Components are typically larger extensions that produce the major content for your Joomla!^® website.

Each component has one or more "views" that control how content is displayed.

In the Joomla administrator area there are additional extensions such as Menus, Redirection, and extension managers.

Components are the main functional units of Joomla - components may be seen as mini-applications.

An analogy would be that Joomla is the operating system and the components are desktop applications.

Most components have two main sections:

• an administrator section
• a front-end section

The front-end section is what is used to display pages of your website to your website visitors.

The administrator section provides an interface to configure and manage different aspects of the component and is accessible through the Joomla! website administrator section.

Joomla comes with a number of core components, such as:

• the content management system
• contact form(s)
• Web Links
• Modules

Your default installation of Joomla includes the following Components, accessible from the 'Components' menu item in the Administrator area

• Banners
• Contacts
• Joomla Update
• Messaging
• Multilingual Associations
• News Feeds
• Post Installation Messages
• Redirects
• Search
• Smart Search
• Tags

When you install additional Components, for example JCE Editor, Akeeba AdminTools, Akeeba Backup - all of which we write about elsewhere on UsingJoomla.com, these too will appear in the 'Components' menu in the Administrator area.

An example of the 'Components' Administrator Area menu item is shown below.

Administrator area menu "Components" tab.

Default Joomla! version 3.10.x components shown above.

When you install components they will be added to the Components tab.

In the above menu example, items with a right-pointing arrow have a sub-menu available by clicking the right-arrow.

This image shows Joomla! v3.10.x components.

As you install components they will be added under the 'Components' tab.

This shows the UsingJoomla.com Administrator area 'Components' Tab - we write about a number of these components on this site within the UsingJoomla.com site 'Tools' mainmenu tab.

In the above menu example, items with a right-pointing arrow have a sub-menu available by clicking the right-arrow.

Select from the list below of Joomla Components to read about the specific component.

In the list below, some 'Components' appear in the more relevant administrator area menu tab. Such as: Categories appear in the 'Content' tab, and User administrator area components are listed within the 'Users' administrator area menu tab.

Overwhelmed ? Please do not feel overwhelmed. Over the next few weeks we aim to provide screenshot images of the administrator area menu items - as we have provide one such image above.

You can, of course, also use the 'Components' mainmenu dropdown tab on UsingJoomla.com to select a Joomla Component to read about.