FAQ

If you are seeking Joomla access, send a request via the Web Request Form and we will evaluate and validate. If approved, we will grant you access after appropriate training.

Before access is granted, you'll be trained in Joomla. Our Joomla training is through an online Canvas course. After we evaluate and validate your request for access, you'll be enrolled in the online course. When enrolled, you should receive an email from Canvas notifying you of the enrollment with a link to the course.

After completing the course, you should notify webmaster@uah.edu that you have completed your course. Within 48 hours of notifying us, you'll be granted access.

Joomla has 3 access levels. You will be assigned the appropriate level based on your responsibility.

• Level 3: Most users have basic Joomla access. Level 3 users can edit content within an article. View more information on what you can do with your Joomla access level.
• Level 2: Advanced Joomla access (usually one per office) is reserved for a select few advanced users. Some areas do not have a level 2 user. Level 2 users can edit menus, modules, and publish.
• Level 1: Superusers restricted to the OMC team.

Log into the front end of Joomla at uah.edu/login

View video instructions for signing into Joomla front end.

Log into the back end of Joomla at uah.edu/admnistrator

View video instructions for signing into Joomla back end.

There are many reasons why you might think that you don't have access to a page that you should. In most scenarios, users have the correct access, they just might be confused on how Joomla works. Below are common access issues that users might run into along with their solutions.

• Missing the page edit toolbar: If the edit toolbar is missing at the top right of the page.
  1. Verify that you are within the area of the site you should have access to and that you haven't left the part of the website to which you have access.
  2. If you are in the correct area, return to the login screen and verify that you are still signed-in into Joomla.
  3. If you are signed in, the page will have a "Log Out" option. If Joomla has signed you out, the page will say "Sign In".
  4. After veryfing if you are signed into Joomla and you return to the page you are attempting to edit, does the edit toolbar now show?
  5. If the edit toolbar is still not present, contact us and we will investigate further.
• Edit toolbar appears, but says "Checked Out" by a user / Edit options are grayed out: If the edit toolbar appears when you roll over the edit option it reads: "Checked Out", this means that the page is locked. A page gets locked when a user edits a page but doesn't exit the page correctly. There are a few ways for unlocking the page
  1. If a name appears by the "Checked Out" tool tip, you can contact that individual and ask them to unlock the page. After selecting 'edit', they should select the 'close' button from the Joomla editor view. When the individual who has locked a page closes the edit view properly, the locked page will unlock so others can access and make edits to the page.
  2. If a name doesn't appear by the "Checked Out" tool tip, or the named individual is not available, contact us with the URL to the page that is locked and we will unlock the page for you.
  3. Note: Only the individual who locked the page OR a member of the web team can unlock "Checked Out" pages. The best way to avoid this issue is to always exit edited pages correctly. Below are the inappropriate and appropriate methods for exiting a page correctly that you are editing.
     • Never use the browser forward or back button to exit the Joomla editor
     • Never close the browser tab to exit the Joomla editor
     • Never close your browser to exit the Joomla editor
     • Never shut your computer down to exit the Joomla editor
     • If you are ready to save your edits and your changes show public, either use the "Save" or the "Save & Close" buttons, should you use "Save", after the page saves, be sure and use the "Close" button. This will exit the page correctly and allow others after you to be able to edit the page.
     • If you are not ready to save your edits and are not ready for your edits to show public, use the "Cancel" button. This will exit out of the Joomla editor and your changes wiil not be published.

Only level 1 and 2 users can publish articles. If you created an article and are ready for it to be published so that the public can view your article, contact your level 2 user to publish the article for you. If your area doesn't have a level 2 user, contact us and we will publish your article.

Even if you have access to Joomla, that doesn't automatically grant you access to edit employee profiles. Faculty and staff profiles are managed not through Joomla directly, but rather through our tool called the Profile Builder. Most likely, someone in your office/department/college already has access to edit employee profiles. If you need to make edits to employee profiles, you should:

• First, reach out to your area's Profile Builder editor and request them to make the edits. Typically, this is your area's administrator. If you are unsure who your areas Profile Builder editor is, email webmaster@uah.edu and we can notify you who in your area has Profile Builder editing access.
• Your area's Profile Builder editor has been trained and will be able to assist you in makiing profile edits. They are the primary contact for your team to make profile edits.
• If your Profile Builder editor is not available, some areas have a secondary employee who has editing access. If you don't know if you have a secondary editor or who that might be, contact us for that information.
• If both your primary and secondary Profile Builder editors are unavailable, contact us and we can make the changes. Keep in mind that the pre-established Profile Builder editor(s) in your area are your initial contacts for profile edits.
• If you are seeking Profile Builder access so that you can edit profiles for your area, send a request to us and we will evaluate, validate, and if approved, grant you access.
• While Profile Builder editors can assist you in most edits, keep in mind, there are some tasks that Profile Builder editors can't perform. Since editors have already been trained, they'll know what these tasks are and will know when to reach out to us for any tasks that they can't perform.

Content above or below a profile listing is loaded on the page via modules. While you may have access to edit profiles in the profile builder, you don't have access to edit modules. If you have content above and below a profile listing that requires edits, reach out to us with the edits that you need made.

Yes. There are requirements for profile portrait photos. Read our portrait guide for profile photo requirements.

Only members of the OMC team can upload profile photos. After you have created the profiles needed to go up on the site, contact webmaster@uah.edu and notify us that the profiles are created, published, and ready for their photos to be added. Also in this email, please include a list of the profiles that need their profile photos added. Until we add the profile photos to their reletive profiles, a default blank silhouette will show for each profile.

View text instructions for adding, editing, or styling text.

View video instructions for adding, editing, or styling text.

• Use all lower case
• Never use dates or times
• Never use special characters
• Replace spaces between words with dashes (-)
• Never use underscores, instead use dashes (-)
• Rename the file to be relevant to what the file is

The name of the file affects the URL to the file, so changing the file name changes the URL. When updating a file, make sure to use the same name as the old file name, as long as the old file name is still relevant, which is why naming files to be future-proof is important. There could be links to the files in emails, print material, within other online documents, online advertisement, or anywhere on our site. We want to try and keep the integrity of these URLs as much as possible, so that any links to URLs don't break when uploading a new file. When naming your file, keep it relevant but not specific enough, like including dates and times, so that any new version of the file has to be renamed and thus breaks links.

Note: When uploadiing a file with the same name as the old file, first, you'll have to delete the old file before uploading. When files are named the same, Joomla doesn't notify you that a file already exists in that location with the same name, nor does Joomla prompt you with the option to 'save over a file with the same name' functionality.

View text instructions for adding and editing links.

View video instructions for adding and editing links.

If you are uploading a document to the website, common files types (.doc, .ppt, .xls, etc.) should be converted to pdfs so that they can be viewed within a browser instead of the alternative, which would require the user to download the file and use local software to view it. If the user doesn't have the required local software to view the file, then the user will move on and never view the file. Therefore, it is always best to take user-friendly approach with document file types by converting them to PDFs.

View text instructions for uploading a document, and linking to the document, such as a PDF.

View video instructions for uploading a document, and linking to the document, such as a PDF.

Removing a link to the PDF or document doesn't delete the PDF or document. If you just remove the link and don't delete the PDF, then people will still be able to access the document. First, you should consider whether the document actually needs deleted or if another office/department may still need that document. If so, don't delete the document, just remove the link from the page that no longer needs to reference the document.

However, if the document is old, a new version is available, or the information in the document no longer applies, then you should delete the document so that the user doesn't get confused from multiple versions containing potentialy conflicting content.

The process for deleting a document is the same as uploading a document with a few additional steps.

Steps to Delete a PDF/Document:

1. Locate the page where the link to the PDF is on.
2. Right click on the URL and select 'Insert Link'. A pop-up should appear and already have the path to the link in the URL address field.
3. Right of the URL field are two icon buttons, the icon button to the far right reads "Browse". Click the "Browse" button.
4. The pop-up window should change to the file browser view. Earlier, since we preselected the link that we want to edit before we selected 'Insert Link", the file browser should automatically navigate to and have already pre-selected the file that is associated with the link, in this example, the PDF is pre-selected.
5. To the right of the File Browser pop-up is a vertical menu of options for the selected file, along with additional information about the file, like file size, file type, etc. In the vertical menu there should be a button icon that appears as a trash can. With the file(s) selected that you want to delete from the pop-up window middle section, select the delete button.
6. Congratulations! Your file(s) have been deleted from the server. Keep in mind, there is no way to get these deleted files back after you delete them from the server unless you re-upload them.
7. Now click "Update" in the bottom right of the file browser pop-up window. This should return you to the previous edit page view.
8. Now click "Cancel" button in the bottom of the edit page window. Since we never changed anything on the page, we just deleted a file on the server, you don't have to save the edited page. Selecting the cancel button will exit edit view.
9. Remember, if your text still references the PDF such as "View this document" or "Read more" then you'll need to also remove the text so that the user doesn't get confused, thinking there is supposed to be an action such as clicking to view a document that no longer exists.
10. If you are struggling with the instructions above, you can always view our video and text documentation on how to upload/add a PDF/document for visuals, then use the additional instructions listed above while following along to remove/delete your PDF/document.

Yes. Image web guidelines can be found on our web style guidelines page.

View text instructions for for adding or editing images.

View video instructions for adding or editing images.

There are two types of image galleries that can be added to a page.

• Carousel: Limited number of images that rotate automatically and on click.
• Block: Unlimited number of images that appear as a list of small blocks on a page that enlarge on click.

You must be a level 2 Joomla user in order to add a gallery of images onto a page. Should you need an image gallery added to your page, reach out to the level 2 from your area, or contact us at webmaster@uah.edu.

There are many image cropping tools that are free on the internet. We do have a free image cropping tool which is linked on our website that will crop images to the correct dimensions which is used on our site. Should you not have access to Photoshop or similar application, we recommend that you use our custom image crop tool.

View text instructions for creating and editing tables.

View video instructions for creating and editing tables.

New web pages can't be created from Joomla front end. In order to create a new web page, a page that currently doesn't exist on the site, you must sign into Joomla back end. View video instructions for creating a new web page.

The OMC offers both photography and videography services. Photography and videography services for student, faculty, or staff personal and/or social media needs are not provided by the OMC. Please review what services we can provide then reach out to us through the appropriate channel.

Yes. Displaying images on the web is different than displaying images across other mediums, such as print. Before taking photos for web, review our photography guidelines for the web.

OMC manages and maintains a library of photos taken by the university photographer in an online database application called Photoshelter. For access to Photoshelter, submit a request via the Web Services Request Form.

Joomla can't host videos. We can add a link to videos that are hosted externally. When the user clicks on a video link, they will navigate away from the UAH website and navigate to an external video hosting service providers website where the videos can be viewed.

In order to embed a video, the video still has to be hosted on an external video hosting service provider. Only members of the OMC web team can embed vidoes onto a page. If you have a video that you would like to embed onto a page, first contact with the OMC videographer and get your video approved and hosted externally. Afterwards, the web team will be able to assist you with embedding your video onto your page.