Professional Joomla walks the reader through Joomla, an open content management system that is rapidly growing in popularity. Readers will quickly advance from installation, integration, and set-up topics to digging into the underlying PHP and MySQL whose flexibility is driving the growth of the platform. Readers will explore load balancing, log tracking, and even search engine optimization. From a user standpoint, Joomla offers tremendous ease of use and simplicity. The elegant dashboard based upon the KDE interface allows content to be updated in minutes and data to flow freely from outside sources. Administrators and developers have he capability to customize virtually every aspect of the platform. For this reason extra attention is given to topics like plug-ins, the API, design and skinning, and integration with existing databases, websites, and web services.

As a major force in the world of affordable, advanced web site deployment, Joomla! has become the most important noncommercial Content Management System (CMS) in the world. The number of Joomla! downloads and add-ons continues to grow at lightning pace, spurring the need for a resource that explores the diverse needs of professional Joomla! developers. This book fills that void by covering the two main areas of the Joomla! field—development and deployment—with a focus on the new Joomla! version 1.5 and all the features it provides.

Seasoned author Dan Rahmel walks you through the process of creating all three types of Joomla! extensions (modules, components, and plug-ins), explains how best to use Ajax technology, and shows you how to adopt design patterns and incorporate source code control. You'll examine the underlying technologies (PHP, Apache, etc.) that can be tuned to offer the best system performance, and you'll explore interfacing with outside content, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) setup, and much more. You'll even delve into the internal structure of the Joomla! framework, and obtain a unique behind-the-scenes education so that you can modify and extend Joomla! to meet the needs of you and your customers.

What you will learn from this book

* How each server of a Joomla! system can be installed and configured for maximum performance
* The process of creating a module from scratch
* Ways to use Ajax to add dynamic data retrieval to Joomla!
* Techniques for using design patterns to solve common programming problems
* How to create and retain a virtual community
* Procedures for tuning a Joomla! site for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Management (SEM)

Who this book is for

This book is for web developers, hobbyists, web designers, bloggers, corporate content creators, and support specialists who are looking to build a more robust web site. Basic skills in the area of PHP programming are necessary.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the