While a little less popular because of its complexity, Joomla remains one of the top 3 web design platforms for managing content; CMS Content Management Systems. Simply put, Joomla is like WordPress on steriods with much more room to grow in size, complexity, and features than WordPress.

  While you may not always need that much power under the hood, at the same cost (FREE) it sure is great to have it there in a time of growth when it is needed.

One of the items that should be addressed in terms of Joomla's advanced complexity is its information storage structure.  Here is a simple explanation that makes it clear for most users:

Over the years I have adopted the analogy of a "file cabinet", to simply and quickly explain how the Joomla filing system works.

Sections - All joomla articles are stored in a filing cabinet.
Each drawer in the filing cabinet is a section. You can have as many drawers as you want, there are no ceiling height restrictions in joomla.
Obviously you can't place a drawer inside a drawer so you can't have sub-sections.

Categories - Inside the drawer you have folders. Each folder is a category. You can have as many folders as you want, there are no maximum drawer depths in joomla.
Obviously you can't place a folder inside a folder so you can't have sub-categories.

Articles - Inside the folder you have pieces of paper. Each piece of paper is an article (content item). You can have as many pieces of paper as you want, all folders in joomla expand to fit the content.
On top of the filing cabinet is a nice tidy tray. This is where you put the occasional "un-categorised" content, also called static content that doesn't change or move.  Static content is usually information like Contact pages, About pages, ect.



I hope you find that this makes as much logical sense to you as it has done to the hundreds of people I have trained with this method.
So the next time you are building a web site and are sketching out your Section/Category filing structure in your notepad, (you do plan the site on paper first don't you?), keep the filing cabinet in mind.

Contact Judge Media for your Joomla website development and maintenance needs.