Joomla! 4 Masterclass: A practitioner's guide to building rich and modern websites using the brand-new features of Joomla 4

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Joomla! 4 Masterclass

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To my grandmother, Gina, for her love and support.

Special thanks to my friends Eugenia and Giovanni, and my sister Erica, for their support on this writing adventure.

– Luca Marzo

Foreword

Powering millions of websites worldwide, Joomla has proven to be one of the major content management systems (CMSes). It’s flexible, versatile, secure, and very stable, and it’s packed with possibilities, right inside the core. Whether you’re a first-time hobby user or a web developer by profession, Joomla 4 (the latest version) offers you a platform you can use to build almost everything you can imagine… if you know how and where to start.

And that is exactly what this book is about. In Joomla! 4 Masterclass, Luca Marzo explains everything you need to know to create any – and by any, I really mean any – kind of website. The book covers information for users at various skill levels, whether creating your first content, customizing the look and feel of your website, using extensions, creating overrides, or using Joomla’s CLI.

If anyone can thoroughly guide you through the many options of Joomla, it is Luca. He has been secretary of Joomla’s board of directors since 2017 and was in several Joomla teams before that (in case you didn’t know, the developers, maintainers, and everyone else working for Joomla are all volunteers). Luca breathes Joomla. He is dedicated, committed, thorough, and meticulous, and he knows virtually everything there is to know. When he told me he was going to write this book, I was thrilled, because I knew it would turn out the way it has: a comprehensive guide for everyone who wants to explore the countless features and possibilities of the world’s most powerful CMS.

Enjoy the ride!

Anja de Crom

Team Leader, Joomla! Community Magazine Team

Contributors

About the author

Luca Marzo is a technology professional with more than 15 years of experience. During his career, he has had the chance to develop websites with Joomla as a freelancer for small to medium-sized companies. He served as an IBMer for 1.5 years. After that, he moved to the web hosting industry. His love for Joomla was born in 2007, a few months after which he started contributing to the Italian Joomla Community. He then progressed to contribute to the global community, where he had the opportunity to serve as the secretary and member of the board of directors for The Joomla Project at a global level for more than 5 years. In The Joomla Project, he has also contributed to the Certification Program, the Community Magazine, and the Extensions Directory.

About the reviewers

Pascal Abatiello is a trainer, editor, and writer. He founded his company in 2012, developing a network of e-learning websites and providing training classes about major CMSes, including Joomla, WordPress, and PrestaShop; SEO techniques; and digital marketing. He’s also the co-founder of Host Academy, a leading e-learning portal that has trained thousands of webmasters and website integrators.

Benjamin Trenkle is a Joomla developer and the owner of Wicked Software, a web development company based in Munich, Germany. He is deeply involved in the Joomla! community, serving as a release lead and production department coordinator. In his free time, Benjamin enjoys programming and volunteering. He is passionate about using his skills to make a positive impact on the world. On his home page, www.wicked-software.de, Benjamin showcases some of his work and extensions and provides information on his services and experience.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1 – Joomla! Out of the Box

1

A Powerful and Extensible Core

Technical requirements

The backend application

The backend experience

Exploring the Joomla dashboards

Extensions

Extension types

Extensions management

Exploring the included components

The Banners component

The Contacts component

The News Feeds component

The Smart Search engine

The Tags component

Summary

Further reading

2

How to Manage Content

Exploring articles in Joomla

Creating a new article

Content

Images and Links

Exploring Publishing and SEO settings

Article Options

Exploring the Media Manager

Media editing features

Getting to know categories

Page, post, or article? That is the dilemma!

Exercises

Exercise 1 – categories

Exercise 2 – articles

Summary

3

Advanced Content Management

Enrich your articles with custom fields

What is a custom field?

Custom field groups

Adding custom fields to articles

Adding content to custom fields

Case study – building a directory with custom fields

Planning the structure

Custom publishing workflow

Exploring workflows

Transitions

Basic Workflow

Case study – an online magazine with Joomla

Workflow implementation

Accessibility by default – the JooA11y tool

Exercises

Exercise 1 – Create a custom field

Summary

Further reading

4

Exploring the Flexibility of Modules

What is a module?

Exploring the types of modules

The custom module

Module positions and assignments

Adding a module to your website

Backend modules

Case study – a custom backend dashboard

The scenario

Implementation

Summary

Exercises

Exercise 1 – creating a custom module

Resources

5

Building Your Site Structure: the Menu System

The menu system

Creating a menu

Creating a new menu item

Exploring available menu item types

Menu item options

Menu and SEO configuration

Menu and languages

Summary

Exercises

Exercise 1 – create a menu and a menu item

Exercise 2 – a category list

6

Managing Users and Their Permissions

Users Dashboard

User accounts

Creating a new user account

Editing a user profile

User Groups

Creating a user group

Access levels

Creating a new access level

Managing permissions and privileges

Managing permissions of a component

Managing permissions for a single item

Specifying access permission for items

Users – custom fields

User notes

Mass mail

Built-in privacy features

Privacy Dashboard

Setting a privacy policy

Privacy requests

User Action Log

Summary

Exercises

Exercise 1 – user groups and permissions

Exercise 2 – privacy features

Part 2: Advanced Features

7

SEO at Its Best

Exploring on-page SEO features

Optimizing an article

SEO options offered by menus

Robots management

SEO-friendly URLs

Handling 404 errors

Exercises

Exercise 1 – Friendly URLs

Exercise 2 – Article SEO

Summary

Further reading

8

One Site, Multiple Languages

Building a multilingual website

How to set up a multilingual website

Plugin: System – Language Filter

Plugin: System – Language Code

Checking your website’s multilanguage status

Remove the module that holds the home for all languages

Publishing home pages for each language

Publishing the Language Switcher module

Managing content in multiple languages

Multilingual Associations

A different website for each language

Exercises

Exercise 1 – Set up a multilingual website

Exercise 2 – Multilingual Associations

Summary

Further reading

9

Planning Operations with Scheduled Tasks

What is a Scheduled Task?

Creating a scheduled task

Example – scheduled maintenance window

Example – automatically optimizing your images

Exercises

Exercise 1 – handling planned maintenance

Exercise 2 – calling an endpoint

Summary

Further reading

10

Tailored Communication with Mail Templates

Notifications as a branding item

The Mail Templates feature

Customizing an email template

Case study – customizing the user registration email

Exercises

Exercise 1 – customizing the courtesy Contact Form Mail Copy

Exercise 2 – modifying your emails with your logo

Summary

11

Command-Line Interface

Using Joomla via the CLI

Available commands

Example – managing users through the CLI

Example – updating your site through the CLI

Exercises

Exercise 1 – accessing Joomla’s CLI

Exercise 2 – Scheduled Tasks via the CLI

Summary

Further reading

Part 3: Styling and Securing Your Website

12

Styling Your Website – Templates

What is a template?

Template management – templates

Template management – styles

Example – a powerful frontend template, Cassiopeia

Exploring backend templates

Template positions

Exercises

Exercise 1 – customizing your frontend template

Exercise 2 – creating a new template style

Summary

13

Customize Everything with Overrides

What is an override?

Where to use overrides

Example – overriding the appearance of a single article

Example – overriding the style of a module

Language overrides

Exercises

Exercise 1 – Create a module override

Exercise 2 – Create a language override

Summary

Further reading

14

Child Templates

What is a child template?

Creating a child template

Child templates and overrides

Child templates or duplicated templates

Exercises

Exercise 1 – creating a child template

Summary

Further reading

15

Template Frameworks

What is a template framework?

Why use a template framework

Most used template frameworks

Example – Helix Ultimate

Installing Helix Ultimate

Customizing with Helix Ultimate

Example – T4 Framework

Installing T4 Framework

Customizing with T4 Framework

Example – Gantry

Installing the Gantry framework

Customizing with Gantry

Exercises

Exercise 1 – Use a template framework

Summary

Resources

16

Advanced Features – Access and Security

Setting up passwordless authentication for your website

Multi-factor authentication

Verification Code

YubiKey

Web Authentication

Email Verification

Fixed Code

Enabling multi-factor authentication

Increasing your website security with HTTP headers

Exercises

Exercise 1 – WebAuthn authentication

Exercise 2 – multi-factor authentication

Summary

Further reading

Part 4: Case Studies

17

Case Study – A Corporate Website in Joomla

Introduction

Project goals

Why Joomla?

Reproducing the previous website using another technology

A fast and modern website

Keeping the position

Extensions used

Summary

18

Case Study – Online Academy with Joomla

Introduction

Project goals

Why Joomla?

The solution

Extensions used

Summary

19

Case Study – A B&B Booking System with Joomla

Introduction

Project goals

Why Joomla?

The solution

Extensions used

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Joomla! 4 Masterclass is a book that explores all the major functionalities of the new version of the software. Joomla is one of the most widely used Content Management Systems (CMSes), powering around 2.7% of the world’s websites. Joomla 4.x, released in the third quarter of 2021, is the new major version of the CMS, coming 9 years after the release of Joomla 3.0, and is packed with many new features that empower website integrators, allowing them to build rich websites with ease.

CMSes such as Joomla allow you to develop a website without having coding skills or a command of the PHP, JavaScript, or CSS language. In many cases, you can build composite layouts visually using a drag-and-drop interface. Furthermore, you can extend a CMS’s functionalities by adding extensions, such as plugins, so that you can transform your website into an online shop, a reservation system, or an e-learning portal. All the major CMSes on the market benefit from a large ecosystem of developers providing extensions and templates to heavily customize a website and satisfy most of the needs of website developers or owners.

This book will show you how to build a website, using the numerous features included in Joomla, and debunk certain myths related to its perceived complexity.

Use of the Joomla!® name, symbol, logo, and related trademarks is permitted under a limited license granted by Open Source Matters, Inc.

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for all those who want to start using Joomla, irrespective of whether they have used a previous version or not. Joomla newcomers will benefit from the inclusion of screenshots depicting the functionalities and step-by-step guides. Experienced Joomla users will be introduced to the brand-new features of Joomla 4, seeing them in action in the examples and analyzing three real case studies.

This book is suitable for either website developers or CMS integrators, as well as website owners that would like to become independent, managing their websites by themselves. Exercises at the end of each chapter allow the readers to apply and test their knowledge.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, A Powerful and Extensible Core, introduces the Joomla core, presenting the backend interface and its main features, and the opportunities to expand its functionalities using extensions.

Chapter 2, How to Manage Content, explores the content management features, explains how to structure content, and compares Joomla’s functionalities with other major CMSes.

Chapter 3, Advanced Content Management, points out some advanced features for handling content, whether scheduled publishing options, custom fields, how to build a custom publishing workflow, or how to produce accessible content.

Chapter 4, Exploring the Flexibility of Modules, explains modules, a basic and flexible element that is used to build both the frontend and backend layouts of the website. Modules can display specific content in a particular position on the website.

Chapter 5, Building Your Site Structure – the Menu System, teaches the reader how to build the navigation system of a website through the menu, build complex navigation structures, handle different menu item lists, manage language associations for multilingual sites, and govern access permissions.

Chapter 6, Managing Users and Their Permissions, demonstrates how to manage user accounts, registration, login, permissions, and much more. Furthermore, it introduces the powerful Access Control List (ACL) system.

Chapter 7, SEO at Its Best, details all the integrated features that can improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the website.

Chapter 8, One Site, Multiple Languages, illustrates how to build a multilanguage website in Joomla thanks to the built-in features.

Chapter 9, Planning Operations with Scheduled Tasks, presents the tool for scheduling and automating recurring operations on a website.

Chapter 10, Tailored Communication with Mail Templates, shows the reader how to customize default emails sent by their website.

Chapter 11, Command-Line Interface, describes the CLI offered by Joomla, showing how to execute operations on the website through the terminal.

Chapter 12, Styling Your Website – Templates, provides an overview of the templates and shows how to customize the look and feel of a website using Joomla’s options.

Chapter 13, Customizing Everything with Overrides, is all about overrides, a method that allows you to customize how part of a website looks without the need to alter the original template.

Chapter 14, Child Templates, reveals a brand-new functionality of Joomla that allows you to create derived styles and templates, increasing the degree of customization and simplifying maintenance.

Chapter 15, Template Frameworks, goes through the most used template frameworks in Joomla, going through their options and showing how to build a custom style with ease.

Chapter 16, Advanced Features – Access and Security, covers some advanced functionalities dedicated to logging in, multi-factor authentication, and site security hardening.

Chapter 17, Case Study – A Corporate Website in Joomla, makes use of a case study to show how the CMS has been used to build a company’s main website, replacing an old JSP frontend with a fast and lightweight website.

Chapter 18, Case Study – An Online Academy with Joomla, implements another case study with a CMS that has been used to build an e-learning portal that sells and provides access to thousands of online lessons for many students.

Chapter 19, Case Study – A B&B Booking System with Joomla, incorporates another practical example of a CMS that has been used to build the website for a tourist rental flat, implementing a full-featured reservation system integrated with online booking portals.

To get the most out of this book

It’s recommended to set up a personal installation of Joomla that can be either local (for example, using XAMPP) or online (for example, using launch.joomla.org). Using an online free instance would be preferable, as you don’t have to install and configure local web servers.

In the case study presented in Chapter 19, the Pro version of Solidres and some paid plugins were used.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/jaQUU.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: Simply create a new file under the /css folder of your template called custom.css.

A block of code is set as follows:

.myfooter {

  font-size: 13px;

  font-weight: 600;

  color: #1c77ba;

}

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: From System Dashboard, open Site Templates.

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

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Part 1 – Joomla! Out of the Box

In this part, you will get an overview of the Joomla Core and its functionalities. You will discover the features included in the Content Management System