First, open Admin Control Panel: http://montesite.net/joomla/administrator/index.php

with the ADMIN link at top of the Main Menu to the left 

(or just type "administrator" onto the end of the address in the browser's address box above, then hit enter)

In the resulting screen enter this data:                            Username = human

                                                                                                Password = admin 

to post a new article.

Note the built in wysiwyg editor, hover over the icons to see what they do.

It has buttons at the top to add links and picture(link)s,

one at the bottom adds a page break where ever you've put the cursor.

If you want to paste in some html, or manipulate the html directly, 

you must first click the "HTML" button to open a pop up window. 

to see what extensions are available, learn how to move them about the page, or to install new modules and extensions. 

 

Most tasks start with clicking the green circle (+) "New" button 

 

Unless you want to add another menu somewhere else on the page, stick with:

"Menus" -> "Main Menu" -> "New"

where you must go after posting an article if you want to give it it's own page.

Posting articles to the Home page does not require going to "Menus", but adjusting how the Home page displays does. 

 

"Published" must be selected as "Yes", or the "Article" will not show.

"Front Page" must be selected as "Yes" and/or a link to the "Article" must be created in the ("Main) Menu",

or the "Article" will not show.

  

Check your progress frequently by displaying updates.

To do this simply click "Apply", then go to the resulting page (preview link) and then click on the "Reload this page" button in the top of your browser window (this is one of the better reasons i advocate using a browser with tabs).

  

When you are done with a task, or want to go to a new task, click on "Save" or "Close", so you can access the drop down menus once again. 

 

If it gets stuck, and won't "Close", "Save", or otherwise return to where you can do something else, simply go to the browser's address bar and delete everything to the left of the "admin/index.php" (so only "http://montesite.net/joomla/administrator/index.php" is left), then hit the enter key. This will reload the default "Control Panel" that you started at.

 

If anything at all doesn't work right, or if results seem particularly freeky, try killing the browser you're using and opening the page in another browser. 

 

One may have more than one copy of admin page open at a time, but it will not perform as reliably if you try to do two things at once. 

 

If you get sick of the anonymous accredation of "Administrator", or would just like to differentiate your posts from other authors ("Written by"), you may just go to "Site" -> "User Manager" -> "New" and create another user. No other user will have the total control of "Administrator" but if you mess up, or forget your password, just log back in as "human" and use "Administrator" "User" to clean up or start over. 

 

If you do this i recommend you take the opportunity to forge a new habit by emailing yourself the username and password, and then establishing a folder in your email app for passwords, if you have not already aquired such a habit. This has helped me immensely since i recently started doing so. Even though i strive to use a simple small set of users and passes, sometimes you can't reuse them, like when setting up a new Joomla install, I wish i had begun this folder many years ago.

 

The appearance of the site is controlled by "Templates". The template being used on this site is the default default ("Default #3"), known as "rhuk_milkyway". As i like this template a lot, and to keep this a simplified standardized testbed, there is a seperate install labeled "Artisteer Wordpress Template" in the "Main Menu", where i describe the "Template" function. The Artisteer Wordpress Template site is for our use in trying and logging other templates.

 

Many "Extensions", to add function and fun, can be found @ http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions

 

If you install an "Extension" please record it in the "Extensions" Article.

Links to the download and/or a descriptive, or home, page, for the extension, and a description of what you liked or disliked about it, would be very much appreciated as it will keep this site easier and more productive to use, easier to understand and learn from, and cleaner to use as a testbed.