Joomla! User Group Toronto

Let's look at the Free Hosting that you can get at

Joomla.com

Presented by Douglas Pickett,29 September 2015

Free? Hmmm...

Open Source Matters has arranged free, non-timelimited hosting for Joomla! sites through Joomla.com– How do you get it

– What do you get

– What don't you get (well, free, after all)

– What can you do with it.

Sign up at Joomla.com

Seems pretty easy ...

● The only hard part is choosing a name that isn't already in use.

● Remember that all of these will be http://something.joomla.com and the “something” has to be something not already in use.

● And they want you to use only lower case for the name when you register it (although you can capitalize it however you want to access it).

After you've hit “Launch”

Click on the link to confirm

And you're ready to go

And one last email

Login to Dashboard

The first time ● Click on the link, connect to the dashboard● Choose a template● Either blank or with sample data● Create the site

● Note that the administrator name is randomly generated, not admin. It also appears that you need to access the back end via the dashboard.

Fill in the name you want

Select a template and Launch

Now the hard part - Content

What do I get?

● You get the latest Joomla! version, and free hosting, with no time limit.

● You also get a few extra things kicked in by default.

Joomla.com extras

Social Buttons

Disqus Comments

Google Analytics

Joomla.com Extras

Google Maps

Social Module

Some of the available Templates

And there's always Protostar

Templates – which one?

● You can only make limited changes to the templates

● Try to find one that fits your colour scheme● When you select the sample data, it gives you a

lot of hints on how to do the layouts like the sample one, so choose something similar to what you want to create and save time.

What don't I get?

We'll highlight a few of the compromises that have been put in to this free service.

● You're limited in the total disk space your site can use (200Meg)

● You can't have your own domain name● And ...

Control Panel – Joomla.com

Control Panel – 3.4.4

Extensions, Joomla.com

Extensions, 3.4.4

General Configuration, Joomla.com

Global Configuration, 3.4.4

Editor, Joomla.com

Editor, 3.4.4

Templates, Customize, Joomla.com

Templates, Customize, 3.4.4

But at least I can change templates?

Just make sure you choose Blank

What does all this mean?

You're in a bit of walled garden● You can't really blow things up so that your site

won't work● You can't add all your favourite extensions● You won't be able to run your 100,000 item

eComm site● You can have a reasonable basic Joomla! site

But I want more!SiteGround is happy to take your

money

How to adapt a template

● Some of them allow you to make more substantive changes than others

● Go to the template preview – it will help you identify what content is in what module position

● Once you know what the positions are, you look for the modules or articles.

● Copy, unpublish, adapt.

Now we go hunting...Hah, that's where they are!

Maybe get rid of the commercial message ...

Once you've found them ...

● Turn off what you don't what● Change the title, change the content, make

copies and re-purpose what is useful to you.● They give you an example to work from, no

need to figure out how to do things like they've done.

Maybe put in our own images in the Header position?

And that's where they come from ...

Either replace them, or create your own directory of images

Firefox is simplest to find image info

● Hover over the image● Right click, select Image Info● It will tell you the pixel size directly (as well as

the directory relative to the root of your web site)● These are 1250x319 (or 4 times wider than high)● You can use simple tools (my favourite is

IrfanView) to crop an image to that ratio, and then resize to the resolution you need.

You'll want to match the size, or at least the ratio of the image size

Add a map

Don't forget to tell it what pages to appear on.

And there it is

Social Buttons

Don't forget to specify what pages they are to appear on

● Only the buttons where you've filled in the info will appear

● The values for some of these are not obvious ● Google “how to find my facebook id” (or G+ or

LinkedIn)

If you need to contact me:

Email: dpickett@voggtech.ca

This presentation is available on Slideshare

http://www.slideshare.net/DouglasPickett/permanent-hosting-at-joomlacom