How to Blog on Joomla Robbie Ferguson: Okay, I’m going to bring up your website Carrie. Carrie Webb: Okay and you take note old bold style at Canon paper. Robbie Ferguson: Okay, how does it work? Carrie Webb: I’ll show you later. Robbie Ferguson: Okay. Carrie Webb: How do the feature? Robbie Ferguson: CarrieWeb.com is Carrie’s new website and she is going to be blogging. Look, Carrie a widget. Carrie Webb: A widget, isn’t that neat? Robbie Ferguson: So, now what we’re going to do is we’re going to actually go through and learn to blog on a Joomla content management and stuff. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, if you’re following along at home you can learn this along with Carrie and certainly visit her website often and visit her blog since you’re cute that you need to actually write your blog entries. Carrie Webb: Visit her blog. Robbie Ferguson: Visit her blog and be able to follow along and learn along with Carrie and if you have any specific questions if you’re following along and learning with her then it’s an opportunity for you as a viewer to be able to get your questions, enter the chat room during the live show and things like that. So, Carrie all we want to do is just add administrator. If I type it right that will be good, Administrator to the end of your address so if you’re using Joomla that’s how you do it. You just add Administrator to the end of the address and that’s going to take you to the main log and alright, so now you log in as you’re like with your user access. I will provide that for you. Carrie Webb: Oh, thank you. Robbie Ferguson: I’m so helpful. Carrie Webb: Yeah. Robbie Ferguson: I can’t talk and type, you see that? Every time I talk and type I don’t do it very well. Carrie Webb: It’s okay I can’t sing and clap. Robbie Ferguson: Here, so what I want to learn today I’m just going to touch on Carrie’s creating sections and categories and then creating our first blog entry which is just a very, very basic blog entry. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, this is the Administrator panel of Joomla 1.5.9, so this is what Carrie is currently basing her website on. So we’ve got basically the quick links here. These are kind of handy. That’s called the control panel but the first thing we want to do and I’ve already started setting this up for you Carrie but we’re going to learn sections and categories. So, a section aside your blog so you’re probably not going to need that because on your website. Pardon me I’ve already created Carrie’s blog. Carrie Webb: Nice. Robbie Ferguson: So, if you haven’t created like a blog entry in your sections you need to do that first thing and then from there we’re going to create categories within your blog section, so now we’re going to Category Manager okay? And then we can select section over here. We’re going to Carrie’s blog or your blog or whatever you want to call it and then create sections here. These are categories so I created general musing for just here to general facts, technology and you can create new sections just by going up here and clicking on new categories. Carrie Webb: Okay, this is a section. Robbie Ferguson: This is a category. Carrie Webb: Oh, gosh. Robbie Ferguson: You won’t ever need to create a section because I created Carrie’s blog. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: And two sections, so we’re always going to created your categories within Carrie’s blog not under the text articles but Carrie’s blog. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: This is major blog category. What would you blog about? Just start talking here at just one thing. Carrie Webb: Hobbies, I don’t know. Robbie Ferguson: Hobbies, okay so let’s — Carrie Webb: Day to day. Robbie Ferguson: So, when we say like— Carrie Webb: Category5 Robbie Ferguson: Medical stuff. Carrie Webb: Sure. Robbie Ferguson: Because you seem to know a lot about it. Carrie Webb: Sure. Robbie Ferguson: Or Category5 related yeah, that’s fine too. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: Let’s just say you want to have an actual blog about Catregory5, your experience with working with Robbie Ferguson, right? So, you can create a new entry with that title, okay. So, this is your category. We’re going to publish it yes. Set it to Carrie’s blog and you can actually if you want to start taking registrations you can set whether you want people to have to be registered or not or we’re just going to say public. This is a public blog. Carrie Webb: Public means anyone can read it. Robbie Ferguson: Anyone can read it. They can find you in Google and they can join you. They can read it. Carrie Webb: But it’s not like a Facebook wall where they can leave a message, alright. Robbie Ferguson: They can if you set it up that way but no it’s more safe for them to be able to read. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: And Facebook is more personal like that you only want to add your very closest friends and stuff. Carrie Webb: Right. Robbie Ferguson: Whereas this is like this is just your musings. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: It’s a place for you to talk about the things that you’ve learned or whatever. It is just like an online journal but everybody can read it. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, fun, fun. Carrie Webb: Very. Robbie Ferguson: So, when you’re done there and you ventured all that information you just save and now we’ve got this new category called Category5. That was pretty straightforward. Carrie Webb: I think I’ve got it. Robbie Ferguson: Okay, so we now have a category and we can start now blogging within that category. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, that’s going to actually be sort of that people can go into Carrie’s blog and then Category5 and view only the stuff that pertains to Category5. Carrie Webb: So, how many different categories can I have? Robbie Ferguson: You can use as you want, unlimited. Carrie Webb: So, I can have like for breakfast like everything. Robbie Ferguson: Yeah, let’s try to keep it. You don’t want to be confused like and then you’ll have to figure out okay, where I do put this? This is more like breakfast or brunch, take with food. Food and then— Carrie Webb: Okay, keep it broad. Robbie Ferguson: Yeah, keep it broad and then you can have anything that falls within that into that category, alright. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, now we’ll create our first blog entry and with a single content, article manager and remember this can be a little different if you’re using Joomla 1.0.X as opposed to 1.5, so there’s your three current entries on the website so we’re going to new up here. We’re going to create a new blog entry. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: That’s how easy it’s going to be, so the first thing we need to do is give it a title, “Working with Robbie.” Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: Give it an alias, “Working with Robbie.” Carrie Webb: I like it. Robbie Ferguson: Yeah, you can leave that blank and that’s going to automatically create it for you, section, Carrie’s blog. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: It’s very important you need to select that and then where you want it, where this will fall. Carrie Webb: Oh, pick a category. Robbie Ferguson: It falls under Category5. Carrie Webb: Right. Robbie Ferguson: If you like if this is an important blog entry you can add it to your front page. Carrie Webb: So, let’s say if I’m adding something each day and I want it to be the first thing that viewers see I can make that my first page article. Robbie Ferguson: Well, adding it to your front page means that they’re just going to CarrieWebb.com. They’ll see it right there. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: As opposed to actually having to click on blog. This is always going to be at the top because it’s shown like newest first alright. Carrie Webb: So, it will be something —okay, yeah. Robbie Ferguson: So, in this case let’s say we’re not going to put on the front page but we’re going to start blogging, so then you can just start typing away and it will actually aggravate your I can make your way as well so you can do bold and stuff like that, so it’s like a little different. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, that’s all there is to it, so if that was your actual blog entry it’s very, very basic for today. We’re going to hit save. It’s going to tell you if you made any errors but in this case we’ve done okay, so then if we go back to your website and click on Carrie’s blog over on the left hand side you’ll see that the first item is going to be working with Robbie. That’s the item that we’ve just created. Carrie Webb: Now, you click Carrie’s blog but you didn’t have to select a category. Robbie Ferguson: No, because in this case there’s nothing else. Carrie Webb: Okay, if I had other things and other categories. Robbie Ferguson: People can narrow down by category but they don’t have to. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: So, in putting them in categories gives people the opportunity to only see certain topics. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: But by default the view is going to show everything that you blog about. Carrie Webb: Okay, that’s great. That’s really straightforward. Robbie Ferguson: If you get lost Carrie you can watch it underneath. Carrie Webb: I could. I could watch it underneath.