Most bloggers, Internet marketers, and individuals use the web to publish content. They generally don’t care about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or PHP. The web content management system (CMS) is a complete platform for creating a website from scratch. It provides the framework necessary to communicate with the database, store and retrieve data, dynamically create pages, deal with authentication, and perform other tasks necessary for any website. The main advantage of using CMS is that you can focus on the content. Install the system, select the template and some plugins, and you’re good to go. One of the most popular web systems is Joomla.
Joomla is a free and universal open source content management system. Universality means that you can adapt it for almost any purpose. Bloggers often choose WordPress as their blogging platform. This is a natural choice, but you can also blog with Joomla. The basic installation provides the backbone for a working website. The page layout can be configured by installing the appropriate template. You can choose from thousands of free templates or pay a small fee for a professional customizable design. Additional features and functionality can be added with various extensions. Depending on the extension function, they are available as components, modules or add-ons. Extensions make Joomla extremely universal.
The beauty of extensions is that there is one for every function or feature imaginable. Whenever you need some functionality for the website, you can go to the Joomla extensions page and search for the correct module. Some extensions are available for free, but others will have to pay. And if for some reason you can’t find a suitable extension, you can modify an existing one or you can create a new one from scratch according to your needs. For this, you will need to know a little about HTML and PHP, but this is not a problem as both languages can be easily learned from existing code samples.
Another nice feature of Joomla is the customization of the central system. With code modifications, you can change the default layout for most types of pages. If this is not enough, you can modify any Joomla file to achieve the desired functionality. For this type of customization, you should be aware that any update can overwrite the modified files. But if you are a skilled web programmer, this will not be a problem. Since Joomla is an open source platform, you can modify it however you want. Most of the customizations can be done without knowing any of the web languages, but if you know them you will have a very easy and pleasant task.