Joomla!
Search
Joomla! 2.5 offers two search options.
The Basic Search component provides basic search functionality for the information contained in your core components. Many extensions can also be searched by the search component. Help
The Smart Search component offers searching similar to that found in major search engines. Smart Search is disabled by default. If you choose to enable it you will need to take several steps. First, enable the Smart Search Plugin in the plugin manager. Then, if you are using the Basic Search Module replace it with the Smart Search Module. Finally, if you have already created content, go to the Smart Search component in your site administrator and click the Index icon. Once indexing of your content is complete, Smart Search will be ready to use. Help.
Sample Sites
Your installation includes sample data, designed to show you some of the options you have for building your website. In addition to information about Joomla! there are two sample "sites within a site" designed to help you get started with building your own site.
The first site is a simple site about Australian Parks. It shows how you can quickly and easily build a personal site with just the building blocks that are part of Joomla. It includes a personal blog, weblinks, and a very simple image gallery.
The second site is slightly more complex and represents what you might do if you are building a site for a small business, in this case a Fruit Shop.
In building either style site, or something completely different, you will probably want to add extensions and either create or purchase your own template. Many Joomla users start by modifying the templates that come with the core distribution so that they include special images and other design elements that relate to their site's focus.