Introduction to Joomla Extensions

Even when you are all set to install your web site in Joomla and ready to start off your business, sometimes, you might need just a something extra to enhance the functionality of your existing website. In such times, instead of going back to the drawing board, Joomla offers a much easier solution in form of Joomla extensions.

What are Joomla extensions?

Joomla extensions are nothing but what Plugins are to a WordPress site. These extensions provide an ability to your site to perform functions that it could not with the current installation. There are five types of extensions, which are Components, Modules, Plugins, Templates and Languages.

• Components

These are the most complex and most competent among the other varieties. You can term them as mini applications that more or less function on their own.

• Modules

Page rendition-based extensions fall under Modules. These are basically used when you want to modify the layout of your website. Modules are assigned to menu items.

• Plugins

These are used to create event handlers. They are more sophisticated than the other extension types. They are created to handle an event, and are triggered when that event in an application is triggered.

• Templates

Templates are the skin of the website. If you are unhappy with the look and feel of your website, you can modify it using templates. These are pretty easy to build and provide maximum flexibility as well.

• Languages

This as the name suggests is one of the basic extensions. It lets you package additional languages in form of either a core package or extension package.

Installing extensions

To actually start using your extension, you need to first install it to your Joomla site. There are mainly 3 ways to install an extension.

• Upload an extension – Using the Joomla extension manager, upload your extension package file to install it.
• Install from a directory
• Install from a URL

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You can also update your installed extension as and when an update is available using the extension manager.

Extensions can be fun to play around with and enhance your websites user experience. Joomla extensions library offers a host of free and paid extensions that you can browse and select based on your specific requirements. For a quick look at what exactly are extensions, see Comdev.