The Joomla User menu is where you can add/edit user settings, add users to groups to determine what items they are allowed to edit, set up the user access levels to control which users can see which pages within your site, and some documentation capabilities with the use of notes. 


User Manager 
The User area is where individual user accounts are managed. This is where you add new users, enable or disable access, and define which website areas the user is allowed to access or edit. To edit an existing user, just click on the user's name.

How do I add a user? 
Add users by clicking on the New icon across the top toolbar.
 

There are a couple of selections that are necessary to properly configure the user account.  The Account Details tab has three required fields. Name is the user's full name. The Login Name must equal the user's BlazerId. Do not enter a password; leave the password field blank. Enter the user's email address. Then click on the Assigned User Groups tab.
 


Under Assigned User Groups tab, specify what type of access will be granted to the user.  The default of "registered" does not allow the user to edit the website. Please note, each higher access level includes all the permissions below it. Assigning a user to multiple groups will set permissions only to the lowest access level, not the highest.


What are the User Groups?
Group settings vary from website to website, so we are going to narrow this to the standard settings initially assigned to all UAB websites:

Public:  This is sort of the "default account."  It really has no edit permissions set for anything, and really all a "public" user account would be able to do is simply look at the website from the front-end.  From there, we begin adding levels of permissions.
Registered: users can see content that non-registered users cannot, but they do not have the ability to edit anything.
Author: users can create articles and edit the ones they created, but do not have the ability to edit anything else, including articles by other authors.
Editors: are virtually the same as authors, but they can edit all author articles, not just their own.
Publishers: are the same as editors, but they can also determine whether articles can be published, unpublished, or deleted.
Manager:  A manager is able to manage groups below them and and login the back end.
Administrator:  Admins are able to manage groups and all back-end resources. There are also three different levels of back-end settings: manager, administrator, and super administrator. These levels have varying degrees of access to back-end tools with manager being the lowest level of access and super administrator having complete access to all site tools in most sites.

Visit the Joomla Documentation website for complete documentation of Joomla user groups and access levels.

Categories in Joomla provide a method for organizing your content/articles. Here's how it works: Each category has articles assigned to it, and some categories may have sub-categories (think parent/child organizational structure). 

Another way to consider this organization is to have a Category called “Pets,” and two sub-categories, one called “Dogs” and one called “Cats.”  Articles about choosing a pet would go under the general category of "Pets". Articles about dogs would be assigned to the “Dogs” sub-category and ones about cats the “Cats” sub-category. You could not have one article that is in both the “Cats” and “Dogs” categories.

Why Use Categories?
There are two main reasons you might want to organize your articles in sections and categories. These are listed here, but will be described in detail in a later document.

1. Dynamic content layouts
2. Organizing articles

Create a Category:
Navigate to the Content menu. Select Categories to view a list of all categories within the site, as well as a toolbar to perform other actions.


Click the New icon on the top toolbar to add a new category.

A category requires a Title and an (optional) alias. If you do not add an alias, whatever you put in as the title will become the alias. In this example, we are going to give the category the title of "Area 5" then  Save & Close.


Categories also have the ability to be nested by creating subcategories. To create a subcategory, assign the category to a parent item.

Categories and subcategories are indented to visually display their nested relationships.

In Joomla, an article is content you want to display on your site. Articles may include text, images, videos, files, and links to other assets. For many Joomla sites, articles form the majority of the information presented in the site.

It is important to understand that with Joomla the content of the site (for example, articles) is totally separate from the presentation of the site (the way it looks on the page). It is best to think of articles as pure content, independent of the way it might be presented.  An article generally cannot be seen until it is linked in a menu.

The process for creating a new article and getting it online is as follows:

1. Make sure a category exists in order to be able to save your article.
2. Create the article.

Our example web site is designed with 4 areas that consists of 3 articles each. Each area has the following articles:

• Area Landing Page
• Article 1
• Article 2

Let's create the same for Area 5. It is very easy to create articles. Just login the back-end of your site if you aren’t there already, click Content > Article> Add New Article.

Provide a title (Area 5 Landing Page), add some content to the editor, and select Area 5 as the category drop down menu. Click Save & Close.


After saving the article/page, you will be taken to a listing of all articles. You can edit any article, delete any article, or make new articles. Go ahead and make two additional new articles for the site titled Article 1 and Article 2, assigned to the Area 5 category.

The Horizontal Menu has already been created for you. The UAB template is designed for you to create individual left sidebars for each area of your site. The horizontal navigation menu is used to point to the left sidebar menus using an menu item alias link. The color and size of the horizontal navigation may vary from site to site.

Go to Menus > Manage and click on Horizontal Navigation-DO NOT DELETE to add menu items a new menu item. You will see a listing of menu items within the Horizontal Navigation menu. Click on New to add a new menu item to the Horizontal Navigation menu.  Provide a Menu Title of Area 5. Under Menu Item Type, choose the Select icon.

Under System Links, choose "Menu Item Alias." This is simply a manu item that points to another menu.

Next, we want to point our alias to the correct sidebar menu. Filter the menus to include menu items from only the Area 5 Sidebar menu. Select the menu item titled Area 5 Sidebar that points to the landing page artice.


That's it!  Just click "Save & Close" and you can preview your new menu.  To create a drop down menu, complete the steps above and select a Parent Item from the drop down menu.

UAB Quicklinks is a dropdown menu found in the top right of every page in your site. This menu links to UAB resources that are updated automatically. Please do not remove or disable the UAB Quicklinks, as this is a standard branding element.

To the left the UAB Quicklinks you can add your own site-specific Department Quicklinks.

In order to edit the QuickLinks, click on Menus > Dept Quicklinks. You can click on the existing items to edit the items displayed. Click on the New icon to add new menu items. By default, your Quicklinks menu will contain a link to the front page of your website.