A) Once you login to the Joomla Administrator, you should see the Control Panel.  If you don't have a login, review the 'Training Website Access' instructions on the right.

B) Click the Article Manager icon in the Control Panel OR select Content->Article Manager from the pull down menus.  You should now be in the Article Manager.

C) Click the New Button  This will bring up the editor screen.

D) Give the article a Title and an Alias and select the 'FAQ' Section and 'General' Category.

E) Now Preview the results on the front end.

F) Click on 'FAQ' link on the left menu.  Click on the 'General' link in the main section. You should now see your new article in the list.

This list includes links to all the published articles in the General Category of the 'FAQs' Section.

A) Go to the Article Manager (Select Content->Article Manager from the menus)

B) In the drop down boxes, select 'FAQs' in the for the Section and 'General' for the Category.  This will filter the list of Articles. 

Shows where the filter controls are in the article manager
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C) You should now be see the article you just created.  Click the Title.  This will open the Article Editor.

D)  Change the Section and Category of your article to 'News' 'Latest News'.

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E) On the front end click on 'The News'. You should now see your article listed in preview mode on this page.  'The News' displays previews of all articles in the 'Latest News' Category.

A) If your article is not open for editing, select it again from the Article Manager.

B) Add several paragraphs of text to your article.  Make sure your article is in Section 'News' and Category 'Latest News'. Click Apply in the Article Editor toolbar.

C) Preview your article on the front end by clicking 'The News' link on the left navigation links. Notice that not all the text is displayed.  You must click on the title, or the 'read more' link to view the full article.

D) Change the amount of text that is shown in the article preview.  In the Article Editor place the cursor where you would like the intro text to end.  Now click the 'Read more...' button below the editor, as shown in the following image.

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E) Click the Apply button in the toolbar.  You should now be able to see your changes reflected on the front end.

A) Open you article for editing.  We are going to add an image.

B) Click the 'image' button below the editor.  This will bring up an image manager.

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C) Select an image from the manager and click the insert button.

D) To add a new image click the 'Browse' button (below the image browser) and select an image from your hard drive.  Now click the 'Start Upload' button.  You should now be able to select for insertion.  Click the 'Insert' button above the image browser. The image below highlights these buttons.

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E) You can now drag your image and place it in another area of the article.

F) To change the appearence settings click on your image and click the edit icon in the editor toolbar. As shown below.

Shows icon that brings up article editor image setting window
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G) You can change the width and height of the image as well as the way the image is aligned.  Make a few changes and preview the results on the front end.

A) Open your article for editing. 

B) Use your mouse to select the text you want to turn into a link.

C) Click the chain icon in the Article Editor toolbar. The Chain and Broken Chain icons are highlighted on the image below.

Shows link and unlink buttons on the article WYSISYG editor
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D) You will now see a popup window like the one below.  Add the URL of the link to in the Link URL field.  If you are linking to an external website be sure to place 'http://' in front of the URL.  Otherwise your link will not work properly. 

F) Click Apply in the Joomla Toolbar.  If your article is still in the ‘News’ Section and ‘Latest’ Category you should be able to view your Article here. Click the ‘read more’ link to view your article in its entirety.

G) Now we will create an internal link to an existing article.  First you need to find the id of an article you would like to link to.  To do so do the following:

1. Click Save or Close on the Article Editor.  (Close will not save any unsaved changes). You should now see the Article Manager list of articles for the website.
2. Note the value in the ID column.  This is the article ID.  You will need it to create a link to this specific article.

H) Now that you have the id for that article you want to link to.  Edit the article you want to link from.

I) As in the previous steps select the text you want to turn into a link and click the Chain icon.  In the URL Field enter: /index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44 (Be sure to include the leading /)

J) Replace 44 with the id of the article you want to link to.  Click Apply and preview your results on the front end.

K) Now lets remove a link.  Highlight the linked text and ONLY the linked text.  You will notice that the Chain and Broken Chain icons are now enabled.  When no text or images are selected these icons are usually disabled.  Click the Broken Chain icon.  This will remove the link from your text.

A) In Joomla the front page aggregates content that may also exist elsewhere on the site.  Your websites home page can, therefore, be used to give more exposure to content that you want to promote on your site.  There are a number of ways to place content on the front page.  This lesson covers one of these methods: placing articles on the front page.

B) There are two ways to place articles on the front page:  through the Article Editor and through the Article Manager List. 

C) Open your article for editing, if it is not already opened.  In the Article Editor, select ‘Yes’ from the ‘Front Page’ radio button above the WYSIWYG Editor, as shown below.  Then click Save.  Now look at the training website front page and you should see your article.

Article Manager Editor Front Page Settings
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D) If you clicked Save in the step above, you should now be viewing the Article Manager List.  All the articles with a Green Check in the Front Page column are candidates for being placed on the front page.  Those with the Red Circle-X are not.  Clicking the Green Check or Red Circle, changes this setting. Try clicking the Green Check next to your article to remove it from the front page.

Article Manager List Front Page Column
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A) Publishing and un-publishing articles can be done through the Article Editor and the Article Manager List, just like with promoting articles to the front page.  However, you can also schedule the dates on which articles should start publishing and the date it should stop publishing.  This can be useful.  It allows you to write group of articles at one time, and have your website publish them automatically over a prolonged period.  Your website will continually provide fresh content without your constant management.

C) Open your article for editing, if it is not already opened.  In the Article Editor, select ‘No’ from the ‘Published’ radio button above the WYSIWYG Editor, as shown below.  Then click Apply.  Now look at the training website front end.  Notice your article is no longer displayed.

D) Now set the article to published and click Save 

E) If you clicked Save in the step above, you should now be viewing the Article Manager List.  All the articles with a Green Check in the ‘Published’ column are published; those with the Red Circle-X are not.  Clicking the Green Check or Red Circle, changes the publish status of the associated article. Try clicking the Green Check next to your article. Publish and un-publish it.

F) The preceding is similar to how articles are added and removed from the front page.  Now lets schedule the publication date of your article.

G) Click the title of your article to open it in the Article Editor. Change the start publishing date as shown in the image below.  You can either type in the date in the text field.  Or click the calendar icon besides the text field.  This will open a calendar control for selecting a date.

 Article Editor Publish Start and End Date Settings
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H) You can also change the 'Finish Publishing' date if you would like your article to be automatically unpublished.