Creating A Blog Site With Joomla

By Author: Barrie North
Total Articles: 4762
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There are many ways to create a blog, with tools ranging from the most basic text editor to high-end "studio" tools like Adobe Dreamweaver. Many tech-savvy types now use a kind of software program called a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress and Joomla, or a combination of tools, to achieve just what they want. You can do the same if you learn how to use the right programs the right way, and have the option of integrating a WordPress blog into an existing site, simply linking to it or using special Joomla extensions from the user community for a range of other approaches. Please note, however, that this particular article is about creating instant blogs with the resources available in a default Joomla installation.

Joomla sites
The definition of "a Joomla Web site" is simple and straightforward - it is any Web site, whatever it looks like, that is built on and runs on the Joomla CMS. Certain features that you offer, and even some cosmetic considerations like typefaces and design, will make your Joomla site a "blog," but the underlying framework, extensions, templates and so forth are the same as in ...
... any number of other Joomla sites. On typical Web sites of, say, 50 pages, you would create 50 menu items. For easy access to all the pages, you would likely build out both top- and sub-level menus. What we begin to notice is that the number of pages that a blog would eventually grow to include could be vast. With the usual dedicated links to dedicated pages, and possibly a main and a secondary navigation panel, you will be making a lot of links.

That problem is multiplied many times when you think about blogs. Even at a single post per day it would be tedious, and doubly or triply so if you post two or three times daily. Many traditionally built sites are now retooling themselves as CMS- and specifically Joomla-powered sites, just to get around the problem of "page proliferation" and "menu making." A Joomla site - okay, blog - can have any number of pages with links and menus handled in a simple, direct way. This is made possible with Joomla's fabulous blog layout.

Joomla blog rolling
If you follow the simple archiving system of the standard WordPress blog, and do it in Joomla, you have yourself a Joomla blog by anyone's definition. Not only can you build a blog from scratch, you can convert an existing Joomla Web site to a blog format quite easily. The blog layout consists of just two major ingredients, (1) articles on the front page and (2) articles in the archive. This points to one of the most significant advantages of a Joomla blog - its simplicity. The blog layout system with Joomla can manage sites with an incredible amount of content, making it quite useful as a "library-type" front end to any kind of content archive, from car repair manuals to inventory listings.

Simple steps
* In your Web site's "admin" panel, find your way to Content/Section Manager and make a new Section, say, "MyBlog."
* In the Category Manager, create a new category (again, "Myblog" will do) and place it under the MyBlog Section you just made.
* Now navigate to Menu/Main Menu and make a new item by clicking the "New" button, and remember to choose Article/FrontPage Blog Layout for the menu type.
* Name the Menu and hit the "Save" button.
* Head to the Module Manager, create a new module (Archive Module seems appropriate) and display it in your site somewhere.
* In the Article Manager, post a new blog under the "MyBlog" Section and "MyBlog" Category, then select the option "Show on FrontPage." Make another blog entry in the same way, save it and go to your site's front end to see both blog entries.
* If you decide to archive articles by month, go to the Article Manager, select the one you want to archive and click on the "Archive" button.
* If you go to your site's front end and refresh it, you should notice that the selected post is now in the Archive area.
* Finally, when you click on the Archive link you can access the filter options to store and search the Archive by month.

In no time flat, you have a Joomla blog that will archive posts forever and save you from having to create links to the pages. You may wish to revisit a few steps, which is easy to do, and add some more style, color, graphics, options or other content. You are just on the launch pad right now, but get in a little practice and you will be blasting off into cyberspace with Joomla very soon.
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