What Is the Frontend and Backend of a Joomla-powered Website? After you install Joomla, you actually have two sites:

• The public site (commonly called the frontend) that people view at www.yoursite.com
• The administration site (commonly called the backend) whose URL is www.yoursite.com/administrator

While some administration is possible via the frontend of the site, it's most efficient to manage your site through the backend. When you browse to the backend, you are greeted by a login prompt (see Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1

To get any further, you'll need an administrative password. I hope you remembered it! To get any further, you'll need an administrative password. I hope you remembered it!

1. I know you never will, but should you ever lose your administrative password, there is a post about how to recover it on the forums: forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,10985.0.html.
2. When you installed Joomla, on the final screen, you were asked for an admin password. That is the first account created, and it is given an Access Control Level (ACL) group of Super Administrator. The username is "admin," and the password will be whatever you entered.

Assuming you log in with a super administrator account, you'll be presented with the administrative backend of your site. It looks slightly different based on what level of administrator you are.

You will sometimes find that the different parts of the administrative screen are given different names. This is especially true with 1.6, as it is still a beta release and documentation is still evolving. I'll endeavor to follow the conventions being used by the Joomla Documentation Team where possible

At the top of the page is a Menu Bar, immediately under that is a Toolbar (in Figure 3.2 it is not visible), and then the large area is the Workspace. The initial page when you first log in to the backend is called the Control Panel.

Figure 3.2