Building job sites with Joomla!

A practical stepwise tutorial to build your professional website using Joomla!

•  Build your own monster.com using Joomla!
•  Take your job site to the next level using commercial Jobs! Extension
•  Administrate and publish your Joomla! job site easily using the Joomla! 1.5 administrator panel and Jobs! Pro control panel interface
•  Boost your job site ranking in search engines using Joomla! SEO

Introduction

You may have various approaches for building a jobsite, with job search and registration facilities for users and providing several services to your clients such as job posting, online application process, resume search, and so on. Joomla! is one of the best approaches and an affordable solution for building your jobsite, even if you are a novice to Joomla!. This is because Joomla! is a free, open source Content Management System (CMS) , which provides one of the most powerful web application development frameworks available today. These are all reasons for building a jobsite with Joomla!:

• It has a friendly interface for all types of users—designers, developers, authors, and administrators.
• This CMS is growing rapidly and improving since its release. Joomla! is designed to be easy to install and set up even if you’re not an advanced user.
• Another advantage is that you need less time and effort to build a jobsite with Joomla!.

You need to use a Joomla! jobsite extension to build your jobsite and you can use the commercial extension Jobs! because it’s fully equipped to operate a jobsite, featuring tools to manage jobs, resumes, applications, and subscriptions. If you are looking for a jobsite such as Monster, Career Builder, a niche jobs listing such as Tech Crunch, or just posting job ads on your company site, Jobs! is an ideal solution. To know more about this extension, visit its official website http://www.instantphp.com/

Jobs! has two variations—Jobs! Pro and Jobs! Basic . The Jobs! Pro provides some additional features and facilities, which are not available in Jobs! Basic. You can use any one of them, depending upon your needs and budget. But if you need full control over your jobsite and more customization facilities, then Jobs! Pro is recommended. You can install Jobs! component and its modules easily, like any other Joomla! extension. You need to spend only a few minutes to install and configure Joomla! 1.5 and Jobs! Pro 1.3 or Jobs! Basic 1.0. It is a stepwise setup process. But first you must ensure that your system meets all the requirements that are recommended by developers.

Prerequisites for installation of Joomla! 1.5 and Jobs!

Joomla! is written in PHP and mainly uses MySQL database to store and manipulate information. Before installing Joomla! 1.5 and Jobs! extension, we need a server environment, that includes the following:

 

 

Software/Application

Minimum

Requirement

Recommended

Version

Website

PHP

5

5.2

http//php.net

MySQL

4.1 or above

5

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html

Apache

1.3 or above

 

http://httpd.apache.org

IIS

6

7

http://www.iis.net/

mod_mysql

mod_xml

mod_zlib

 

 

 

You must ensure that you have the MySQL, XML, and zlib functionality enabled within your PHP installation. This is controlled within the php.ini file.

Setting up a local server environment

In order to run Joomla! properly, we need a server environment with pre-installed PHP and MySQL. In this case, you can use a virtual server or can choose other hosting options. But if you want to try out Joomla! on your own computer before using a remote server, we can set up a local server environment.

To set up a server environment, we can use XAMPP solution. It comes equipped with Apache HTTP server, PHP, and MySQL. Installing these components individually is quite difficult and needs more time and effort.

To install XAMPP, download the latest version of XAMPP 1.7.x from the Apache friends website: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html.

Windows operating system users can install XAMPP for Windows in two different variations—self-extracting RAR archive and ZIP archive.

If you want to use self-extracting RAR archive, first download the .exe file and then follow these steps:

1. Run the installer file, choose a directory, and click on the Install button.

   

   After extracting XAMPP, the setup script setup_xampp.bat will start automatically.

2. After the installation is done, click on Start All Programs | Apache Friends | XAMPP | XAMPP Control Pane|.

   

3. Start Apache and MySQL by clicking on the Start buttons beside each item. If prompted by Windows Firewall, click on the Unblock button.For more information on installing XAMPP on Windows or troubleshooting, go to the Windows FAQs page: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/faqxampp- windows.html.

   If you are using Linux platform, download the compressed .tar.gz file and follow these steps for installation:

4. Go to a Linux shell and log in as the system administrator root:

   su

5. Extract the downloaded archive file to /opt:

   tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.7.3a.tar.gz -C /opt

   XAMPP is now installed in the /opt/lampp directory.

6. To start XAMPP, call the command:

   /opt/lampp/lampp start

   You should now see something similar to the following on your screen:

   Starting XAMPP 1.7.3a…
   LAMPP: Starting Apache…
   LAMPP: Starting MySQL…
   LAMPP started.

    

For more information on installing XAMPP on Linux or troubleshooting, go to the Linux FAQs page: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/faq-xampp-linux.html.

If you want to use XAMPP in MAC operating system , download the .dmg file and follow these steps:

1. Open the DMG-Image.
2. Drag and drop the XAMPP folder into your Applications folder.
3. XAMPP is now installed in the /Applications/XAMPP directory.
4. To start XAMPP open XAMPP Control and start Apache and MySQL.
5. After installation of XAMPP in a system, to test your installation, type the following URL in the browser: http://localhost/.

You will see the XAMPP start page.

Uploading installation packages and files to server

Now, we need to copy or transfer Joomla! installation package files to server. Before copying the installation package, we must download Joomla_1.5.15-Stable-Full_ Package.zip from the webpage http://www.joomla.org/download.html, and then extract and unzip it. You can use WinZip or WinRAR to unzip these files. After unzipping the files, you have to copy files on your server root folder (for Apache, it is htdocs folder). If you are not using the XAMPP or local server environment, you need the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software to transfer files to your server root folder, such as htdocs or wwwroot. The popular FTP software is FileZilla, which is absolutely free and available for different platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. You can get it from the website http://filezilla-project.org/.

Creating database and user

Before installing and configuring Joomla! and Jobs! extension, we also need to create a database and a database user. You can easily add a new database and any user by using phpMyAdmin in XAMPP server environment. To add a database, by using phpMyAdmin, you must follow the following steps:

• Type the address http://localhost/phpmyadmin in the web browser. The front page of phpMyAdmin will be displayed.
• Type a name for the database you want to create. For example, my_db in the Create new Database field and then click on the Create button to create the database.

  

• To be connected with the database, we need a user account. You can add a user account by clicking on the Privileges tab of phpMyAdmin.

  

• You will see all users’ information. Click on Add a new User link of Privileges window. After clicking on the link, a new window will appear. Provide the required information in the Login Information section of this window and then click on the Go button.

  

We have now completed the preparation stage of installing Joomla!.