The improved Installer can be found under the Extensions Menu. With versions prior to Joomla! 1.5 you needed to select a specific Extension type when you wanted to install it and use the Installer associated with it, with Joomla! 1.5 you just select the Extension you want to upload, and click on install. The Installer will do all the hard work for you.

You indeed can change the Menu Item’s Type to whatever you want, even after they have been created.

If, for instance, you want to change the Blog Section of a Menu link, go to the Control Panel->Menus Menu->[menuname]->Menu Item Manager and edit the Menu Item. Select the Change Type button and choose the new style of Menu Item Type from the available list. Thereafter, alter the Details and Parameters to reconfigure the display for the new selection as you require it.

In Joomla! versions prior to 1.5 there were separate processes for creating a Static Content Item and normal Content Items. The processes have been combined now and whilst both content types are still around they are renamed as Articles for Content Items and Uncategorized Articles for Static Content Items.

If you want to create a static item, create a new Article in the same way as for standard content and rather than relating this to a particular Section and Category just select Uncategorized as the option in the Section and Category drop down lists.

Joomla! makes it easy to launch a Web site of any kind. Whether you want a brochure site or you are building a large online community, Joomla! allows you to deploy a new site in minutes and add extra functionality as you need it. The hundreds of available Extensions will help to expand your site and allow you to deliver new services that extend your reach into the Internet.

With a library of thousands of free Extensions, you can add what you need as your site grows. Don’t wait, look through the Joomla! Extensions library today.

The one thing about a Web site, it always changes! Joomla! makes it easy to add Articles, content, images, videos, and more. Site administrators can edit and manage content ‘in-context’ by clicking the ‘Edit’ link. Webmasters can also edit content through a graphical Control Panel that gives you complete control over your site.

Here are some interesting facts about Joomla!

• Over 210,000 active registered Users on the Official Joomla! community forum and more on the many international community sites.
  • over 1,000,000 posts in over 200,000 topics
  • over 1,200 posts per day
  • growing at 150 new participants each day!
• 1168 Projects on the JoomlaCode (joomlacode.org ). All for open source addons by third party developers.
  • Well over 6,000,000 downloads of Joomla! since the migration to JoomlaCode in March 2007.
    
• Nearly 4,000 extensions for Joomla! have been registered on the Joomla! Extension Directory
• Joomla.org exceeds 2 TB of traffic per month!

Support

Support for the Joomla! CMS can be found on several places. The best place to start would be the Joomla! Official Documentation Wiki. Here you can help yourself to the information that is regularly published and updated as Joomla! develops. There is much more to come too!

Of course you should not forget the Help System of the CMS itself. On the topmenu in the Back-end Control panel you find the Help button which will provide you with lots of explanation on features.

Another great place would of course be the Forum . On the Joomla! Forum you can find help and support from Community members as well as from Joomla! Core members and Working Group members. The forum contains a lot of information, FAQ’s, just about anything you are looking for in terms of support.

Two other resources for Support are the Joomla! Developer Site and the Joomla! Extensions Directory (JED). The Joomla! Developer Site provides lots of technical information for the experienced Developer as well as those new to Joomla! and development work in general. The JED whilst not a support site in the strictest sense has many of the Extensions that you will need as you develop your own Web site.

The Joomla! Developers and Bug Squad members are regularly posting their blog reports about several topics such as programming techniques and security issues.

Documentation

Joomla! Documentation can of course be found on the Joomla! Official Documentation Wiki. You can find information for beginners, installation, upgrade, Frequently Asked Questions, developer topics, and a lot more. The Documentation Team helps oversee the wiki but you are invited to contribute content, as well.

There are also books written about Joomla! You can find a listing of these books in the Joomla! Shop.

If you’re new to Web publishing systems, you’ll find that Joomla! delivers sophisticated solutions to your online needs. It can deliver a robust enterprise-level Web site, empowered by endless extensibility for your bespoke publishing needs. Moreover, it is often the system of choice for small business or home users who want a professional looking site that’s simple to deploy and use. We do content right.

So what’s the catch? How much does this system cost?

Well, there’s good news … and more good news! Joomla! 1.5 is free, it is released under an Open Source license – the GNU/General Public License v 2.0. Had you invested in a mainstream, commercial alternative, there’d be nothing but moths left in your wallet and to add new functionality would probably mean taking out a second mortgage each time you wanted something adding!

Joomla! changes all that …
Joomla! is different from the normal models for content management software. For a start, it’s not complicated. Joomla! has been developed for everybody, and anybody can develop it further. It is designed to work (primarily) with other Open Source, free, software such as PHP, MySQL, and Apache.

It is easy to install and administer, and is reliable.

Joomla! doesn’t even require the user or administrator of the system to know HTML to operate it once it’s up and running.

To get the perfect Web site with all the functionality that you require for your particular application may take additional time and effort, but with the Joomla! Community support that is available and the many Third Party Developers actively creating and releasing new Extensions for the 1.5 platform on an almost daily basis, there is likely to be something out there to meet your needs. Or you could develop your own Extensions and make these available to the rest of the community.

Joomla! features:

• Completely database driven site engines
• News, products, or services sections fully editable and manageable
• Topics sections can be added to by contributing Authors
• Fully customisable layouts including left, center, and right Menu boxes
• Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site
• Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for on-the-spot results
• Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris, and AIX