Can you imagine building a website within few minutes? Yes its possible with Joomla! Joomla is a content management system (CMS) which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Most php developers as well as web designers know about joomla.  Today I am going to explain how we can develop a website in miniutes by using your hosting control panel.

Following are the step by step instructions on how to install Joomla.

1. Open your Cpanel control panel.
2. Click on Fantastico.
3. Select Joomla from the list.
4. Choose the domain name from the drop down menu (only if you have subdomains or addon domains)
5. Choose the directory you want Joomla to reside under (if you want to install it in a specific directory, type the directory name, otherwise leave it blank for the root folder)
6. Fill in the admin username (most people use “admin” but feel free to choose any username) and a password of your choice.
7. Choose the nickname under which you’ll be posting and fill in your email address.
8. Fill in all other necessary fields.
9. Click install – on the next screen click finish installation

Joomla is user friendly and based on MVC structure. It is easy to use for Web designers, developers as well as for the site administrator.

What is MVC?
It is a way of breaking an application into three parts: the model, the view, and the controller. You can understand this by following diagram for Joomla MVC structure.

I have been working as a joomla developer  since last 4 years. But honestly speaking, I have mostly worked on Joomla templates.  This is because there are a lot of free modules and components available on the internet and chances are that you may easily find one that suits your need. This makes Joomla one of the most powerful and sought after open source platforms.

Joomla 1.0 was complicated for the developer and it did not have a very user friendly admin interface. But Joomla 1.5 is very easy to use and manage for both developers and site administrators. Before Joomla 1.5, It was very frustrating for website administrators to understand its usablility. Most part of my job was providing basic usability support to my clients. That is, they wanted to know how they can change menu? How they can add a new page? Or how they can change template? But joomla 1.5 overshadowed the flaws of its previous versions and I have been suggesting this to all my clients.

Today we find a variety of social networking websites like facebook. orkut and linkedin and e-commerce websites like amazon and ebay. It is possible to develop similar websites with even better features by using Joomla with even greater benefits of quick turnaround and low probability of bugs.

I will write more about Joomla and its applications in my subsequent posts.

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