Components are content specialised elements or applications. Joomla includes some core components and supports the possibility to enhance its features with additional 3rd party components. The built-in components, which are included with Joomla, are part of the core features. You will find third party components at Joomla Forge as well as at various third party developer and community sites.

Additional configuration and help is usually provided within the component itself.

Components are modular in nature, which makes it possible to enhance the features of Joomla in any direction.

A component is typically linked to a Menu item. Visitors and/or Users are able to view the content of the component by clicking on the link of this Menu item. It is usually displayed in the main content area of the site.

Components that are included with Joomla are:

• Banners
• Contacts
• Newsfeeds
• Polls
• Web Links

To learn how to install and uninstall Components, click on this Help Screen link.

  Install/Uninstall Components, Modules and Mambots

The following describes the components bundled with Joomla.

Banner Component:

This component allows you to display banners in rotation on your site. It also allows some advanced features such as impressions management and custom code. Banners can be displayed on your site by simply publishing the banner once it has been created through the process below. It is also necessary to note that banners can be turned off in the Global Configuration (enabled by default) and their location is dependent upon the template being used for your site.

Banner Manager:

In this section, you control the actual banners. These are the graphical advertisements or messages that appears in a certain parts of your Mambo site.

To learn how to manage your banners, click this Help Screen link.

  Banner Manager

Banner Client Manager:

This section allows you to set up accounts for clients that you are extending the privilege of banner placement to.

NOTE: Flash type banners may have possible issues with the Joomla Banner Component.

To learn how to manage your clients who have banners, click this Help Screen link.

  Banner Client Manager

Contact Manager Component:

This Contact component can be found in the Admin Section by navigating on the Menu Bar to the menu item Components > Contact. This takes you to the Contact Manager screen.

The Contact Manager component provides you with the ability to manage a list of contacts for your site. Visitors can find you or your organization's contact information including name, mailing address, telephone and fax number. They can contact you or your organization by filling out the simple contact form and clicking the 'Send' icon.

You can have more than one contact item. Your visitors will select the contact from a drop down list when they are on the Contact Us page in the Front-end of your site. If you have only one contact then there is no drop down list.

Examples for different contacts would be to have separate contacts for sales, enquiries, or different departments within the organisation, therefore making the contacting process more efficient.

Based on the standard list, you can manage all contacts within your database. Use the toolbar to create a New contact, Edit or Delete a contact. The information within the contact form is standardised. For each contact that has an email address, a contact form is automatically created. All published contacts will be shown in a dropdown list. You choose the default contact which will be first on the list in the dropdown list.

To learn how to Manage your Contacts, click this Help Screen link.

  Contact Manager

To learn how to manage your Contact Categories, click this Help Screen link.

  Category Manager

Newsfeed Component:

Newsfeeds are a way of sharing content between different sites. A growing number of content providers share parts of their content via RSS newsfeeds.

This sharing method is meant for creating a news introduction in the way the provider wants it and it normally has a link to the provider's web site. With some exceptions, such as moreover.com, you rarely have any control over how the newsfeeds will be displayed, links, colors etc, or where these links will go.

The Newsfeed component gives you the ability to manage the existing newsfeeds, place them into Categories, and also change the linking information required to receive the newsfeeds from the different providers.

To share the content of your site you can integrate the Newsfeeds module into your template which makes your own news available to others.

To learn how to manage your News Feeds, click this Help Screen link.

  News Feeds Manager

To learn how to manage your News Feeds categories, click this Help Screen link.

  Category Manager

Newsflash Component:

A Newsflash is a dynamic message displayed on your site. It is often displayed in a text box to attract attention on your Front page. It gives your visitors a small piece of information, such as important news. You can have one Newsflash item or several.

If you have several, the Newsflash component will randomly pick one every time a page is generated. You can have several Newsflash modules attached to various pages on your Web site.

To learn how to manage, add and edit Newsflash items, click this Help Screen link.

  Content Items

See this Help Screen to learn how to manage Newsflash categories, click this Help Screen link.

  Category Manager

Poll Component:

This component allows you to manage and create different polls for your visitors. The questions you ask can be useful for information purposes.

Displaying polls on your site:

After publishing the poll you need to activate the Polls module. You can choose where you would like the poll to be published and on which page. The module will also provide a link to show the results of your poll.

To learn how to add, edit and manage your polls, click this Help Screen link.

  Poll Manager

Syndication Component:

The Syndication Component is used to publish a 'newsfeed' of your 'public' content items which you have published to your Front page in the Front-end of Joomla.

Editing your Syndication Settings:

To edit your Syndication settings, select Components > Syndication from the top menu in you Admin panel. Edit all fields to your preference then click the 'Save' icon at the top right hand corner of your screen.

To learn how to manage your Syndication settings, click this Help Screen link.

  Syndication Settings

Web Links Component:

The Web Links component is a collection of links such as favourite links, Mambo links, or whatever you like. The component makes it possible to count the number of clicks for each link and registered users can submit new links from the Front-end.

Management of Web Links:

To manage Web Links in the Administrator menu, select Components > Web Links. The sub menu provides you with two options to manage the Links, Items and Categories. For details on how to set this up, please check the information about setting up categories and items in the Content Section of this manual.

Displaying of Web Links in the Front-end:

To display the Web Links in the Front-end, you include the component in your menu structure. You must also ensure that it is published.

To learn how to add and manage your Web Link items, click this Help Screen link.

  Web Link Manager

To learn how to edit your Web Link items, click this Help Screen link.

  Web Link Edit


To learn how to edit your Web Link ccategories, click this Help Screen link.

  Category Manager


NOTE:  Please refer to other Chapters for more information about Frontpage, Statistics, Templates, Modules, and Menus..

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NOTE:. 

If you have suggestions/corrections for this chapter, please visit the doc forum.  

http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/board,59.0.html

Thank you!

Michelle Bisson
Documentation Team Co-Leader