These instructions are the same as for Joomla! 1.6 and Joomla! 1.7.

Some images may be clicked for full size versions.

(1) Login to the Joomla! backend.

(2) Select Template Manager from the Extensions menu:

(3) Click on the Options icon:

(4) Click on the Enabled button of the Preview Module Positions entry.Then click on Save or Save & Close to save the change.

(5) Observe that module positions are now visible on your Joomla! pages when you append ?tp=1 to the end of your URL:

When you are done examining module positions, remember to set Preview Module Positions to Disabled.

The post How to View Module Positions in Joomla! 2.5 appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.

This tutorial describes how to install Joomla! version 2.5.0 under XAMPP version 1.7.3 on Windows 7.

The procedure should be the same or similar for other version combinations, but no guarantee is made.

Assumes you have already

• installed XAMPP. (Installation instructions can be found here.)
• created a MySQL database. (Creation instructions can be found here.)

Some images may be clicked on images for full size versions.

Downloading Joomla!

1) Download the full Joomla install from here Click on the zip link.

2) Click on Save as.

3) Choose a directory in which to save the file and click on Save. Remember where you saved the file.

4) After the download has completed, you can choose Open to open the downloaded file with the default application or Open folder to open the folder where the file was downloaded (which is what the next step assumes):

Extracting Joomla!

5) Go to the directory where the file was downloaded and open it by double-clicking on it:

6) Click on Extract all files:

7) Extract the Joomla! files to a subfolder of htdocs in your XAMPP folder. By default, XAMPP would be installed to your C:\ drive, so you would enter C:\xampp\htdocs\joomla as the directory to extract to. In my case, I extracted them into a folder called joomla250. Click on Extract to extract the files.

Setting up Joomla!

8) Launch your browser and type http://localhost/joomla into the address bar. What follows http://localhost/ is the directory you installed Joomla! into (in my case, joomla250).

9) Select your preferred language, then click on Next. NOTE: I have only ever tried installing it in English.

10) Confirm you meet the minimum installation requirements, then click Next. It is normal for Display errors to be set to On. NOTE: If having Display errors set to On is really bothering you, you can turn it off by following these directions.

11) Read the GNU license and, if you agree with it, click Next.

12) Fill in the database configuration information:

• Database Type: Mysqli (default setting) NOTE: Mysqli is the improved MySQL interface available for use with MySQL 5.0 or higher. You can still use the Mysql interface if you like.
• Host Name: localhost (default setting)
• Username: if you created a MySql User, enter the name here. Otherwise, use root.
• Password: this is the password associated with the user name entered above. If you used root as your username, then leave the password blank (the default XAMPP install does not assign a password to root).
• Database Name: this is the name of the database you created. Database creation instructions are here.
• Table Prefix: a unique prefix for accessing the table. Using the default (or suggested prefix) is fine.

13) Ensure FTP is set to No, then click Next.

14) Enter a site name (for example, Complete, Concrete, Concise or whatever name you want this site to have).

Enter Your Email address. Joomla! will send notifications to this email address.

Enter an Admin Username. This is the username you will use to log into the Joomla! backend. By default, it is admin (and I leave it as admin). NOTE: if this is a production install, or you are worried about security, then you should choose a better admin name – it should be longer and include letters, numbers and symbols / punctuation. For example, the following admin name worked: -admin.123@sqig.

Enter an Admin Password – this is the password you will use to log into the Joomla! backend.

Confirm the Admin Password.

Choose if you want to install the sample data. I like to install it, since it saves me the trouble of populating the site with sample articles for testing. The sample data is only available in English. NOTE: don’t install the sample data if you are installing the site for “real” use because it is a pain to have to go and clean up all the sample data.

Click on Next.

15) Confirm you have successfully installed. Note that your user name for logging into the Joomla! backend is admin (if you accepted the default name, otherwise it is whatever name you entered into the Admin Username field in Step (14)).

Cleaning Up

As a security precaution, Joomla! requires you to remove the installation directory before the site becomes functional. In Joomla! 2.5, this can be done from the final installation screen.

16) Click on the Remove installation folder to remove the installation folder and complete the installation.

The post Installing Joomla! 2.5 Under XAMPP appeared first on Complete, Concrete, Concise.