Be sure to bookmark or add this page to your Favorites before proceeding for fast future access.Type in the Username and Password provided to you. You we be directed to the main Control Panel Screen where you will see links to various sections of this Admin. 

2. Managing and Your Web Pages 
Web Pages, also called “CONTENT ITEMS” are managed through the Content Items Manager. From the main Control Panel screen pictured above, click on the icon for “Content Items Manager” or there is a link in the top menu under 
CONTENT -> ALL CONTENT ITEMS.

Once you have entered the Content Items Manager, you will see a list of all your web pages (under Title). 
- To Open a page, simply click on the page name in the title column (pictured below)
- To Create a new page, Click the NEW button in the upper right. 
- To Delete a page, place a check mark next to the title and click the TRASH button
- To have a pages content appear on the home page, click the red X next to it
- You can also click on the green check mark icon in the "Published" column to activate or de-activate a page. This is helpful if you are working on a page but do not want to have it displayed on the site yet.

NOTE: Be sure to always SAVE a page or click the CLOSE button after opening it or a little padlock image will appear next to it in the content items menu. This will not hurt anything nor will it not allow you to open it, but it is good practice to either save or close when you open a page. Please note also that NOT ALL text and page content on your website is located in this section. There may be components running on your site that have their own text sections associated with them. 

2a. Editing Your Pages. 
Once you have a page opened, you can use the editor to modify virtually any details on that page. Although we do not provide full instructions on how to use the editor, you can place your mouse over the various buttons to see a description appear of what that button does. I highly recommend opening a second window with your actual website in it. Then you can have both the Control Panel open and your Website open at the same time. This will allow you to refresh, and view updates you make to the site instantly. You can click on the APPLY button to view changes without saving the page. When editing pages, you will more then likely NOT need to use the tabs that appear on the right side of the editor. You can alter the META INFO which is basically used to help your pages rank in search engines.
 

2b. Creating A New Page. 
To create a new page, you need to open the CONTENT ITEMS MANAGER as mentioned above. Once opened, click on the NEW button in the upper right hand corner to create a new page from scratch. 
1. Enter in a Page Title (do not worry about entering text into the Title Alias field below it)
2. Select a SECTION from the drop down menu that appear to the right of the title box
3. Type in text, add photos, create hyperlinks, or whatever in the editor below.
4. Create a link that will go to this new page by clicking on the tab located to the right of the editor called “LINK TO MENU” and type in a name for the menu item. Be sure to click on “MAIN MENU” from the list in this tab, and then click on the button that says “LINK TO MENU”. This will automatically create a menu link on your website to this page you’re creating.
5. You can click the META INFO tab and enter keywords in here if you like. Do not worry about the PARAMETER tab or other tabs
6. Once you are finished, click the SAVE button in the upper right of the screen to save this new page.

2c. Working With Tables. 
There are many circumstances that will require you to use tables in your pages. These are used to force the positions of elements in your page, most notably, photographs / images. The following will guide you through on how to insert and edit a table.
1. Open the page you want to edit and click in the area you want to place the table.
2. Click on the "TABLE TOOL" icon to open up the table creation tool

3. You will see a pop up box with various fields that you can use to specify the details of your table i.e. (number or columns, rows...)

4. The picture below is showing that I am creating a two column table with two rows. The Cellspacing tells how much space to put in between each table cell. You will want to specify the width at 100% if you want the table to expand the entire page width. You do not need to mess with the alignment drop down unless you use a value less then 100% for the width. You also do not need to mess with the height or class. The advanced tab has some additional features that allow you to specify a border color, background color and more but typically you do not need to mess with this either.
 
 
5. Once you have the values set, click the "Insert Button". You will now see a table on your page. If there is no border set, you will still see a light gray dashed line which indicates the table cells. Do not worry, these lines will not show up on your actual webpage. Now that you have a table in place, you can simply drag and drop text into the cells. The image below shows the table I created using the values you see in the image above.

NOTE: Each cell has by default a SPACE in it so you may want to go through and remove the character space in the cells before moving items into the cells. This can help save on alignment issues later.

3. Managing your menu
Some site templates I hard code the menu in due to design restrictions. Most sites have the live CMS menu feature running though. To edit your menu, click on the link in the top menu: MENU -> MAIN MENU. You will see a list of all the menu items in your site. You can change the order by clicking the little blue arrows located next to each. You can also choose to deactivate a link by clicking the little icon in the column for “Publish”. You can make a menu item a sub-menu item of another by clicking the menu name, then you will see a screen that has a drop down for PARENT ITEM in which you can select from the list. For instance, you could have FAQ’s link be a sub link of ABOUT US. You can click on the menu name to change the text name for that menu item. If you would like to create a new menu item, you would click on the NEW button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. You will then be presented with a list of menu types. To create a link to a component like a shopping cart, events calendar and so on, select COMPONENT from the options. If you are trying to link to another website, simply select LINK - URL in the bottom right and then enter in the website address. PLEASE NOTE, if your creating a new page, do not try and create the menu item first, but rather refer back to section 2B above and create your menu item when you create your page. 

4. Components 
We can not possibly cover all the components and their properties here since there are hundreds available, but I will briefly explain this section and how to use it. Components are like aftermarket parts for your car. They add additional features to your site and or entire programs to your site like an events calendar, photo gallery, shopping cart, newsletter and more. Most components have a CONFIGURATION feature where you can configure how it is supposed to act on your site. The best place to find help on individual components is by going to the components manufacturer’s website and visiting their forums or by contacting us. You can obtain links to their sites by simply opening up a component looking for a manufacturer link somewhere on the page. Some of the components listed will not even be active on your site. Typically I do not activate Web Links, Contacts, Banners, Polls, and Syndicate components. To view a library of available components, visit the main library here: http://extensions.joomla.org and download them to your computer but do not unzip them. You can then use the “INSTALLERS - > COMPONENTS” link in the top menu to install it. Some of the programs will come with what’s called a MODULE and possibly what’s called a MAMBOT that you will need to install as well. Most manufactures split these up and inform you that you need to install these other files as well.

5. Modules
Modules are a little harder to explain or give a good analogy of. They are basically items used either in conjunction with a component, or are a type of component themselves in which you can position in different sections and configure. Most likely, you will never have to mess with modules anyway. To see a list of all the modules running on your site, click the link in the top menu called MODULES - > SITE MODULES. You will see items such as “Main Menu” which is obviously your menu and you can click on its name to configure various aspects of it. As mentioned before, some components have associated modules like Polls, Events Calendar, Banners, Syndicate and others. 

Taking a look at the module POLLS, you will see some configuration items such as:
1. Title - This is simply the name of it and what will appear if you choose to display the name of it.

2. Position – This is where you can specify where on the page your module will appear. For instance, you can select, RIGHT from the drop down menu to have it appear on the right side of the web page. Or USER 1 to have it appear elsewhere. Each template is different so there is no way of telling you which positions are available and where they will appear. The most common ones I use are: LEFT, TOP, RIGHT, USER 1, USER 2, USER

3, BANNER, and FOOTER. This is something that involves trial and error to see where I have positioned the modules names. The drop down that appears below the position is the order in which you can have your modules. For instance, you can place more then one module in the RIGHT position and then use the MODULE ORDER drop down menu to specify which one appears 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on. 

4. In order for a module to be active, it must be published. There is a check box below the drop down that you can specify weather to publish the module or leave it inactive.

5. Parameters – Some modules will only have a few, others are pretty in depth. This section is just a way to configure the module and what to display.

6. Page Items – This is the section on the right hand side which shows all the menu items (pages) in your site. You can specify to only show a module on certain pages like just on the home page for instance. To select multiple pages, hold down your CONTROL key and select the pages you want this module to be displayed on, or use the ALL feature to have it displayed on all pages. The following example shows that I have this POLLS module active and have it appearing only on the home page in the RIGHT section of the webpage.

Below is an image of a sample webpage that shows a couple of positions (the blue boxes) where you can 
insert a module (Left or Right). Note that these are just a very example. You can have multiple modules in the same position if you like. 

6. Mambots
Typically, you will never have to mess with these. They are simply needed code files used by various components and you do not need to configure them.

7. Other Misc. Items available common components and notes

YANC Newsletter component is obviously a newsletter Component, and you can set this up pretty easily if you want to use it. Basically, you create a newsletter and send it out. It will email the letter to anyone in your YANC members list. You can also go to item 6 above and read how to create a menu item that links to this component if you want to use it. It will allow people to simply sign up to receive your newsletter without becoming a full blown member. They just enter their email and name and they can choose to unsubscribe if they like. The MASS EMAIL feature under components is a small version of this but only emails members and has no subscribe or unsubscribe feature.

Community Builder is a component used for manage your members. You will see a link on the main page for User Management, but this is just the stock feature that comes with the CMS software and its not very feature rich. Community Builder is a program that typically interacts with all other components in your site like the newsletter program, events, and others. It’s a pretty self explanatory component to use as well.


I think that covers the major stuff and I hope this serves as a good reference for you in getting familiar with your site. I think you will really enjoy playing around with things and will find it more fun once you are familiar with everything. It took me a solid week or two to feel comfortable myself with using this Control panel and I was going to just forget about it, but now I love it and am glad I did not abandon it! Anyway, feel free to contact me anytime if you have questions or need help with anything on it. 

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