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Joomla + HTML files help!

Discussion in 'Joomla' started by jokerxfx, Aug 14, 2012.

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  1. #1
    Hey all, First time posting on here

    I've got a problem as i am not experienced in the CMS area at all, I've created a good few websites using only HTML and CSS and i have messed around with a few backend languages but I don't know PHP well enough to hand code myself for example.

    But anyway, I've to edit a current site, so i asked for the site files, which they gave me this directory ( Image attachment 1.png )

    So after being confused as there were no HTML files at all, I searched through the live host source code to find that it had been coded by a CMS program called Joomla. I then asked them for the Username and password to the Joomla account as I foolishly presumed that it would have been a Dreamweaver type program with a built in FTP client, but with closer inspection, you need to install it on the host server and not your own hard drive. - so I thought this must mean that its already installed on their live host server.

    My question is, does anyone know if Joomla will actually have HTML files in the live host directory if I get the un and pw? or will it be the same directory that they sent me when I requested it?
    - And would I just need to use an FTP program such as filezilla to access joomla?

    Any replies would be appreciated, sorry for the long read, Thanks!
     
    jokerxfx, Aug 14, 2012 IP
  2. Rankx

    Rankx Active Member

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    #2
    Well I think you would need to study Joomla to do what you need to do. The files you need to edit would be in the templates directory. You need to access the Joomla backend by going to www.nameofsite.com/administrator and entering the uname and password. Then you need to go to the extensions menu -> template manager and see which template is the default template. In the template directory, look for the folder that matches the default template. Then you would have to open index.php and make necessary edits. There would be PHP code in there and some special Joomla tags. I predict you would actually need professonal help to complete the task. Let me know if you would like my help.
     
    Rankx, Aug 14, 2012 IP
  3. jokerxfx

    jokerxfx Peon

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    #3
    Hey Rankx, thanks a lot for the reply!

    Using your advice I have managed to get a hold of the template and i have installed it into joomla, it seems that when i preview the page website it takes on some similarity's of the live site but none of the content, and only a minute amount of the same arrangement - also, the content is filled with joomla's default images and content ect

    I also have one more question, once i finally get the template installed properly so that i can view it, if I have to edit the index.php file to edit the website, how do I edit and add other pages since there is only one directory file?

    For example in a normal HTML directory you might have:
    Home.html
    Products.html
    Contact_us.html
    Find_us.html

    Where is the equivalent in the joomla template directory?

    Thanks again! Really appreciated!
     
    jokerxfx, Aug 14, 2012 IP
  4. Rankx

    Rankx Active Member

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    #4
    There is no equivalent. The index.php template file lays out and creates every single page. But it would be doing so based on what you have in the backend. There are 3 things you can have on pages: Components, Modules, Plugins. Components (articles are seen as components) are usually the bulk of the page. A Joomla index.php file logically goes something like this:
    1. Set the head. <head></head>
    2. Start body
    3. Header (searchbar, menu, logo, etc)
    4. Load the assigned components set in Joomla
    5 Load modules
    6. Footer
    7. Close body

    Of course, you can so what you want in the index.php file. Now if you want to create a content page, you would create an article, put your content in there, Create a menu item names products and assign that article to the menu. Then when you click on the menu item on the front end, the article would show.
     
    Rankx, Aug 15, 2012 IP
  5. amritdhakalad

    amritdhakalad Member

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    #5
    Joomla stores articles, user details and other contents in the database. HTML files are created on the run by the server when a visitor requests a certain page of the website. You will not find html files in the ftp directory as you would expect on a custom built site that was built using Dreamweaver or any WYSIWYG website editors. You can manage your website using back-end Administrator panel. You can edit your site directly in the server and you don't need to store the files in your computer and sync after updating.

    Before working with the live site, you should create some test sites and learn about Joomla. It can be quite hard at first but once you get used to it, you can create professional sites without having any knowledge of html and php.
     
    amritdhakalad, Aug 15, 2012 IP
  6. vivijimmy

    vivijimmy Peon

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    #6
    First of all, you need to ask for the admin username and password of the Joomla site, the URL of the admin panel should be your-domain/administrator (if it is not protected by JoomFirewall).

    For the things like HTML editing, I think you are talking about the article editing. In Joomla, the static content pages (actually none of the pages are static, but all generated) should be edited in the Content/Article Manager after your login to the backend. After your getting into Article Manager, you will see the list of articles (should be actually the pages of the site) and you can click to go to the dedicated pages from the list. In that page, you will see the content editing area, where you can edit the content.

    Here please notice, if this Joomla site does not have any WYSIWYG editor installed, such as JCE editor there, then you will see the HTML code in the main content editing area. You can copy them out and use Dreamweaver or whatever to edit the content.

    But, Joomla has its own template/module system, which deals with a long of layout/CSS features of the site, so by only editing the article content I mentioned above, you can not actually control all of the layout elements on the site. You can download the template using FTP access from templates/template-name-the-site-is-using/css/template.css to edit the Joomla template, or if it has multiple templates, you can find them all in the templates folder.

    FTP is necessary surely. It can allow you to manage the templates or other extension files easily if you redevelop them.

    For more questions, feel free to contact me by Skype (skype id: jimmyhuang1986).
     
    vivijimmy, Aug 16, 2012 IP
  7. G2K

    G2K Peon

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    #7
    another thing you need to look at are the menu items, particularly those for section blog / category blog as these will not be in the article manager. They are simple layouts / views of articles. So for eg a blog view will show you the intro text of articles from a section or category, but it does not exsist as an article. The same goes for any menu items linked to third party components. Other html will alos be contained in the modules which are like parts of a page.
     
    G2K, Aug 5, 2013 IP