easywebsitedevelopment.com

http://www.easywebsitedevelopment.com/1-create-website-template

Step 1: Create a website design and template with Artisteer

Here we go:

A. Sign up for a free trial of Artisteer

Artisteer is the software program that enables you to create a web design and website template. No you don´t need any technical knowledge. The current (summer 2011) version is Artisteer 3.0. You will need the Standard Edition when you purchase the software.

Sign/up

B. Create an Artisteer document

After installation of Artisteer, create a new project and choose ´Joomla template´.

Click ´Suggest Design´

Click the ´Suggest Design’ button until you see a website lay/out you like. Have a look:

D. Export the file

Export the file to a Joomla format.

E. Save the file

Save the Artisteer for future edititing (only possible in the registered version, not in the free Artisteer trial).

You are all set for step 1!!

Is it really this easy?

Yes it is. That is, if you are happy with the design you have created by only using the ‘suggestion’ button. If you want to do more customizing, have a look at our Customizing section.

Can I do more easy customising?

Yes you can. For each function there is a ‘suggest’ button too. So by just clicking the ‘suggest’ button you can have a look at all different versions. Have a look at the video, as you will see first I will change the background, then the header and so forth.

Still easy huh?

How about even more customising?

This is possible too. There are many parameters you can change without needing any html knowledge or programming skills. For instance: colours, fonts, headers, page width, columns, menu, buttons, et cetera. Have a look:

You can spend as much time tweaking as you wish. If you want to learn more about the Artisteer options and possibilities you can take a look at the manual. However, my suggestion would be to launch the template fairly quickly and start tweaking it later. This way you make sure you implement your ideas immediately, don’t hesitate, just dare to publish. You can always tweak and improve later.

One more thing

In this article I choose ‘1 column’ in artisteer, to keep it easy. This will be clarified later on in this article

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Step 2: Initialise Hosting and Joomla Content Management

Here we go:

A. Sign-up with Bluehost

Sign up with Bluehost to get a hosting contract and make sure the website can be shown to the public. Bluehost is one of the worlds biggest hosting companies.

Note (1): I’m sure there are more hosting companies with a C-Panel dashboard enabling the Content Management System Joomla to be configured easily. I just have not tested others. The hosting company I work with is Bluehost. For sure I know following will work with Bluehost.

B. Initialise Joomla

Just follow the steps as visualised:

Select simple scripts

Choose Content Management – Joomla

Note (2): this should work with Content Management Systems Drupal, Wordpress and Blogger as well, I just have not tested it. I am happy with the Joomla solution.

Go to Install Joomla

Choose a Joomla version and choose a (temporary) name

Joomla 1.5.15 is the one I have used frequently. Joomla 1.6.5 should work too. Joomla 1.7 might be problematic. To play it safe, I choose 1.5.15.

Joomla is installed.

Now you are all set up. Your hosting (Bluehost) en Content Management System (Joomla) are ready. Go to the given URL and login.

C. Import template

Now it is time to match Artisteer with Bluehost. The exported Artisteer files will be imported in the Joomla environment in Bluehost.

Here we go:

Go to Extensions – Install

Import the template

Browse to the Joomla export from Artisteer and click ‘upload file & install’.

Go to Extensions – Template manager

Select the imported template and choose ‘default’

Your Artisteer template is now activated. Have a look at your trial website.

D. Manage the content

I have to refer to the Joomla help website to get detailed instructions for being able to put all Joomla possibilities into practice. I will only describe my own basic steps. Mainly because the possibilities are way to large for John Doe, like me, who just needs a good website filled with text and images. After you master the basics you will find out more functions of Joomla. Let's just focus on the basic website and get it on line.

Here we go:

Go to the Article Manager and delete existing items

There is so much dummy content in the Bluehost-Joomla website it confuses me. So I get rid of it.

First let's go to the article section:

This takes you to this page. Now delete the lot:

Create a new article

This calls for a new article, since we threw them all away.

This will take you here:

Give the article a titel. You also need to appoint it to a section and category. There might be all kind of brilliant functionalities to go with that but I don´t know what they are and have never missed them. So I just choose ´uncategorised´ and never mind them again.

Go to the topmenu and delete existing items

Now there are different kind of menu´s. This might complicate things a bit. The easy way to deal with this is to select ‘one column’ in Artisteer. Which I have done. This leaves the topmenu:

This will get you here:

Trash the existing menu items.

Create a new menu item - 1

After you clicked ‘new’ you will see this page:

Here you will find more options then you need. Choose Articles – Article – Article lay-out and forget about the rest (for now).

Create a new menu item - 2

Give the menu item a name. And connect an article to the menu-item.

As you will see, you need to create an article before you can connect a menu-item to it.

Home

You have to adress a menu-item to be the homepage. Like this:

That’s it! This way you can create multiple articles and menu-items. Always make the articles first. This does make sense: first you create articles / the content pages you wish to publish. Then you create menu-items to make them accessible. The system here gives you the flexibility to leave your articles in tact when you decide to change your menu. It might be a bit more complex but in this case I think this is a wise decision.

As stated before, see the Joomla help website to get a grasp of all possibillities. For Bluehost questions look at their features or help page.

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Step 3: Point a domainname to your website

Login into your Bluehost account. Choose 'Addon Domains':

Here you will find the 'Assign Domain' screen with four steps:

Enter Domain

Assuming you want to use a domain which is not registered at Bluehost, you will enter your domainname here:

Verify Ownership

The next step is to 'verify ownership'. There are several ways to do this. Changing nameservers tend to take long and the autorisationcode is not always present at any domainname extension.

So we choose to change the A-record.

This you will have to do at your domainname-hosting company. Go to your domain name hoster and change the DNS A-record into the number which is written on the Bluehost page. At my domainhoster it goes like this:

The changes might take a few hours to be effective, although usually it goes pretty fast. Where to find this can be different at any hosting company. If you do not have access to set your own DNS records you might consider moving your business elsewhere. Ofcourse you can have your domainnames hosted at Bluehost too.

Choose Addon

This is a default choice, just leave it the way it is "Addon Domain"

Choose Addon Directory

Here you attach the domainname to the website you have created:

Click add Domain and you are all set

Congratulations! Your website will be up and running in a few moments.