• Step 1: Installation
• Step 2: What Topics to Learn and in What Order
• Step 3: Self Study Path
      Books
• Step 4: Getting Help
• On Hosting Referrals

Step 1: Installation

Get a Working Joomla Installation

Most online Joomla tutorials recommend that users install Joomla on their computers in order to learn how to use it.  We actually go against the grain of Joomla.org and other developer-centric resources here.  We recommend that you simply sign up for or use an existing hosting service that has a very easy Joomla 1-click installation option.  Installing Joomla yourself is a waste of time for someone just getting started, and you do not have the background yet to understand what is going on.  It is simply a frustrating and confusing exercise that gets in the way of learning to actually use the software.

Our suggestion is to find a good web hosting service that supports 1-click installation so you can get up and running fast. We have a few recommendations on our resources page.  Before doing your research, however, please read On Hosting Referrals below.

We also recommend that you do not "Install Sample Data" during your Joomla installation.  The will install sample content, but it will rob you of the opportunity to learn how to build everything and actually understand how it interrelates.  This option is best suited for people that do not need any additional resources, documentation or other tutorials, and can simply click around and figure it out.  Unfortunately, this leaves many people confused about how to actually build a site themselves.

We start users of the Start Learning Joomla! course at a blank installation and build a complete site from scratch.  This is arguably the best method for actually learning how to build Joomla sites, so it is our recommendation.

Step 2: What Topics to Learn and in What Order

The next step is developing your Joomla fundamentals.  We've broken it down to the following key points.  Some people will need a bit more help, and others can skip them if they have relevant experience.

• Joomla global configuration
• Joomla core component settings
• Sections and Categories
• Modules
• Templates and Positions
• Menus and Menu Modules
• Building content with the Article Editor
• Managing users and access levels
• Joomla Backups
• How to find and evaluate the best 3rd party extensions
• Testing 3rd party extensions
• Installing, removing and upgrading extensions
• How to get effective support for Free and Paid Joomla Components
• Upgrading Joomla itself
• Testing and working effectively on a live production site
• How to find the best, most reliable free & paid Joomla vendors
• How to break down problems and present them in free support forums

 

Download our ready-to-print Joomla Learning Checklist.  This works great to help keep you on track as you learn.

Most Joomla users are directed at the following page on Joomla.org:

http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners

This is a very useful page and should be in any new Joomla user's bookmarks.  It's not laid out with any sort of training methodology, but it does collect the best of the free material available for new users.  If you choose to a self-study path without a Joomla course or book, then this will be your best starting point.

Step 3: Self Study Path

Joomla core components and terminology

Joomla Core Features Guide PDF
http://docs.joomla.org/Glossary
The PDF guide from our front page
The Joomla.org Getting Started FAQ

Sections and Categories in Joomla 1.5

Joomla 1.5 Quick Start Guide  http://help.joomla.org/ghop/feb2008/task048/joomla_15_quickstart.pdf
The PDF guide from our front page

Modules

http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla!_Extensions_Defined

General comments

Most of these online resources are what we would call basic documentation or overviews, and do not contain a teaching methodology.  It is very important to have these guides, but new users may have trouble incorporating the material.  Additional material may be required to understand them.  To address this, many self-study users will need a book or video program to provide the detail and teaching approach necessary to learn step-by-step.

Books

You're encouraged to read positive and negative reviews for each of these books.  We're ranked them in order of what we think would be best for Joomla beginners.

 

• Using Joomla: Building Powerful and Efficient Web Sites
       O'Reilly Publishing, by Ron Severdia and Kenneth Crowder
• Joomla! 1.5: Beginner's Guide
       Packt Publishing, Eric Tiggeler
• Joomla! 1.5: A User's Guide: Building a Successful Joomla! Powered Website (2nd Edition)
       Prentice Hall, by Barrie North
• Joomla! For Dummies
       For Dummies, Steve Holzner Ph.D. and Nancy Conner

If a book is not listed here, it means that we are not able to recommend it.  The majority of books do not properly address the needs of the beginner and so we cannot include them here.  We've reviewed most of the introductory Joomla books and have limited our recommends to these above. 

Step 4: Getting Help

New users on a self-study path often need a question answered or a detail clarified.  For this, the best solution is to use the Joomla forums at Joomla.org.  

The beginner forum is located here: http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=428

Keep in mind that you are working with people who are volunteering to help answer questions.  These people are not paid to help you and are not obligated to help you in any way.   To make sure the interaction is efficient and clear.  They have put together some guidelines for posting to the forums, so be sure to follow them.

http://docs.joomla.org/Beginners#Getting_Help

If you need direct help from very knowledgable technical people, you should seriously consider setting up an account with the Open Source Support Desk.  They specialize in supporting Joomla!, so you can't find a better option for quick technical help.

The Open Source Support Desk

 

On Hosting Referrals

Some hosting referrals are a form of advertising or monetization, so it's important to question recommendation links.

One of the ways sites earn money is by referring you to web hosting services. If you sign up for the hosting service after clicking through, they often pay an affiliate commission back to the site that referred them.  Some of these commissions can be work up to $60+ per sale, so the incentive can be quite high. While this is good for the site making the referral, it may not be the best independent recommendation.  Please take each and every recommendation for hosting with a grain of salt.

The Start Learning Joomla! free site recommends some resources that also pay us commissions, but we are careful to tag them as (affiliate) so you know that we receive a referral.  We think this is the best way to disclose this, and we hope you'll agree.

 

About our Affordable, Professional Quality Training Program

Find out more about about Start Learning Joomla!, a complete Joomla video training program available right now.

• Access to over 90+ Joomla Course Videos in Plain English
• All video is widescreen unscaled pixel-perfect full 720p HD
  
• 130 page Full Course Text Companion eBook
• 14 page Quickstart PDF guide
  
• MP3 audio versions of ALL video narration. (Learn on the road)
• Easy-to-follow style with clear, concise explanations
• All printable guides in both US Letter and A4 page formats
  
• Professionally produced, suitable for personal or corporate training
• Sold for $200 - $300 in 2009 and 2010. Now just $37!

 

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