It's easy to get started creating your website - but many people say "it's easy only if you know how" - and that is true.
Knowing some basics will help.
You might like to visit our Skills article for some tips.
What is a Content Management System?
A Content Management System (CMS) is software that lets you to create and manage web-pages easily. This is done by separating the creation of your content (for example articles and modules) from the mechanics required to present it on the web to your website visitors.
In this site as well as all other Joomla!® powered websites, the content is stored in a database.
The look and feel of this, and your website are created by a template. The Joomla software brings together the template and the content to create web pages.
Your default installation of Joomla comes with two templates - you can choose and use one of those if you wish or you can obtain a template from many Joomla template providers.
Site and Administrator
Your Joomla site actually has two separate sites.
The site (also called the front end) is what visitors to your website will see.
On the other hand, the administrator side (also called the back end) is only used by people managing or administrating your site.
You can access the administrator area by adding /administrator to the end of you domain name.
Log in to the administrator using the username and password created during your installation of Joomla
Logging in
To login to the front end of your site use the login form which you may be placed in a Module, - you will see a module on usingjoomla.com on the right hand side of many pages, or the login menu link on the site menu. Using the user name and password that were created as part of the installation process.
Once logged-in you will be able to create and edit articles.
In managing your site, you will be able to create content that only logged-in users are able to see.
Creating an article
Once you are logged-in to your website front-end, a new menu will be visible. To create a new article, click on the "submit article" link on that menu.
The new article interface gives you a lot of options, but all you need to do is add a title and put something in the content area.
To make it easy to find, set the state to published and put it in the Joomla category.
You can edit an existing article by clicking on the edit icon but this icon only displays to users who have the right to edit.
Alternatively, an article can be created and an existing article edited by logging in to your website Administrator area where you will see an Administrator Menu that includes an "Articles" tab.
