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Gantry5 and RocketTheme on Joomla! CMS

Preface

Interesting sites :

Of Note:

Other Items to Install

  1. Ark Editor
  2. Gantry 5 template - Helium

Overview

Analogy to a house

  • Joomla! is the concrete foundation. (This is where your data is stored and managed.)
  • Gantry5 (template framework) is the woodwork that gives the house structure such as walls, windows, doorways, and a roof.
  • RocketTheme it is the trim, paint, door knobs, light fixtures, and pretty much every little detail that gives the house its unique look and feel.

Joomla! CMS

Is a content management system (CMS) for publishing. It is built on a model–view–controller framework that can be used independently of the CMS. Joomla! is written in PHP, uses object-oriented programming (OOP) and software design patterns and stores data in a database.

A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them.

Joomla! Framework

Purpose: writing web and command line applications in PHP.  Joomla! Framework is the underlying technology to create the product we use, which is Joomla! CMS.

  • Inventory control systems
  • Data reporting tools
  • Application bridges
  • Custom product catalogs
  • Reservation systems
  • Communication tools

A "simple" example of using just the framework, https://github.com/dbhurley/framework-app

Extensions

Reference picture

  • Components are the major portion of your page because a component is driven by a menu item and every menu item runs a component.
  • Modules are more lightweight and flexible extensions used for page rendering.
    Examples: Banners (mod_banners), Menus (mod_menu),
  • Plugins are more advanced extensions and are in essence event handlers.
    Examples: Content - Load Modules, Editor - TinyMCE
  • Templates are basically the design of your Joomla! powered website. With a template you can change the look and feel of your website.
  • Languages package files consist of key/value pairs, which provide the translation of static text strings, assigned within the Joomla! source code.

Understanding categories and articles

  • Articles: Think of articles as pure content, independent of the way it might be presented.
  • Categories in Joomla! provide an optional method for organizing your articles

Menu and Menu Items

In Joomla!, Menus and Menu Items provide the overall structure for the site.

Gantry 5

  1. Outline - A container on which a page's style, settings, and layout are set (equivalent to a template). Outlines allow you to modify and customize individual pages. You create a new Outline, assign it to the page you want, modify the Outline settings and then those modifications will affect only this particular page. Basically, you use the Outlines to override the default theme settings that you have in the Base outline.
    • I recommend using at least three different Outlines for a website. This includes the Base Outline and adding a Landing Page Outline and a Content Page Outline. Since you cannot assign the Base Outline, you actually have just two Outlines to choose from. Global edits would occur on the Base Outline and page specific overrides would change Landing or Content Outlines.
  2. Particles
    1. Standard Particles - Front-end modules (content blocks) that work much like Joomla modules but can be configured in Gantry interface
    2. Position Particles - blocks that can have content or scripting assigned to them by Joomla
    3. Atoms - Are a subset of particles but work behind the scenes and can contain CSS, JavaScript (non-rendered content)
  3. Nucleus - CSS grid system framework

Particle Defaults

The Particle Defaults panel is really useful if you want to give your particles global default settings. By default, it only appears in the Base Outline and any changes you make here become the particle's default setting. For the most part, you'll go here to set things that are static like the logo and copyright information.

Page Settings

Google Analytics, Favicon, Meta Tags, JavaScript, CSS (styling)

It's the go-to spot for adding scripts in the header and footer of your site.

Layout Manager

You can add things, remove them, resize them, create module/widget positions, and configure particles without touching the keyboard.

Menu Editor

Reaarrange and inject particles

It takes your menu from Joomla and decorates it before passing it along to the website visitor.

RocketTheme

Login details -> Send request to me.

www.rockettheme.com

Other Notes

Install Joomla, Gantry5, Theme

Database (MySQL cmd line)

mysql -r <username> -p
create database talk;
create user 'talk'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
grant all on talk.* to 'talk'@'localhost';

Apache web service

  1. Create a directory on the public web directory
  2. Download latest Joomla (version 3 or 4)
  3. Unzip to the newly created directory
  4. Change the owner to www-data (Ubuntu)
  5. Open a web browser to your web server and new directory
  6. Enter Joomla configuration details
  7. Delete installation folder
  8. Rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess (Ubuntu)

Joomla, Gantry, Themes

  1. Download Gantry5 and any themes you want to install.
  2. Using the Extensions Manager in Joomla
    1. Install Gantry5
    2. Install one or more Gantry5 themes
    3. Install recommended Extensions