Over the last couple of months since joomlaplazza has been online I have had many people asking the same questions over and over again. Most of these questions are from Joomla beginners or aspiring website owners who really don’t know a lot about Joomla or web development in general.  I understand that everybody can’t be an expert and I accept that everybody has to start somewhere. However it’s plainly obvious that a lot of people simply don’t read through the site properly and assume certain things when asking questions. Or they simply don’t even understand what Joomla is and how it works. It is often assumed that I created the template for this site myself and all the components within the site or that I created the software that allows user profiling in its entirety.  

This article will attempt to explain how I put joomlaplazza together and got it into its current state.  I will try to give you a general overview of the site and an extensive, although not exhaustive list of the modules, components, and modifications I used. One thing that I would like to make clear is that although Joomla is designed to be easy to install and use for non-programmers, when it comes to creating complex websites such as social networking sites its simply not always the case. In order to create joomlaplazza I had to use a vast array of different third party modules and components that were not really designed to work together and many of them have their own bugs and issues still to be worked out. I also made a few custom modifications to various components and modules used within joomlplazza to either correct minor bugs I found or correct conflicts between different components or even just to make the component do what I needed it to do. So therefore you must understand that if you know nothing about PHP and web programming then your at a disadvantage but don’t let that put you off as its still possible to create complex sites you will just have to work a bit harder and do a bit digging on forums and so forth to overcome your specific issues.

The Joomla template

The template used on Joomlaplazza is a modified version of the comuna template from www.templateplazza.com. This is what gives Joomlaplazza such a nice overall appearance.  I did not create this myself, however I have made modifications to the layout and CSS style sheets. I have widened the template slightly and moved certain module positions around as well as adding in extra module positions most of which are not in use yet. I didn’t even create the lovely vector graphics such as the logo or smiley faces used in the logo and main banners I hired a graphic designer to create them for me as I am a developer not an artist.  In order to modify the template you need to have at least a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. An understanding of how to create a Joomla template from scratch and a bit of PHP knowledge would also be handy.

So if you like the overall look of this site head over to www.templateplazza.com and buy a copy of the comuna template. There are a few different versions and even a quick start package that has a lot of the components you need for a social networking site already pre-installed. At first glance it may look like you have everything I have on joomlaplazza but that’s not the case. Most of the components that are pre-installed are older versions and have not been modified in anyway. There is also a heck of a lot I have added since then which will be covered later in this article. The quick start package will give you a good start to work with but you won’t get a smoothly running site ready for live use, at least no in my opinion.

Prev - Next >>