In This Chapter

It’s difficult to find a Joomla-powered website that has not added functionality beyond the basics with some sort of extension. The word extension collectively describes components, modules, plugins, templates, and languages.

Thousands of extensions are available both free and commercially from third-party providers. You can find out more about them at extensions.joomla.org (for GPL) and other commercial directories (for non-GPL).

Late 2007 saw the release of Joomla 1.5, which signified a major rewrite of the software. It was a significant enough change that extensions had to be rewritten to operate efficiently in the new version. That is why you see extensions classified as 1.0 Native, 1.5 Legacy, and 1.5 Native. Extensions classified as 1.5 Native have undergone the significant rewrite that is needed to operate efficiently in Joomla 1.5 and should be preferred. Extensions classified as 1.5 Legacy in addition to some minor revisions, have been made to work in the new 1.5 environment. A 1.0 Native extension will not work in Joomla 1.5 and for all intents and purposes should be considered functional only in a Joomla 1.0 environment.

This lesson looks at some examples of core and third-party Joomla extensions. It also examines how they are installed and managed in Joomla. This lesson covers the following topics:

• What are extensions?

• How do you install Joomla extensions?

• Where can you get third-party extensions?

• What are components?

• What are modules?