As you make your Joomla! site you will control the details of the display using options also referred to as parameters. Options control everything from whether the author's name is displayed to who can view what to the number of items shown on a list.

Default options for each component are changed using the Options button on the component toolbar.

Options can also be set on an individual item, such as an article or contact and in menu links.

If you are happy with how your site looks, it is fine to leave all of the options set to the defaults that were created when your site was installed. As you become more experienced with Joomla you will use options more.

Your installation includes sample data, designed to show you some of the options you have for building your website. In addition to information about Joomla! there are two sample "sites within a site" designed to help you get started with building your own site.

The first site is a simple site about Australian Parks. It shows how you can quickly and easily build a personal site with just the building blocks that are part of Joomla. It includes a personal blog, weblinks, and a very simple image gallery.

The second site is slightly more complex and represents what you might do if you are building a site for a small business, in this case a Fruit Shop.

In building either style site, or something completely different, you will probably want to add extensions and either create or purchase your own template. Many Joomla users start by modifying the templates that come with the core distribution so that they include special images and other design elements that relate to their site's focus.

Joomla means All Together, and it is a community of people all working and having fun together that makes Joomla possible. Thousands of people each year participate in the Joomla community, and we hope you will be one of them.

People with all kinds of skills, of all skill levels and from around the world are welcome to join in. Participate in the Joomla.org family of websites (the forum is a great place to start). Come to a Joomla! event. Join or start a Joomla! Users Group. Whether you are a developer, site administrator, designer, end user or fan, there are ways for you to participate and contribute.

The Joomla Project consists of all of the people who make and support the Joomla Web Platform and Content Management System.

Our mission is to provide a flexible platform for digital publishing and collaboration.

The core values are:

• Freedom
• Equality
• Trust
• Community
• Collaboration
• Usability

In our vision, we see:

• People publishing and collaborating in their communities and around the world
• Software that is free, secure, and high-quality
• A community that is enjoyable and rewarding to participate in
• People around the world using their preferred languages
• A project that acts autonomously
• A project that is socially responsible
• A project dedicated to maintaining the trust of its users

There are millions of users around the world and thousands of people who contribute to the Joomla Project. They work in three main groups: the Production Working Group, responsible for everything that goes into software and documentation; the Community Working Group, responsible for creating a nurturing the community; and Open Source Matters, the non profit organization responsible for managing legal, financial and organizational issues.

Joomla is a free and open source project, which uses the GNU General Public License version 2 or later.