Introduction

The purpose of these notes is to allow authorised users to make editorial changes to the New Beacon web site. We have tried to strip away as much of the jargon as possible, but inevitably there will be the odd unfamiliar term which we will try to explain as we go along.

We’ll start with CMS (Content Management System). This is a generic term for a web site in which the structure of the site is separated from its content. The advantage of this approach is that content such as text, pictures and data (eg calendar content) can be stored in a way which is easy to edit.

Joomla!

Joomla! is the Content Management System software that runs the site.

Managing Web Content

In general, making a change to the site consists of the following three operations:

Editing or inserting the material in editing format

Displaying the new material as it will be seen on the website, proof reading and editing as necessary.

Publishing the content – that is, adding it to live site

Content Structure

Throuhout this manual you will see references to different classes of content. Joomla! Arranges content in a hierarchy: sections, categories and content items.

The highest level in the hierarchy is represented by the Sections. Imagine that the Sections are the drawers in a filing cabinet that contain the folders (categories), filled with articles (content items)