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written by Jon , April 26, 2009

Great stuff Mike! That was very helpful; it IS clear now. I've just been learning about Joomla for a little over a week and your web page and podcasts have been an integral part of what I've picked up. One thing I would like to see from you is perhaps a comprehensive list of all of the plugins, modules and components you recommend. You have such an expert view of those, it would be nice to just see that list in one place for our reference. I especially like that JCE you talked about; do you use the 2 or 3 free parts or did you pay for the "subscription" for it as well?

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written by Dan , April 27, 2009

This is good and helpful for people new to Joomla, but it's not entirely correct.

Module content may come from Joomla's core content component, the article manager, AKA com_content. Module content may come from another component or it may be generated by the module. Module positions are dictated to an extent by a template (that's the normal situation), but their position can also be controlled by components, plugins, and other modules. With certain templates and/or modules you can allow users to drag and drop or move modules around by other means.

Components are not necessarily "big." Most are sizable, but not all. Some act as switches or what we're used to from system plugins. Many don't have frontend output--you can't create menu items for them.

The typical component is an application with some major functional additions for Joomla. It adds greatly to what your site can do in a very visible and probably interactive way.

The default and standard output for components is the main body or "component" area on a page as determined by where you place in the template.

The component area can be positioned anywhere, but most components are built on the assumption they will have a 500px wide or greater output area.

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written by Dan , April 27, 2009

Oops, code was stripped:

The default and standard output for components is the main body or "component" area on a page as determined by where you place < jdoc:include type="component" /> in the template.

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written by Mike B. , April 27, 2009

hi dan,

thanks for the correction. my tutorial is definitely aimed at beginners to Joomla, but it's good to know just how flexible Joomla is.

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written by Mike B. , April 27, 2009

@Jon: I paid up for JCE because the image manager is pretty sweet. being able to resize and create thumbnails on the fly is pretty cool. built in support for lightbox is nice too.

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written by Jeffrey Schork , October 21, 2009

I have audio but no vid?

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written by Mike Williquette , November 11, 2009

Great site!

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written by Mike Williquette , November 11, 2009

Dear Mike,

I am wondering ... did you use an extension to be able to show video on your site? If so, which one are you using?

Thanks!

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written by Mike B. , November 14, 2009

yeah I'm using...umm...think it's called Ninja Shadowbox

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written by Gregg Luhring , January 15, 2010

Thanks Mike. An excellent explanation and an excellent video. I've spent hundreds on various Joomla video tutorials (you should create one!) and no one has made it so clear. I'll be subscribing to your Podcast now...

Thanks so much.

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written by Dee , January 20, 2010

After many years of using Wordpress I decided to try Joomla.

I'm finding the learning curve of Joomla very hard but videos like these help so much .. great work.

My only suggestion right now is it would be nice to have all the videos on a single page

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written by Yashwanth , January 09, 2011

Cool video..........helped me lot to understand basics.....

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written by Video Sharing Script , April 10, 2011

I just want to say this is really good tutorial..that was very helpful, it's clear Now explaining the difference between modules, plugins and component..

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written by Steve Farrer , April 23, 2011

Hey Mike. Thanks so much for making and posting this video! I'm so grateful to have found it! I'm new to Joomla, and making a web site for a grad school class I'm in. I've been searching for quite some time now for a site that clearly explains the difference between these, and can I just say this was awesome!

Quick question, which I don't know if you can answer here, but if components replace the main area of content, how does one accomplish that exactly? For instance, my template has a small slide show in the middle. I'd like to replace it on all of my pages, except for the home page.

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written by Mike B. , April 23, 2011

Hi Steve,

It's all about menu items. The slideshow that you're talking about sounds like it's a module instead of a component. You can control what pages your modules appear on via the module manager under the menu items section.

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written by Steve , April 24, 2011

It worked! You're right - it's all about menus. Thanks so much Mike! You're a genius. Man, am I glad I found your site!!!

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written by Jitesh Patel , July 19, 2011

Very good video thx for the help! Joomla make more sense!

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written by radii supras , October 05, 2011

I "like" you on Facebook. Would love these for my oldest boy!,http://www.radiisupras.com