It's easy to get started creating your website. Knowing some of the basics will help.

What is a Content Management System?

A content management system is software that allows you to create and manage webpages easily by separating the creation of your content from the mechanics required to present it on the web.

In this site, the content is stored in a database. The look and feel are created by a template. The Joomla! software brings together the template and the content to create web pages.

Site and Administrator

Your site actually has two separate sites. The site (also called the front end) is what visitors to your site will see. The administrator (also called the back end) is only used by people managing your site. You can access the administrator by clicking the "Site Administrator" link on the "This Site" menu or by adding /administrator to the end of you domain name.

Log in to the administrator using the username and password created during the installation of Joomla.

Logging in

To login to the front end of your site use the login form or the login menu link on the "This Site" menu. Use the user name and password that were created as part of the installation process. Once logged-in you will be able to create and edit articles.

In managing your site, you will be able to create content that only logged-in users are able to see.

Creating an article

Once you are logged-in, a new menu will be visible. To create a new article, click on the "submit article" link on that menu.

The new article interface gives you a lot of options, but all you need to do is add a title and put something in the content area. To make it easy to find, set the state to published and put it in the Joomla category.

Learn more

There is much more to learn about how to use Joomla! to create the web site you envision. You can learn much more at the Joomla! documentation site and on the Joomla! forums.

Thanks for helping us to test Joomla!

We're getting ready for the release of Joomla 3.0 and we appreciate you helping us find and fix problems as we work.

If you haven't done testing before here are some tips.

• Don't delete the installation folder when you finish installing! While we're working we turn that security feature off to make it easier to test.
• Go to global configuration and set Error Reporting to Development (that's on the server tab) and enable both debugging and language debugging (those are on the system tab). Don't worry when you see ** around words --that means Joomla translation is doing its job.

How to test

• First, do the things you normally do and see if you spot any problems.
• Look at all of the front end views and record any problems
• Look at all the back end views and report any problems
• See more ideas below

What to look for

• Any error messages that say things like Fatal Error or Strict or similar things that indicate that something is not working correctly.
• Untranslated strings. You will know these because they look like this: ?STRING_HERE?
• Problems of rendering--items not aligned correctly, missing or wrong images, pages that just don't look right.
• Unexpected behavior--anything that is working differently than it did in 2.5.

Report problems

If you find a problem please report it to the CMS Issue Tracker. You will need to register for a joomlacode.org account if you don't have one.

More Testing Ideas

• Pick one module or view and test all of the parameters.
• Install an extension and see if anything breaks (report to the developer unless you are positive it is a core bug).
• Turn on caching with different options
• Try different session options
• Install a language and test all the layouts.
• Try different environments (like different servers which may have different version of PHP) or try you have IIS with MySQLi or SqlSrv. With millions of users Joomla needs to be ready for unusual environments.
• Try with SEF URLS on or off and also with Apache rewrite on or off (if you are on Apache).
• Try different combinations of browsers (Chrome, IE, FireFox, Opera to start) and operating systems (Mac, Windows, Linux).
• Yes grammar and spelling errors are bugs too -- just keep in mind that we use British spelling.
• Visit the Feature Tracker and test a new feature.

Your installation includes sample data, designed to show you some of the options you have for building your website. In addition to information about Joomla! there are two sample "sites within a site" designed to help you get started with building your own site.

The first site is a simple site about Australian Parks. It shows how you can quickly and easily build a personal site with just the building blocks that are part of Joomla. It includes a personal blog, weblinks, and a very simple image gallery.

The second site is slightly more complex and represents what you might do if you are building a site for a small business, in this case a Fruit Shop.

In building either style site, or something completely different, you will probably want to add extensions and either create or purchase your own template. Many Joomla users start by modifying the templates that come with the core distribution so that they include special images and other design elements that relate to their site's focus.

Joomla means All Together, and it is a community of people all working and having fun together that makes Joomla possible. Thousands of people each year participate in the Joomla community, and we hope you will be one of them.

People with all kinds of skills, of all skill levels and from around the world are welcome to join in. Participate in the Joomla.org family of websites (the forum is a great place to start). Come to a Joomla! event. Join or start a Joomla! Users Group. Whether you are a developer, site administrator, designer, end user or fan, there are ways for you to participate and contribute.