Chapter 2: Joomla! Administrator Overview**WIP

Joomla! Administrator is the nerve centre of your Joomla! Web site. It is commonly referred to as the Control Panel and we will adopt this throughout the manual. Use the Control Panel's elegant interface for site construction and editing and publishing of your site's content.

Administrator Login:

To access the Joomla! Administrator area, log in with a User account with administrative privileges.

You can do this in one of two ways:

  • From the home page (Front Page) of the site via the Main Menu>Administrator button
       or
  • By typing the URL http://www.yourwebsite.com/administrator into your browser Location Bar.

A fresh installation of Joomla! will have one User installed. This User is known as the Super Administrator. The Super Administrator has the login name of 'admin'. You will have created a password during the Joomla! installation for the Super Administrator.

NOTE: For security, you should rename the Super Administrator's login and password as soon as possible. For increased security use a mixture of lowercase, UPPERCASE, numerics, and special characters in your password and ideally there should always be a minimum of six characters.

Don't use favourite pet names, family names, or plain language words for your password either instead, for example, of administrator use 4Dm1n!5trat0r.

Each Joomla! User is assigned to a group. There are currently three (3) groups of Users with login privileges to the Administrator Back-end: Super Administrator, Administrator, and Manager. 

Each group's function is explained below:

Super Administrator:

The Super Administrator Group has access to all of the Back-end (Administrator) functions. Your site must have at least one User designated as a Super Administartor to perform the site's Global Configuration.  Users in this group cannot be deleted and cannot be switched to another group.

Administrator:

The Administrator Group has slightly restricted access to the Back-end (Administrator) functions. Administrators cannot:

  • Add or edit a User in the Super Administrator group

  • Access the Global Configuration settings

  • Access the Mass Mail function

  • Manage/install Templates

  • Manage/install Language files

Manager:

The Manager Group is generally restricted to matters of content creation. A User in this group, in addition to the restrictions for an Administrator, cannot:

  • Manage Users
  • Install Modules
  • Install Components
  • Access some Components (as determined by the Super Administrator)

The Control Panel 

The control panel is divided into five areas of accessible buttons or links: the Menubar, Toolbar, Infobar, Quick Icons, and a Tabbed Module.

In addition there is a display area at the foot of the page that shows the current version of Joomla! that is running together with any warning notices that may arise in the normal course of events. 

Menubar:

The Menubar is divided into eleven sections: Home, Site, Menu, Content, Components, Modules, Mambots, Installers, Messages, System, and Help.  Each section has an associated drop down menu. The menu bar is your navigation centre within the control panel.

NOTE: To exit without saving an edit, you must use the Cancel button and not back button of your browser when editing items. If you use the browser back button, the item will not be checked back into the system and a lock sign will prevent other Users from being able to edit the item. To remove the check-out lock, simply edit the item and save it properly or perform a global checkin using the Global Checkin button under the System menu.

WARNING!: Usage of some pop-up blocking utilities such as Norton Internet Security may prevent the menu drop-downs to function properly. Excluding the Joomla! site from the program fixes the problem.

Infobar:

The Infobar displays the following information (in order):

  1. the name of your Web site

  2. your current location within the control panel shown as a click-able pathway

  3. the name of the User logged in, i.e.'Logged in as Admin'

  4. the number of outstanding messages that you have from other Administrators, using the messaging function in My Admin

  5. the number of Users currently online

Quick Link Icons:

The left side of the Control Panel presents icons for the primary content management items

All icons and text lines on the Control Panel are clickable and will bring the selected item's controls into the Workspace.

The Icons displayed in a standard installation 

Toolbar Icons:

Publish: This icon is to publish your Category or items. The visitors of your web can view these items on your web site.

Unpublish: This icon is to unpublish a Category or item. Unpublishing removes the item from public view, but does not delete the Category or item. To delete an item, select it and click the 'Delete' icon.

Archive: This icon moves an item to the Archive.

New:  This icon adds a new item, section, link, etc.

Edit: This icon edits a previously created item. Be sure to select an item before clicking this icon.

Delete or Remove:  This icon deletes a Category or item from your Web site. Note that this process is not reversible. To remove an item or Category temporarily, click the "Unpublish" icon.

Trash: This icon removes an item and places it in the Trash Manager.

NOTE:You can restore trashed items to their previous states. Simply go to the Trash Manager under the Site menu.

Move: This icon moves an item to a new Section or Category.

Apply: This icon is to save your new content or changes with the page remaining open to continue editing

Save: This icon is to save your new content or configuration changes and be returned to the previous page.

Cancel: This icon is to cancel page creation or to cancel any unsaved modifications.

NOTE: If you want to cancel creation or editing you must use this button and not the back button on your browser as this will lock the item and other content manager will be unable to modify the page.

Preview:  This icon is used to show, in a pop-up window, a preview of any changes you have made. If your web browser is set up to block pop-up windows or you are using pop-up blocking software, you
will need to change that setting or disable that software in order to see the preview.

Upload: This icon is to upload a file or image to your Web site.

NOTE: If you want to cancel creation or editing, you must use this button and not the back button on your browser in order to prevent locking - "Checking Out" - your page and preventing others from modifying it. When using 3rd-Party Components alternative behaviours may be assigned to some of these icons.

Tabbed Module

On the right side of the main field of the Control Panel a tabbed module for access to:

  • a list of the currently Logged in Users
  • a list of the installed Components,
  • a list of Popular content items,
  • information about the Latest Items added to the system, and
  • Menu Statistics.

Logged Users Tab 

 

Installed Components Tab

 

Popular Content Items Tab

 

Latest Item Tab

 

Menu Stats Tab 

 

Workspace:

The Workspace is the area immediately below the Menubar that shows the menu item display and Toolbar controls for the menu item currently selected.  The workspace updates when you make a menu selection or use a tool from the toolbar.

The default setting is to the Control Panel. This can always be reached by clicking the Home button in the menu bar provided you are not actively editing any Section, Category, Content Item, etc,. at the time.

   

 

NOTE: Please submit your suggestions for editing/proof-reading here on the Submissions, Modifications, and Corrections forum.   

Thank You

The Documentation Team

Last Updated ( Sunday, 19 November 2006 )